Shanghai Daily, China - Mar 28, 2008
Judge says suicide book OK
2008-3-29
NOBEL Prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe and his publisher will not have to suspend a book that says Japan's military forced civilians to carry out mass suicides to avoid capture at the end of World War II, a court ruled yesterday.
"There are reasons to believe" the military was responsible for such atrocities on Okinawa and other nearby southern islands, said Masakatsu Yatabe, spokesman for the Osaka District Court, in rejecting a suit filed by two Japanese war veterans. He said "Okinawa Notes" would not have to be pulled from shelves and that Oe and publisher Iwanami Shoten Publishers also would not have to pay requested damages.
Accounts of forced group suicides on Okinawa are backed by historical research, as well as testimonies from victims' relatives.
Historians also say civilians were induced by government propaganda to believe that US soldiers would commit horrible atrocities and therefore killed themselves and their families to avoid capture.
About 500 people committed suicide, according to civic group and media reports.
Judge Toshimasa Fukami said all the sites of Okinawan group suicides overlapped with Japan's military posts, and testimonies by survivors that Japanese soldiers handed them and relatives grenades gave solid evidence of "the military's deep involvement in the group suicides," the Kyodo News agency reported. "It is reasonable to say that (the book) presented rational resources and evidence."
Plaintiffs Yutaka Umezawa, 91, and his brother Hidekazu Akamatsu, 75, argued that Oe wrongfully accused them of ordering the suicides on nearby islands Zamami and Tokashiki in March, 1945. The two denied the military ordered suicides, demanding Oe and the publisher pay them 20 million yen (US$200,000) in compensation.
Their lawyers said the two planned to appeal.
Welcoming the ruling, Oe told reporters: "I felt strongly that the judge accurately read my 'Okinawa Notes' to hand down the ruling. I was most strongly impressed by that."
Okinawa's wartime group suicides have been a sensitive issue. A government decision two years ago to soften history textbook references of Japanese wartime military conducts triggered a huge outcry on the island, forcing the Education Ministry to restore accounts of the Japanese military involvement in forced mass suicides.
The bloody battle in Okinawa raged from late March through June 1945, leaving more than 200,000 dead.
