[KS] Re: Japanese Colonization Period

k u s h i b o jdh95 at hitel.net
Sat Sep 2 22:28:30 EDT 2000


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Dr. John Caruso Jr. wrote:
> The hundreds of years fell between Hideyoshi and the late 1880's and
> culminated in annexation of Korea in 1910.  Long range perspective of
> Japanese shoguns and other warring clans plus pirates.

You can't paint every leader or every ruling group of Japan from the 1500s
to the 1800s with the same brush just because the two bookends were like
that. If they were so dead set on taking over Korea, wouldn't they have
tried a few times in the 1600s, in the 1700s, and in the early 1800s? The
Japanese (nor anyone else) planned for 300 years in the future back in those
days.

> Nurnberg Gesetz for the Japanese just like the Germans - try them for
> massive war crimes (including medical experiments)

Try whom? Try Hirohito for the Manchurian medical experiments? It seems to
me that General Ishii (?) is the one who ought to be on trial for that.
There were in fact war criminal trials for the Pacific War. In fact, some
two dozen Koreans in the Japanese military were executed for brutality
against allied prisoners, while several hundred were imprisoned. Of course,
there were many more *Japanese* executed or imprisoned for such activities,
too. So, yes, there were war crimes trials. Were they a failure because they
didn't get Hirohito?

> and make they pay $60
> billion in reparations just like the Germans. Massacre of Korean civilians
> during Hirohito's rule.

I think you have something here. But there's a snag. The Japanese did pay
compensation of some kind (can it be called reparations?) back in 1965. When
Japan was recovering, it paid what it could. Now that it's super rich,
people want more (and, I think, deserve more).

But the money should go to the people who suffered. The families of the
people who were killed. The Comfort Women themselves or their family
members. My stomach turned when I read that some political group was
demanding technology transfers from Japan as compensation for the Comfort
Women.

> British WWII survivors of Japanese forced labor  just protested last week in
> front of the Japanese Embassy in London. Is that current enough?

They deserve compensation, yes, huge amounts of compensation in fact
(calculating interest over 55 years) but from the people who did this to
them and the companies that benefited. Isn't that what they're trying to do?

> Were Chun Doo Hwan and Kim Jong IL aligned with the Japanese during their
> occupation?..Better to have prosecuted Col. Kaneyama (Kim Suk Won), Jung
> Hung, Kim Dae Suk, Jung Bong Duk et al and their Japanese commanders.

I don't think Chun Doohwan and Kim Jong-il were old enough to be aligned
with anything at that time. President/General Park Chunghee, though, was a
Lieutenant Colonel in the Japanese army. However, there was a good argument
for Koreans becoming officers in the Imperial Army, and some (not me) would
argue that Korea may have ended up being better off for it.

K U S H I B O






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