Japan Emperor Hirohito: Because he never faced trial and never
to Japan's crimes against humanity, Japanese leaders been able
to avoid doing so ever since. Was America's decision to spare
him
a war crimes trial ultimately mistaken?
America's Shielding
of Emperor Hirohito Behind Japan's Denial of History (JoongAngIlbo, South Korea)
"General
Douglas MacArthur opposed Hirohito's trial out of a conviction that with the
emperor as a symbolic figurehead, a defeated Japan would better obey and
cooperate with allied forces. ... U.S. president [Harry Truman] agreed to
MacArthur’s plan and protected the emperor from conviction. ... A lot would be
different if Hirohito was questioned and tried. He could have acknowledged
Japan’s militarist excesses and left an apology on the historical record. If
so, his water carriers, including Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe, would not have the audacity to deny this past."
Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe: As friction with China and North Korea grows, Abe, the most right-wing Japanese leader in years, wants to revise Japan's post-war constitution for the first time. After decades as one of the world's most peaceful nations, can Japan again be trusted to have a national military?
History undeniably records that during its invasion of Asia,
the Empire of Japan was guilty of committing crimes against humanity just as
heinous as the atrocities committed by the Nazis against the Jews. During the
20th century, Asia shed unimaginable blood and tears due to the military
excesses of Japanese imperialism. If not for Japan’s militaristic and
chauvinistic ambitions, the Korean Peninsula would not have been severed.
Today, ours remains a land divided and we continue living under a threat of
war.
The innocent souls massacred by Japanese militarists
throughout Asia still can't rest in peace. That is because even 70 years after
the war, Japan refuses to show genuine remorse and take responsibility for its
imperialist past. Recently, historical bitterness and resentments have flared again.
The nationalistic tone and gestures of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his cabinet and ruling Liberal Democratic Party
politicians are fanning the flames, having exposed their nationalistic colors
and summoning the military imperialist ghost of the past. Their actions amount
to a denial of history and a renewed crime against humanity.
World leaders are partly to blame for Japan’s lack of shame
or sense of guilt. Japan has never been sufficiently questioned or punished for
its war crimes. When the 20th century began, heads of state accused of launching
invasions were brought to justice. German Kaiser Wilhelm II
ignited World War I by launching bellicose foreign campaigns in Europe. In the postwar
Treaty of
Versailles, the allies charged him with being a war criminal to try him at
a special tribunal. And even if that tribunal never materialized because
Holland refused to extradite him, world leaders had nevertheless publicly
condemned him and sought to prosecute him.
Nations responsible for causing history’s deadliest conflict,
which devastated most of Europe and Asia, were Germany, Italy and Japan. In 1945,
after they were defeated, Adolf Hitler committed suicide before being arrested,
and his body was burned. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was hunted down and
shot by anti-fascists, and his body and those of other fascists were publicly
hung and stoned. Japanese war leader Emperor Hirohito was the only one who
managed to escape blame and punishment.
As in the Nuremberg Trials,
Japanese generals and politicians faced allied judges at special tribunals in
Tokyo to answer for crimes against humanity. Among the allies, the United
Kingdom, the Soviet Union and Australia demanded that Japan's emperor be tried
and prosecuted. But General Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander of the allied
powers, opposed the trial out of a conviction that with the emperor as a
symbolic figurehead, a defeated Japan would better obey and cooperate with allied
forces. The emperor could not maintain his god-like influence over the Japanese
people if he were convicted of war crimes. So the U.S. president [Harry Truman]
agreed to MacArthur’s plan and protected the emperor from conviction.
Twenty-eight other war leaders were brought before the
court. Leading the group of “Class A” war criminals was General Hideki Tojo, a hard-line militarist who served as prime
minister and led most of Japan's campaigns of aggression. Tojo
and other commanders tried to protect their emperor from accountability, just
as America wished. But the emperor was the statutory head of the state under
Japan's constitution - and its commander in chief. Without the endorsement of
the emperor, Japan could not have launched a war. In 1941, after an imperial conference
sanctioned war against the United States, the emperor signed an order to attack Pearl Harbor.
Today, Korean, American, Chinese and Japanese academics are
critical of the immunity from prosecution accorded Emperor Hirohito. NarahikoToyoshita, a former law
professor at Kyoto University who wrote Hirohito
and MacArthur, said the Tokyo trials were a collaboration between the
Americans and Japanese to dump wartime onus on the Tojo
clan to protect the real war culprits.
“Since then, it has become taboo to associate war crimes
with the Emperor,” Toyoshita says.
A lot would be different if Emperor Hirohito was questioned
and tried at the international tribunal. He could have acknowledged Japan’s
militarist excesses and left an apology on the historical record. If so, his water
carriers, including Abe, would not have had the audacity to deny this past.
Traditionally, the emperor has been at the center of Japanese society and its people.
He has been the subject of adoration like a deity-like and father-like figure.
No one among his people or children could deny something their "deity"
had admitted.
In 1995, then-Prime Minister Tomiichi
Murayama apologized for Japan’s wartime aggression and colonial rule of the
Korean Peninsula. Now, Abe wants to revise that statement to make it less
apologetic in tone. Because they are of the same prime ministerial status, Abe is
allowed to reinterpret what Murayama said. But he would never have dared challenge
the words of the emperor.
The Japanese military killed and burned
Korea's queen [in 1895]. Its infamous Army Unit 731 committed genocide
against innocent citizens and prisoners. It conducted horrific biological and
chemical experiments on living human beings, describing them as maruta - or “logs.”
They massacred thousands of Chinese in Nanjing and Singapore. More than a
million Koreans and Chinese were forcibly recruited to serve the Japanese army in
labor and sex camps. As long as Asia exists, Japan’s war crimes cannot be
erased and forgotten. Its violated and wounded souls will haunt Japanese
leaders until they sincerely admit to their past wrongdoing and repent.
