Fukubayashi Toru: Verifying Japan’s Use of Allied POWs Through Historical Records

Fukubayashi Toru is a visiting researcher at the Asia Pacific Research Institute, Osaka University of Economy and Law. He is also a co-representative of POW Research Network Japan.

[The article below, from the June 2009 issue of SEKAI (World), was written before the mid-June visit to Japan by an Australian survivor of forced labor at Aso Mining and the British son of an Aso POW who died after the war. They retraced the trail of the POW experience in Fukuoka and Kobe before meeting in Tokyo with sympathetic lawmakers from the opposition Democratic Party of Japan. Prime Minister Aso Taro refused to meet the visitors or apologize to them, but talks were held with officials of Aso Corporation, who insisted they could not confirm the presence of POWs at Aso Mining despite being shown records produced by the family firm in 1946. Seeking apologies and compensation, the visitors walked away with corporate lapel pins instead. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation provided text and video coverage of these recent developments.]

Mr. Aso Taro served as foreign minister from October 2005 to August 2007 and has been prime minister since September 2008. Born as the scion of the Aso conglomerate that accumulated wealth by mining the Chikuho coalfields of Fukuoka Prefecture beginning in the Meiji era, Mr. Aso served as president of Aso Cement Company, one of Aso Group’s core businesses, before becoming a member of the Diet in 1979.

During World War II an estimated 10,000 Korean laborers were used by Aso Mining Company, which was headed by Mr. Aso Taro’s father and was the mainstay of the Aso zaibatsu. Details were revealed in two recent SEKAI articles: “The Aso Family’s Past and Present” by Mr. Yokota Hajime (January 2009), and “Aso Mining and Korean Forced Labor” by Nishinarita Yutaka (March 2009 issue). Moreover, Aso Mining has a history of using 300 Allied prisoners of war from May 1945 until Japan’s surrender.

Continued denials of Aso Mining’s use of POWs by Mr. Aso and the Japanese government

When Mr. Aso Taro assumed the posts of foreign minister and prime minister, overseas media wondered what stance he would take concerning Japan’s war responsibility and its diplomacy with neighboring countries. This was because he is an heir to Aso Mining, which used Korean and POW workers, and is regarded as a neo-nationalist who defends Japanese actions before WWII.

Christopher Reed, a British journalist then living in Japan, contributed an article to Japan Focus on May 6, 2006, that triggered responses in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Reed described the historical background of the Aso family and criticized Aso Mining for using many Koreans and Allied POWs for wartime forced labor without compensating them. The article also blamed Mr. Aso’s neo-nationalist attitudes for creating obstacles to good-neighborly relations with other Asian countries.

In July 2006, Foreign Minister Aso attended a memorial service at Juganji temple in Higashi Osaka for prisoners who perished in Osaka POW camps, prompting British and Australian media to run articles on the history of POW mistreatment by the Japanese military and POW labor by Aso Mining.

The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune carried articles in November 2006 by Norimitsu Onishi, who faulted the Japanese government’s responses to wartime forced labor involving Chinese and the abductions of Japanese by North Korea. The latter article stated: “The family of the current foreign minister, Taro Aso, owned a Fukuoka-based coal mining company, Aso Mining, which used Asian and Western forced laborers.”

In response Japan’s Consulate General in New York issued the following rebuttal on its homepage: “It is totally unreasonable to make this kind of judgmental description without presenting any evidence.”...

Read entire article at Asia Pacific Journal (This article was translated by William Underwood, an Asia-Pacific Journal coordinator and researcher on wartime forced labor.)