News-Info-Alerts

Re: japanese Vivisectionist Speaks On Atrocities

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: August 16, 2003

"Wartime vivisectionist warns of a return of militarism
By NAO SHIMOYACHI Staff writer

A former Imperial Japanese Army surgeon who participated in human vivisection in China during World War II warned Friday that Japan is heading down the same path that led it into the last war.

Ken Yuasa, 86, told The Japan Times the most horrible thing about war is that it stops people feeling remorse over killing others, and the "beautification of war" is apparently happening again in Japan.

Yuasa said that during the war he felt no guilt for his actions, and had practically forgotten about experimenting on living Chinese until after the war, when he was interned in a prison camp and had time to reflect on his actions.

Postwar documents and testimony have revealed that the Imperial Japanese Army practiced vivisection on Chinese soldiers and civilians during the war.

"I unconsciously became a military boy, a boy who earnestly, faithfully worked for the emperor," Yuasa said.

He recalled how he and others were mobilized under the slogan, "Manchuria and Mongolia are the lifeline," meaning Japanese would not be able to survive without territorial expansion.

Yuasa believed in the slogan along with many other Japanese before and during the war, when there was an atmosphere that suppressed any voice of opposition, he said.

Watching the recent developments in Japan's defense policy, including the enactment of a war contingency law and legislation paving the way for the dispatch of Self-Defense Forces to Iraq, Yuasa said he fears Japan has returned to the same process of justifying war.

He said his particular concern is the implicit assumption that North Korea is bad, which prohibits people from saying anything positive about the reclusive state. Government leaders and the media are instead emphasizing the North's suspected nuclear weapons program and its abduction of Japanese nationals, excluding any balanced discussion on the matter.

Yuasa said his experience "is not a thing of the past. We need to know and learn why such a thing happens."

In 1942, Yuasa, then 26, was sent to Shanxi Province to work at an army hospital. During the three years he spent there, Yuasa was involved in vivisections on 14 Chinese.

After Japan's surrender in August 1945, Yuasa was initially held as a prisoner of war. He was later detained as a war criminal and spent 5 1/2 years in a Chinese prison.

He said he began to confront his actions while in prison after being taunted by his guards. Later, he was assured that he would be sent home if he confessed to his crimes.

After determining that Yuasa had acknowledged and fully regretted his actions, the Chinese authorities sent him back to Japan in 1956 without indicting him.

He is scheduled to speak about his experience Sunday at 2 p.m. at Space Zero in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, as part of Heiwa No Tame No Sensouten, or the war exhibition for peace, organized by citizens' groups.

The exhibition, which runs through Sunday, features parallel panels showing how Japan plunged into war and major events in the nation's defense policy in the past year. For more information, contact the organizer at (03) 3261-0433.

The Japan Times: Aug. 16, 2003"