Anger, bitter memories as Asia marks war’s end

By Stuart Grudgings

MANILA (Reuters) – Asia marked 60 years since the end of
World War Two on Monday with quiet ceremonies amid lingering
resentment over Japan’s perceived refusal to take
responsibility for wartime aggression that killed millions.

At least two Japanese cabinet ministers were expected to
visit a Tokyo shrine for the war dead in pilgrimages certain to
anger China and the Koreas and put further strain on relations
that are still shaped by traumatic memories of the war.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologized for the “huge
suffering and damage” inflicted by Japan and was expected to
refrain from visiting the Yasukuni shrine, where war criminals
are honored along with Japan’s 2.5 million wartime dead.

China had already criticized him and called on Japan to
face up to its past.

“Koizumi stubbornly persists in his efforts to please
Japan’s right-wingers, who insist on the belief that sweeping
the dirt under the carpet is the only action they need to
take,” the state-run China Daily said in an editorial.

China stepped up security outside the Japanese ambassador’s
residence in Beijing, the scene of violent anti-Japanese
protests this year.

But in Southeast Asia, which also suffered from the
Imperial Army’s brutal style of occupation, the resentment at
Japan’s aggression appears to have been eased by decades of
post-war investment and aid that helped fuel the region’s
economic boom.

NATIONAL AMNESIA

In Manila, where 100,000 Filipinos died just in the
month-long battle that destroyed the capital in 1945, the only
commemoration was a small ceremony by Chinese-Filipino
veterans.

Some put the lack of national outrage at Japan’s actions
down to national amnesia or the fact that Japan was only the
latest in a series of brutal colonizers after Spain and the
United States.

A local government near Manila last year erected a statue
of a kamikaze pilot that has become a magnet for Japanese
tourists and veterans.

“Filipinos have very short memories,” said the famous
Philippine author, Francisco Sionil Jose, who lived through the
Japanese occupation and who approves of the U.S. decision to
drop atomic bombs on Japanese cities in 1945.

“My ambition was to run amok in Japan and kill as many
Japanese as possible.”

For those who experienced the 1942-1945 occupation first
hand, it is hard to forgive and impossible to forget.

Colonel Rafael Estrada, who fought in the defense of the
Bataan peninsula from 1941, said he did not feel hatred for the
Japanese when they first invaded the Philippines.

“But when the war started, of course, you can see your
companions being killed, being shot at, being bombarded, then
anger comes into play.”

BATTLE OF MANILA

But Estrada reserves most of his anger for the Filipino
politicians whose corrupt ways he says have dishonored those
who defended the country.

“What it is today after 60 years, we are very
disappointed,” he said. “This is the reward given us which we
do not appreciate very much. We are very sad.”

Thousands of men, women and children were shot or bayoneted
by Japanese soldiers in the battle of Manila. Historians
estimate that for every six Filipinos killed by Japanese
forces, four were killed by American forces trying to liberate
the city, whose modern-day ugliness still bears testament to
the destruction.

In one atrocity recounted in the 1995 book “The Battle for
Manila,” Japanese troops massacred about 60 people, including
children and Catholic priests, who had taken refuge in a chapel
at La Salle college.

Fernando Vasquez-Prada, who was five at the time, was
quoted as saying he had forgiven the Japanese but could never
forget how they bayoneted his mother to death at the college
after she tried to protect him and also killed his father and
three brothers.

“To forget is not required of a Christian. I cannot and
will not forget the atrocities committed to my family during
the Japanese occupation,” he said.