Japan has been revisiting the outcomes of World War II recently. In October, the government rewrote the constitution to allow Japan to use military force outside of their national boundaries for the first time since its 1945 defeat. And now, the government has decided to re-evaluate the guilty verdicts passed down by international officials at the 1946-1948 Tokyo War Crimes Trials, essentially the Japanese equivalent to the Nuremberg Trials, in a move that seems to blatantly re-write history.
After Tokyo finally raised a white flag to the United States on August 14, 1945, General MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in occupied Japan, established the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE). Unlike the Nuremberg Trials which covered the six-year time period between 1939 and 1945, IMTFE expanded their focus to start with Japan’s 1931 invasion of Manchuria.
In total, the international courts charged 28 Japanese officials ranging in rank from premiers, foreign ministers, war ministers, ambassadors, advisors and military leaders with crimes against humanity, crimes against peace or war crimes. Some of the offenses included mass murder; rape; torture of prisoners of war and civilians; plundering public and private property; indiscriminate destruction of cities, towns, and villages; and forced labor. In the years since the trials, we’ve learned of even more atrocities, including horrific medical experimentation akin to those performed by their Nazi allies and capturing women as sex slaves, though the Japanese government was never tried for, or officially recognized them.
Much like the Nuremberg Trials, the Tokyo War Crimes Trials have been pegged from the beginning as being an example of victors’ justice. However, they weren’t the only trials to take place. there were many more trials against the Japanese that weren’t publicized. According to PBS, Asian countries that fell victim to Japanese aggression prosecuted around 5,000 people and executed an estimated 900 of them. Half of the remaining prisoners received life in prison. In comparison, the Tokyo War Crimes Trials seem tame. Two of the offenders died in prison during the trial and one was acquitted because he went insane. The rest of the officials were convicted, seven of them got the death penalty, 16 got life in prison, and two others received lesser terms. Three of the 16 convicted men died in prison in the year after they were sentenced. However, the surviving 13 men were paroled and released to freedom by 1956.
However, it seems Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, who now control government, are intent on re-examining the veracity of the guilty verdict. Some say Japan is trying to reframe the country’s entire reason for fighting in the war. Hiromichi Moteki, secretary general of the Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact, told The Telegraph, “It goes without saying that the trials did not deliver fair judgements,” and that “Those guilty rulings did not conform to international law as was prevalent at that time and I do not believe that Japan waged a war of aggression.” Moteki summarized his entire argument with: “The war of aggression was initiated by America and Japan had no choice but to fight back.”
Needless to say, Japan’s move to revisit history has been hit with fierce criticism, specifically from South Korea, whose people Japan used as forced labor, soldiers and sex slaves during and before WWII. Regardless of what the review concludes, it seems the government has just reopened the topic of Japan’s brutal history to the world, whether they realize it or not.
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