hankyoreh

Lee Hak-rae speaks at a meeting at the House of Representatives in the Chiyoda ward in Tokyo on Apr. 3 (by Cho Ki-weon

“The gentlemen in the Japan–Korea Parliamentarians' Union have repeatedly emphasized that [legislation to rehabilitate Class-B- and Class-C war criminals] was not enacted during this session of the Diet but that it probably will be enacted in the next session. I ask for your support to clear the names of our colleagues who were executed or who [were not executed but] have passed away,” said Lee Hak-rae, 93, in a quiet and quavering voice.

Lee was speaking at a meeting at the House of Representatives in the Chiyoda ward in Tokyo on Apr. 3 that was organized to right the wrongs done to Class-B and Class-C war criminals. After serving in the Japanese army as a POW guard during the War in the Pacific, Lee was accused of being both a Class-B and Class-C war criminal. These categories included people accused of looting, abusing POWs or committing torture or murder under orders from a superior officer.

Born in Boseong, South Jeolla Province, Lee at the age of 17 was one of over 3,000 Koreans who were lured by the promise of good pay to sign up as prison guards. Lee was convicted as a Class-B and Class-C war criminal because of his work as a low-level manager at a Japanese concentration camp for Allied POWs and a Japanese military railroad construction project in Thailand.

Since the prison guards were army civilians, they were even subordinate to privates in the military. Even so, they dealt directly with Allied POWS and thus frequently earned their hatred. During the war crimes tribunal held by the Allies, 148 army civilians from the Korean Peninsula were found guilty, and 23 of them were executed. Lee was among those sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted and he served 11 years at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo before being released. Even though he was processed as a Japanese during his punishment, he was absurdly excluded from postwar compensation by the Japanese government on the grounds that he had lost his Japanese citizenship when the Treaty of San Francisco took effect in 1952.

In Apr. 1955, Lee and several of his colleagues established a group called Dongjinhoe (which means “moving together”) that marked the beginning of his campaign for rehabilitation and compensation. This month marks the 63rd year since the group was established. Though they met with numerous government officials – including Japanese Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama in 1956 – their efforts to clear their reputations have been ineffective. They filed a lawsuit, but a Japanese court ruled against them, concluding that the issue had been resolved by the treaty signed by South Korea and Japan in 1965 that settled all claims. After the group’s appeal was denied by the Japanese Supreme Court in 1999, the group shifted its campaign toward passing a law to restore their reputations in the Japanese Diet. In 2016, the Japan–Korea Parliamentarians' Union declared its intention to take steps to resolve the problem, but so far no law has been passed.

Over the past 63 years, Lee and his colleagues have spent a difficult time in Japan. Today, there are few surviving members of the Dongjinhoe. “While I was released from Sugamo Prison in 1956, I was basically abandoned in Japan, a foreign land where I have no brothers or anyone else. One of my colleagues had a psychological condition and didn’t even know he was in Japan. He thought that fireworks were a naval bombardment,” Lee said.

“I feel ashamed as a Japanese. We will make an effort [to make this a law]. There are others in the Liberal Democratic Party who are sympathetic to this cause,” said Seigo Kitamura, a lawmaker with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), who attended the meeting on Apr. 3.

A video about the Class-B and Class-C war criminals that was recently produced by students from Hosei University was screened at the meeting. “It’s a problem that Japanese students aren’t learning about these facts in their textbooks. I’m happy that university students created a video about this issue,” said Mieko Kamimoto, a lawmaker with the Democratic Party of Japan.

By Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent

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