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TOKYO: A court Friday ruled the Japanese military had a role in
wartime mass suicides in Okinawa, rejecting a libel suit by former
senior officers against Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe.
The closely watched lawsuit was filed against Oe
and the publisher of his 1970 book of essays Okinawa Notes, which
mentioned how Japanese troops in the southern island chain ordered
people to kill themselves in 1945 rather than surrender to US
invaders.
“It is recognized that the military was deeply
involved in the mass suicides,” presiding judge Toshimasa Fukami
ruled at the Osaka District Court, as quoted by local media.
The suit, filed in August 2005, was one reason
cited by the central government last year for its controversial
decision to change school textbooks to delete references to the
military forcing islanders to commit suicides.
Conservatives have led calls for Japan to break
post-World War II taboos against “patriotism.” Last Friday, the
government revised education guidelines to require schools to teach
students to sing the national anthem.
The 83-day Battle of Okinawa, the bloodiest in
the Pacific war, left 190,000 Japanese dead, half of them civilians
on the southern island chain.
While many perished in the all-out US
bombardment, local accounts say mainland Japanese troops forced
residents of Okinawa—an independent kingdom until the 19th
century—to commit suicide rather than surrender.
The judge supported Oe’s book, noting that
many local residents say that soldiers gave them grenades to kill
themselves and that no suicide pacts were seen in places where the
military was not stationed.
The court rejected a 20-million yen ($200,000)
damage suit by a 91-year-old former garrison commander in Okinawa
and the family of another late commander. The court also turned down
their demand that the book’s publication be suspended, a court
official said.
The plaintiffs argued they had not ordered local
civilians to kill themselves and that the suicides were voluntary.
The pair was “disappointed with the very
regrettable ruling,” their lawyer said, adding they would appeal
to a higher court.
Oe had referred to garrison commanders on two of
Okinawa’s islands without naming them. He said Friday that he did
not intend to denigrate the two men on an individual level.
“The presiding judge read my Okinawa Notes
correctly in issuing the ruling. It made a most strong impression on
me,” Oe told a nationally televised press conference in Osaka.
-- AFP
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