[CML 007405] ７31部隊遺構、「世界遺産」目指す（ジャパン・フォーカス）

[maeda akira]

前田　朗です。

２月１日

１月１１日の毎日新聞記事を受けて、ジャパン・フォーカスも731部隊関連記事
を掲載。

毎日新聞１月１１日

http://mainichi.jp/enta/art/news/20110111ddm016040002000c.html

The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus

http://japanfocus.org/site/view/126

Jan. 18: Unit 731 and Preserving the History of Wartime Medical Atrocities

On January 11, Japan's Mainichi Shimbunreported
<http://mainichi.jp/enta/art/news/20110111ddm016040002000c.html> that
groups in the northern Chinese city of Harbin have announced a six-year
plan to preserve historical sites associated with the Japanese Army Unit
731 medical and germ warfare atrocities. According to Unit 731
Exhibition Hall curator Jin Chengmin, local groups will repair the
sites, which were converted into factories and schools in the postwar
decades, in preparation for a bid to have them registered as a UNESCO
World Heritage site alongside Auschwitz and Hiroshima's Peace Memorial,
both preserved as examples of human destructiveness and continued
appeals for world peace. Elements of the Harbin plan stress both the
importance of preserving and disseminating testimony in the face of
denial by some Japanese neo-nationalists and the neo-nationalist attempt
to avoid linking stories of past victimization with contemporary
nationalism or thoughts of vengeance. The site will include both a
"Monument of Testimony" inscribed with the confessions of Japanese war
criminals and a "Forest of Peace and Friendship" which will stress
positive future Sino-Japanese ties.

While the plan has existed in embryo since 2006, Jin reports that 288
houses and a middle school were moved from the site between 2009 and
2010, a prelude to the start of restoration work and construction in
earnest.

Chinese groups are not alone in drawing attention to the atrocities
associated with Unit 731 and other units engaged in biological and germ
warfare. There have been recent attempts to draw attention to Unit 731
atrocities in Japan, including the fact that doctors and scientists
associated with the war crimes became leaders in the Japanese medical
establishment after the war. In 2009 doctors from across Japan formed
the Senso to I no Rinri no Kensho wo Susumeru Kai (The Association for
the Verification of Inhuman Conduct by Japanese Researchers and Health
Care Professionals during the War). The association plans to hold a
symposium and exhibition on medical war crimes in Tokyo in April 2011.
Karita Keishiro, who leads the group, describes its primary goal as
making the history of the Imperial Japanese Army's medical war crimes a
part of ethics training for today's Japanese doctors and educating the
Japanese public about war history. The association grew out of a "War
and Medicine" exhibition held at the 27th general assembly of the Japan
Medical Congress in Osaka in 2007 that attracted 18,000 visitors. The
exhibited highlighted not only the Unit 731 war crimes, but explored how
doctors and scientists associated with the atrocities were protected
from prosecution by US authorities in exchange for their research
results. Several subsequently rose to become leaders of the postwar
Japanese medical association. A comprehensive brochure of that
exhibition is available online inEnglish
<http://war-medicine-ethics.com/War_and_Medicine/WarandMedicine_Doc/Exhibition_brochure.pdf>,Japanese
<http://avic.doc-net.or.jp/Japanese_panel.pdf>,Chinese
<http://war-medicine-ethics.com/War_and_Medicine/WarandMedicine_Doc/IntegratedChinese.pdf>and
Korean
<http://war-medicine-ethics.com/War_and_Medicine/WarandMedicine_Doc/Korean_Panel.pdf>.

The association's website can be found here <http://avic.doc-net.or.jp/>.