Denial of Nanjing Massacre Deprives the Honour of Our Veterans

Xiaoming Guo for Waterloo
 
Canadian soldiers sacrificed their lives for the freedom and peace of the people of Asia and the Pacific. We were allies against the Axis. Yet, the Nanjing Massacre denier, Sharon Isac, wrote a letter on April 3, 2017, to the Standing Committee of Justice Policy of Ontario Legislature. She denied the Nanjing Massacre in her letter.
 
In her letter, she wrote that “What Japan did envision was the ‘Asian co prosperity sphere’ for its economic development and political influence through stability in the region. Rightly or wrongly, Japan also sought to free Asia from the European and American colonial rules by aiding them in their struggle for independence. Many of the leaders including Chiang Kai-shek and Subhas Chandra Bose spent time with their supporters and sympathizers in Japan”.
 
Were Hong Kong people welcomed Japan to liberate them from the colony of Britain? Or Hong Kong people fought side by side with the allies against Japanese invasion? If the Axis country of Japan was so glory a country in the Pacific War, then our country was an accomplice to enslave Asian people. The question is then, were our soldiers sacrificed their lives for freedom and peace, or for an evil cause? Should we be ashamed to commemorate our fallen soldiers in the Pacific War? Many Chinese Canadian come from Hong Kong. Their parents or grandparents all have the memory about Japanese occupation seven decades ago. The Force 136 was all Chinese Canadian. They volunteered to fight Japanese invasion in Southeast Asia because their relatives in China were suffering under Japanese occupation. Could any veterans possibly believe that the Chinese Canadian of the Force 136 were to against the liberation of Asia by Japan?
 
Isac wrote in her letter that “There was no reason or motivation for Japan to commit ‘Asian Holocaust’, the image Japan’s accusers have been aggressively promoting through repetitions of recycled photographs and sensational Hollywood style films that litter the cyberspace”. She uses “reason” to deny facts.
 
Our POWs in Southeast Asia endured brutal treatment by Japanese, worked as long as 12 hours a day in cold mine of Northern Japan. Is this a fact or a Hollywood style tale that litter the cyberspace? According to Isac, there was no reason or motive for Japan to commit such a brutal act. Her statement in the letter to Ontario Legislature denied Nanjing Massacre, denied justice, and as the denial implicated, slandered our fallen soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the freedom and peace.
 
Rape of Nanking was written in the JUDGMENT INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL FOR THE FAR EAST INDICTMENT. From April 29, 1946, to November 12, 1948, the trial investigated the crimes Japanese committed in their wars in Asia and the Pacific, hearing testimony from 419 witnesses and admitting 4,336 exhibits of evidence, including depositions and affidavits from 779 other individuals. In the APPENDIX E, the Statement of Individual Responsibility for Crimes Set Out in the Indictment, the trial concluded that “The Defendant HASHIMOTO between 1928 and 1945 was, among other positions held:- attached Army General Staff (1933); retired from Army (February 1936); author of "Declaration of HASHIMOTO Ringoro" (1936); re-entered the Army (1937); commanded an Artillery Regiment at the Nape of Nanking (1937);………”. Is the Rape of Nanking a Hollywood style tale litter in the cyberspace or a non-deniable historical fact?
 
The COUNT 45 of the Indictment of the Tokyo Trial states: “The Defendants ARAKI, HASHIMOTO, HATA, HIRANUMA, HIROTA, ITAGAKI, KAYA, KIDO, MATSUI, MUTO, SUZUKI and UMEZU, on the 12th December, 1937, and succeeding days, by unlawfully ordering, causing and permitting the armed forces of Japan to attack the City of Nanking in breach of the Treaty Articles mentioned in Count 2 hereof and to slaughter the inhabitants contrary to international law, unlawfully killed and murdered many thousands of civilians and disarmed soldiers of the Republic of China, whose names and number are at present unknown.”
 
In the SECTION 2 of APPENDIX A of the Indictment, there is also the sentence “About 13th December, 1937, Japanese forces captured Nanking, slaughtered many thousands of civilians and committed other outrages.” The facts were established, and criminals against humanity identified in the Tokyo Trial. Denial of Nanjing Massacre is a denial of justice.
 
In the SECTION 7 of APPENDIX A, the Indictment concludes that the Japanese Governments from early in 1936 onwards, cultivated close relations with the totalitarian powers in Europe, Germany and Italy, which harboured similar designs in relation to the rest of the world to those of Japan in relation to East Asia the Indian and. Pacific Oceans.
On November 25th, 1936, they signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with a secret Protocol and a secret Military Treaty, directed ostensibly against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Communism, but actually designed also as a prelude to joint aggression action in general. On 27th September, 1940, Japan signed the Tri-Partite Pact with Germany and Italy. Yet, in her letter to Ontario Legislature, referring Private Members Bill 79 Nanjing Massacre Commemorative Day Act, Sharon Isac wrote: “Japan in the 30’s and 40’s was not a Fascist state like Italy under Mussolini or Hitler in Nazi Germany. Neither Showa Emperor nor Tojo Hideki, Japan’s 40th Prime Minister (October 1941 – July 1944) had the centralized executive or military authority.”  What Isac does is to deny the Anti-Comintern Pact and Tri-Partite Pact, deny that Japan was an Axis state, so to deny Nanjing Massacre. If Japan was a democratic country that loves peace during WWII, then our allies were war criminals. Axis countries were the aggressors, and they committed crimes of war, crimes against peace and crime against humanity. What Isac does is to revert the verdicts of the International Military Tribunal. Such as denial of Nanjing Massacre is to sabotage the peace order after WWII.
 
The term of Crime Against Humanity was first used in 1915 by allies regarding Armenian Genocide during WWI. The term was used again in the Nuremberg Trial regarding the Holocaust and in the Tokyo Trial regarding the Massacre. On December 10, 1948, the United Nation General Assembly proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Denial of Nanjing Massacre shatters the foundation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
 
To uphold Human Rights, to safeguard the peace of the world, to protect the honour of our fallen soldiers in the Pacific War, we should denounce the denial of Nanjing Massacre and urge the passing of Bill 79 of Ontario Legislature.