NGO, Status Roster
His Excellency Shinzo Abe
Prime Minister of Japan
The Haque, 14 October 2014
Petition:239
Subject: Royal State visit to Japan by King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands.
Excellency,
Our King Willem Alexander and Queen Maxima will be visiting Japan on an official State visit, 29th to 32st October 2014. In the past visits by our respective Royals have been controversial, accompanied by anger and demonstrations. Not this time. The Dutch from the former Dutch East Indies hope that in this visit you and your government find the opportunity to reflect on and to acknowledge the war time history between Japan and the Netherlands. Our countries centuries" old relationship was based on commerce and mutual respect. The relationship during World War Two however was bitter and sour. It never regained the trust and regard as before.
Prime Minister,
Despite the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty and subsequent Ysohida/Stikker protocol of 1956 Japan did not acknowledge its moral responsibility for the terror and dishonorable behavior of the Imperial Army against the Dutch during the occupation of Dutch East Indies during World War Two. We informed His Majesty King Willem Alexander that whilst in Japan he should not forget what his mother, former Her Majesty Queen Beatrix said at the occasion of her State visit to Japan in 1991:
Many of my compatriots did not survive the war.
Those who returned are traumatized by memories.
That is why their sufferings as yet did not come to an end.
Prime Minister,
The State visit by his Majesty King Willem Alexander and her Majesty Queen Maxima should prompt you and your government to consider what her Majesty Queen Beatrix said and meant. A voluntary gesture by the Japanese government in acknowledging its moral responsibility, including individual excuses and a meaningful solatium for those who are still alive is long overdue. Next year it will be 70 years ago that World War Two ended in Asia. Since then Japan became prosperous and paid many Asian countries a form of reparation. The surviving Dutch from Dutch Indies lost everything during the war but were neglected in Japans generosity to the Asian countries.
Prime Minister,
The State visit of the Dutch King and Queen is an opportune moment for Japan and in particular for you to reflect on the past and amend the Yosida/Stikker protocol with an additional solatium.
On behalf of the Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts,
J.F. van Wagtendonk
President
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This petition was handed over on our monthly demonstration in The Haque, which has been held every second Tuesday of the month for almost 25 years.
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| Office hours, Japanese Embassy,The Haque, the Netherlands |
This move is an unequivocal statement by the Government of Japan that there was no evidence of "coercion" thus no need for apology. It confirms that the Kono Statement was gutted in 2007 and that the Government of Japan is "upholding for now" something quite different than understood by other governments.
Its sad to say that the Dutch Government is very naive in accepting the present Japanese Government 'reassurances" regarding the Kono Statement. The present Dutch Minister of Foreign affairs Mr. Timmermans will soon be appointed EU commissioner. His successor is not known yet, but will most likely continue the policy of commerce first and then political issues including Japan's wartime history.
Further Mr. J. van Wagtendonk writes to Mindy Kotler; that he hopes that the US government is not so naive and continues to put pressure on Japan to acknowledge Japan's war time history including the war atrocities and crimes such as Comfort Women and military and civilian concentration camps.
How many more proof does Shinzo Abe and his administration like to hear. Are all the people who came forward with their stories made out as LIARS by this government of Japan.Are you telling me that these stories are not the truth?
I am asking Japan how many more lies are you able to tell your children, your children of Japan.Are you too ashamed what your fathers and forefathers inflicted on innocent human beings? Is that why this Japan of today keeps denying the atrocities from their fathers and forefathers.
These war victims who suffered not only during this horrible war, which you Japan started in the first place, still suffer every day.This War was never over for them. They relived it every day and every night.A war is never over for a war victim. I am asking you Shinzo Abe; "Have they not suffered enough? This will be the last nail in their coffin".
I admire these women and men, yes boys were raped too in these horrible so called protection camps, as your military called it.These boys who came home after they were liberated from your filthy camps, totally traumatized, trying to make a life for themselves, while the monsters who had raped them, went home to their wives or girlfriends, and lived happily ever after. I wonder how they felt when they became fathers and when they looked at their little girls or boy. Would they have shuddered at the thought that this could have been their little girl or boy, who were raped over and over again, their virginity taken by monsters.Yes Shinzo Abe, many young girls and boys were raped, by your fathers and forefathers, who called themselves soldiers. Japanese military Homosexuals raped boys as young as 10 years old in these concentration camps. I would suggest you read the book from Toni Harting, who sadly passed away last November 2013, at the age of 86. He was able to just finish his book in March of that year.His book is called:
" THE DEVIL'S GRIN" Toni was able to finish his book in March of 2013 at the age of 86 and passed away November 22,2013.The book portrays the story of a young Dutch teenage boy developing into an eighteen-year-old man under brutal circumstances as a civilian prisoner of war in Japanese concentration camps in the Dutch East Indies. He sincerely hopes that his effort of writing this book, will be an example to many other "old-timers" and maybe encourage them to tell their own stories and memoirs, so future generations can learn more about what happened in the Pacific War.
This is what he writes on page 107: and I hope that Shinzo Abe and his government will take notice, and will be prepared that hopefully many more stories like this will surface in the future. Because I assure Japan that this will not go away. You cannot just wave away the atrocities your forefathers and fathers have inflicted, during World War Two. You Shinzo Abe was not even born. You are 60 years old and do not know about the past of Japan,or for that matter, you do not want to believe what those monster soldiers have done to innocent human beings during that time. These innocent civilians were put behind high walls and fences and were being used for slave labor to work your military vegetable fields, while they were starving, beaten and tortured..In our world soldiers are trained to protect people from evil when their is a conflict.Soldiers are trained to protect their homeland when an enemy is attacking their homeland. That's what's being a soldier is all about. Below I am writing what Toni experienced in these so called protection camps.
Homosexuals among the Japanese guards ordered young boys from among the internees to report to them after eight o'clock in the evening. Internees tried to foil these activities as best as they could, but often did not succeed. After a while, it was deemed necessary and appropriate that one Protestant minister, (Dr. C.L. van Doorn), and one Roman Catholic priest,(Pater Ruygrok), from among the internees should make a properly phrased representation to the Japanese camp commandant. This was done_ and resulted in one of the most brutal beatings I have ever witnessed. It was carried out in front of the guard room, in full view of the internees. No matter how justified the complaint had been, it was supposed to be an effort to the Japanese Army, which had thus lost face. At the same time, we felt, the occasion was seized in an attempt to make the clergy lose prestige with their fellow internees. When the Japanese were through with the two victims, their faces were utterly unrecognizable masses of torn and swollen tissue. They were totally incapacitated for weeks.
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| We will remember them, these little boys. |
And so there are many many more stories, about the brutal atrocities the Japanese military inflicted, all in the name of the emperor Hirohito of Japan during World War Two.
In our camp in Moentilan on the island of Java, a similar incident happened on January 25, 1945, which I will write on my next blog.
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