Earliest Recovery of Human Dignity Needed	No.655 October 27, 2009
		Some changes have been made since the turn of government led by Premier Hatoyama of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), but the policy Premier had pledged, ‘people’s life first’, has not been materialized yet. A course of the new leadership will come out after compiling budgets and enacting relevant laws in the current extraordinary Diet session and the subsequent regular session to be held early next year. Now, let’s look at the issue of human rights which is less visible. LITTLE TIME IS LEFT FOR SURVIVORS The human rights vary. It is over 60 years since the end of the World War II. There are some groups of people who have claimed the Japanese governments to make compensation and apology for the damages. They have demanded compensation for the physical and psychological injuries incurred during and after the war. A Solution Needed While People Are Alive These people include those detained and put to forced labor by the Soviet Union in violation of the Potsdam Declaration and Geneva Convention as well as those abducted and enslaved, those who had been taken from Korea and China as the so-called ‘comfort women’ by the Japanese military. On the average the survivors of harsh labor in Siberia as prisoners of war are 87 years old, whose total number is approximately 90 thousand. Time is running. They want the government of Japan to recover their human dignity while they are alive. Their claims compete with passage of time. The number of soldiers and contractors of Japanese Imperial Military Forces enslaved in northern China counts 600 thousand, out of which 60 thousand were died of hunger and severe cold while they had been put on ‘slave labor’ in Siberia, northeast region of China, Mongolia and places in the former Soviet Union. Slave labor means coerced labor without wages. Why were they compelled to work in Siberia? Good explanation has not been made. Detention of Japanese soldiers in Siberia is said to be a consequence of the Emperor System and its stubborn conservation. The Association of Detainees Who Demand Compensation has fought in the law court, requesting the state of Japan, a nation which had sent soldiers and contractors abroad, to pay compensations. The first and second rounds of suits failed, and the Supreme Court finally turned down the appeal in 1997. The case was rejected on the ground that ‘losses of the plaintiffs were of war damages which should be owed equally by people in general and that Constitution does not assume compensation for such losses. In other words, people should accept war damages. Nation Has Obligation to Pay Wages According to the international law, the unpaid labor involved by prisoners of war should be paid by the state of internees’ origin pursuant to a labor certificate. Actually the government of Japan has paid wages to the soldiers deployed in the southern fronts and captured by the allied forces of the United States and the United Kingdom. After the fall of the Soviet Union the government of Russia admits to issue labor certificates as an official document which had not been given by the Soviet Union government. But the governments of the Liberal Democratic Party have not acknowledged the certificate as the right proof. The Hatoyama government must hurry to enact a law to authorize payment of wages in compliance with the labor certificate issued by the government of Russia. In 2005 the three opposition parties, the Democratic Party, Communist Party and Social-Democratic Party, jointly submitted a bill to provide that the state should pay the sums between 300 thousand Yen and one million to the survivors. The bill was rejected when the House of Representatives was dissolved for elections to commit in postal privatization, and later, in two occasions the same bill was frustrated after being presented to the Diet. Now the situation has changed and the ruling party has capabilities to enact the law. Carry Out Manifesto! The DPJ presented last summer the Manifesto for General Elections, in which the party proclaims that the government will work swiftly and effectively to save people by restituting the violated human rights as it seeks a society in which these rights are respected. It is the time to carry out policies the Manifesto specifies.