Page 11 - Unit 731 Testimony

Foreword

Some four decades following the end of World War II, details concerning
the Imperial Japanese Army's Unit 731, which researched and conducted
biological warfare, began surfacing with startling impact. Information about
this outfit, at whose hands an estimated three thousand Manchurians,

Chinese, Russians, Koreans, Europeans, and Americans were killed, had
remained largely hidden over the years, either by governmental control or a
code of silence adhered to by its former members themselves. Then, newly
revealed information stirred interest in an era which Japanese officialdom
has been trying to wash away with the detergent of neglect. Japan has been
told to leave the past behind and move ahead told to new ties of friendship
and commerce with other countries. Yet while business ties develop, and

amity is proclaimed to be spreading, old facts emerging as recent
revelations increase their magnetic attraction and pull us into a
reexamination of what happened then—and again incite us into debates of
how and why.

It can be argued that probably no school system anywhere teaches true
history; only the degree of rearrangment varies. For the years during which
the research units were active, the chasm between history and Japan's
official stance yawns wide. For years, Unit 731 "did not exist." Requests
and demands not just for monetary compensation but for mere recognition
of history and apology have been brushed away, turned down because

"compensation has been made at government levels." Instead, Japan offers
its dedication to "world peace" with statements that are as vague as they are
eloquent.

Information on Japan's consumption of live human beings as
biological test material has been surfacing for many years now. As with the
comfort women issue, however, there has never been a jolt of sufficient
voltage to rock the national government into acts of contrition or
compensation. Rather, it has been local governments who have opened their