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International Peace Center Forced To Whitewash Japanese WWII Aggression

“Among the dozens of exhibits removed were panels on Japan’s invasion of the continent, the colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, suffering in Southeast Asian countries due to Japanese aggression, text describing the 1937 Nanjing Massacre and abuse of prisoners of war, and photos showing piles of dead bodies and civilians being buried alive.”

Students check out exhibits relating to U.S. air raids in Osaka Prefecture at the Osaka International Peace Center on April 30, the day the renovated museum reopened. (Gen Hashimoto)

Peace museum, caving in to threats of closure, scraps wartime ‘aggression’ exhibits

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

OSAKA–A museum famed for its many exhibits showing Japanese aggression during World War II has removed them, bowing to pressure from conservative politicians.

“We had no choice but to remove the exhibition on the aggression to ensure the survival of the museum,” a source close to the museum explained.

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto had threatened to close down the Osaka International Peace Center museum when he was governor of the prefecture.

Hashimoto’s successor as Osaka governor and a close ally, Ichiro Matsui, praised the facelift when he toured the museum in the city’s Chuo Ward on April 30, the day the facility reopened after renovations.

“This looks better now,” Matsui told reporters. “I believe exhibits should not represent the view of one side when there are diverse perceptions (on the war).”

The Osaka International Peace Center is operated by an entity funded by the Osaka prefectural government and Osaka municipal government.

Among the dozens of exhibits removed were panels on Japan’s invasion of the continent, the colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, suffering in Southeast Asian countries due to Japanese aggression, text describing the 1937 Nanjing Massacre and abuse of prisoners of war, and photos showing piles of dead bodies and civilians being buried alive.

Instead, the museum now houses an expanded section on U.S. air raids in Osaka Prefecture between December 1944 and August 1945 and shows a 14-minute war-related video in which Japan is not labeled an aggressor.

The Osaka International Peace Center was established in 1991 and was known for being a rare public facility in Japan shedding an equal amount of light on the nation’s role before and during World War II as well as the sufferings of the Japanese during that period.

Masaaki Arimoto, who led the secretariat of the museum for three years from 1992, said the facility opened at a time when there was growing awareness of the importance of learning about Japan’s militaristic past.

“There were advances in the research on Japan’s aggression, and many of those who fought in the war were alive,” said Arimoto, 78. “People in Osaka shared a notion that they would never be able to fully understand the backdrop behind the air raids without knowledge of Japan’s acts in other parts of Asia.”

Although the museum attracted about 70,000 to 80,000 visitors annually, it has long been condemned by conservative politicians and organizations.

In some cases, the museum was forced to withdraw or revise exhibits following protests.

Yoshinori Kobayashi, a renowned manga artist, denounced the museum by calling it a “system to brainwash viewers in the name of a peace museum” in his 1998 manga “Sensoron,” which defended Japan’s actions during World War II.

The critical turning point came in 2011, when the Hashimoto-led Osaka Ishin no Kai became the dominant political party in both the prefectural and municipal assemblies.

The museum was already planning a renovation when Osaka Ishin no Kai party members at the prefectural assembly in the autumn of that year lambasted it, with one saying it had “too many unbalanced exhibits.”

In response, Hashimoto, who was the governor at the time and pushing through a review of public affiliated entities, pledged to “consider the possible closure of the museum if the exhibits are determined to be inappropriate.”

As a result of the criticism, the Osaka International Peace Center proposed in 2013 to scale back the display on the aggression and widen the exhibits on the air raids.

What was installed as a direct replacement for the items on the aggression was 14 minutes of footage portraying the period leading up to Japan’s defeat in World War II starting with the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5 and including the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5.

The section has an overall title of “When the world was embroiled in war.”

The narration of the footage does not use the term aggression regarding Japan’s wartime behavior.

On the Nanjing Massacre and Bombing of Chongqing, it simply states a large number of residents were killed.

The exhibits removed from the museum were thrown away late last year.

“Our storage room is small and very old,” explained Shigenobu Okada, the head of the museum.

Kazuya Sakamoto, a professor of international politics at Osaka University, defended the removal of the exhibits.

“It runs a risk of instilling an erroneous idea in the public that air raids (on Osaka Prefecture) were only expected since Japan did terrible things abroad,’” he said. “There is a need to fully convey the suffering of local residents first. After this, officials can get the public to ponder the development leading up to the aerial bombings, as well as Japan’s aggression.”

But Keiichi Harada, professor of modern Japanese history at Bukkyo University in Kyoto, said the display depicting Japan’s wartime acts was vital in offering a bigger picture of the war.

“If the tendency to scale back exhibits of the aggression continues, war could be glorified and prevent the masses from grasping the reality of war,” he said. “That would make it easier for the nation to go back to war. We need to show both sides of war in peace education.”

Israel accuses Arab neighbors of stalling on nuke-free Mideast

Statement distributed to global disarmament conference in United Nations headquarters in New York calls for ‘direct and sustained dialogue’ among region’s countries.

Israel’s Negev Nuclear Research Center, Dimona. Photo by Reuters / Haaretz Archive

 
By The Associated Press
By Barak Ravid

Israel is blaming its Arab neighbors for the failure of progress toward achieving a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, saying that “if a serious regional effort has not emerged in the Middle East during the last five years, it is not because of Israel.”

The statement by Israel, distributed Thursday to a global conference on a landmark disarmament treaty, is the country’s first public comment since it showed up as a surprise observer. Israel has never publicly declared its nuclear weapons, and it is not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

As an observer nation, it cannot address the ongoing conference, where many countries have expressed frustration that a key meeting toward a Middle East nuclear weapons-free zone, promised for 2012, has not taken place. That goal was set the last time the conference met five years ago.

Establishing such a zone in one of the world’s most tense regions is an area of rare agreement these days between the United States and Russia, which otherwise have descended into a Cold War-like gloom. Both countries this week urged progress, with Russia expressing its “grave dissatisfaction” at the delay and Secretary of State John Kerry calling the proposed zone an “ambitious goal and fraught with challenges” but worth pursuing.

And Iran, which Israel has loudly protested over its nuclear program, this week has used the stalled zone as a chance to fire back.

Speaking on behalf of more than 100 mostly developing countries, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on Monday called for Israel to give up its nuclear weapons, saying they are a regional threat.

Israel’s statement says it has been willing to meet with its neighbors toward setting an agenda for talks on a Middle East nuclear-free zone, but that after five rounds of consultations with some of its Arab neighbors in Switzerland between October 2013 and June 2014, the other states discontinued the talks.

The statement notes that the consultations were “the first direct engagement between Israel and its neighbors on this issue in over 20 years.”

Israel “responded positively” to invitations by a Finnish facilitator in October and January of this year for a sixth round of consultations, but they were postponed several times and didn’t take place, the statement says.

“This strident opposition to conduct a direct dialogue with Israel … underlines and reinforces the mistrust and suspicion between the states in the region,” it says. “Ultimately, it is difficult to understand how any disarmament, arms control and regional security issues can be addressed without any direct dialogue between the regional states, as the Group of Arab States suggests.”

Israel’s statement doesn’t explain what specific issues got in the way of continuing the talks, but it calls for dialogue “without external auspices that do not emanate from the region.”

Israeli officials say the decision to attend the conference as an observer for the first time since 1995 is a “reflection of Israel’s commitment to the principle of nonproliferation.” They also called for “direct engagement and dialogue” with Arab states on a broad range of security issues, based on consensus. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

For their part, the Palestinians, marking their first conference as a state party to the disarmament treaty, this week echoed the Arab Group in calling on Israel, “the only state in the Middle East that remains outside the NPT, to immediately sign and ratify the NPT without further delay.”