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9.49 am
Mr. Douglas Hurd (Witney): The hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) has done well to raise the matter. My remarks will be brief.
The recovery of Japan is one of the most striking achievements of any nation since the war--not just the rebuilding of towns and cities and the amazing economic performance to which the hon. Gentleman referred, but the creation for the first time of a durable democracy. Politicians as a class are no more popular in Japan than in Britain, but those who know modern Japan, which includes all Members present in the House this morning, cannot doubt that Japan now has a foundation of democracy.
As Japan has grown on that foundation, so has modern Britain's friendship with modern Japan. Like many others, I have been struck by the way in which contacts, co-operation and friendship have grown, company by company on the commercial side, profession by profession--all the professions--and individual by individual. There remains, however, a hindrance--a bar--from the past.
For the people who lived through it, the past is terrible beyond telling. It is not a remote past for them; it is still vivid in their lives, as our postbags and surgeries tell. It is vivid, too, in the lives of all those to whom they tell their story.
Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed):
It should be emphasised, as the right hon. Gentleman is probably aware, how many of the victims of those years have just begun to tell their stories. In a constituency such as mine, where so many were interned with the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, only in the past year or two, thanks partly to the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, has the story begun to emerge. A new generation in this country has become aware of how bad it was and therefore supports the bid for recognition from Japan of what happened.
Mr. Hurd:
That is true and is borne out by my own experience.
On the legal side, I was always advised, and I tested the advice, that it is not possible for Her Majesty's Government to demand as a legal right from the Japanese Government more than the 1951 peace treaty provided, because the British Government of the day accepted that compensation. I agree with the hon. Member for Rotherham that this should not be a matter for lawyers, although I am aware of the case that representatives of the prisoners of war have lodged in Japan.
Whatever the legal buttress of the 1951 treaty, that cannot be regarded as enough to close the chapter. My right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Minister of State do not regard it as enough. Both have been active in seeking more. There has been progress--more, perhaps, than the hon. Gentleman acknowledged.
I welcome what the then Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Murayama, wrote to our Prime Minister before VJ day. On VJ day itself, Mr. Murayama made a statement
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I share the view of the hon. Member for Rotherham that that has not been enough. It needs to be followed by more substantial action. Various efforts have been made by individuals and by the Government in recent years, and I had a part in them in my time. As a result, I know of the sensitivities and difficulties on the other side. I have some understanding of why it has been so difficult for the Japanese Government, individuals and institutions to take the steps that the hon. Gentleman recommended.
I believe that there might be a role for one or more of our service charities--for example, the Royal British Legion--to act as an intermediary or channel for funds made available by Japanese organisations. I have not expressed that thought before in public, but I believe that it deserves to be further examined.
Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North):
I am very pleased that the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd), a former Foreign Secretary, has added his support to the campaign about which my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) spoke in opening the debate.
It is important to remember that there is no anti-Japanese sentiment on the part of those of us who continue to campaign. There is no anti-Japanese lobby. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman: Japanese politics has been in the limelight to a far greater degree than the British Parliament, but, like other hon. Members, I appreciate that the Japan of today and of the past 50 years is very different from the Japan of the 1920s and 1930s. The last war was not the start, but the continuation, of Japanese aggression against China and other countries and peoples in that part of the world. Terrible crimes were committed before the second world war. That was the Japan of yesterday.
I therefore find it, as I said in an intervention, all the more difficult to understand why--leaving aside compensation--the present Japanese Government should hesitate to express the fullest dissociation and apology that are required. After all, the German Government have repeatedly made it clear that they dissociate themselves from the criminals who ruled Germany for 12 years.
One of the many reasons why I am speaking in the debate is the fact that one of my constituents, Stephen Long, was a 19-year-old soldier who was taken prisoner, like so many others, in Singapore. He says that he still suffers from nightmares because of the way in which he, like so many other prisoners of war, was treated. It is important to recognise that the Japanese treatment of our and other allied prisoners defied all the conventions of the time. They treated British and allied prisoners of war like slaves or semi-slaves.
Mr. Barry Field (Isle of Wight):
It is not widely appreciated that the Isle of Wight Burma Star Association
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The hon. Gentleman's point about the lack of bitterness on the part of soldiers who served in that dreadful war was well exemplified when the Burma Star Association in the Isle of Wight put on an exhibition of all the paraphernalia of Japanese torture, among other things. The angst of the former prisoners of war increases as they grow older. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd) said, if action is not taken urgently, the problem will die.
Mr. Winnick:
The hon. Gentleman makes a very valid point, which applies also to my constituent, who was only 19 years old at the time. He was involved in the construction of the railway that prisoners described--with every justification--as the "railway of death". I could recite endless accounts of what occurred, but I shall only quote briefly from what Mr. Long told me and the local press. The article states:
Is it any wonder that Mr. Long suffers nightmares? Is it any wonder that my constituent, like others who suffered the same brutal treatment, requires a full and unambiguous apology from the Japanese Government as well as compensation? As to that compensation, Mr. Long says:
I believe that the time has come for the British Government to put adequate pressure on the Japanese Government. No doubt in his speech the Minister will express his sympathy to those who suffered at the hands of the Japanese--I expect nothing less of a Minister of the Crown--and he will probably describe the various efforts made by the British Government on behalf of ex-prisoners. However, I believe that more is required, and that is the essence of today's debate.
I do not challenge the fact that the British Government and the Prime Minister have made representations to the Japanese Government, but I think that more pressure should be applied. The Government must try to persuade the Japanese authorities that, apart from anything else, it is in their interests to do what we ask. We are not engaged in an anti-Japanese campaign or lobby, but we are concerned about the way in which our fellow citizens were treated. As the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field) said, there are not many of them left. Before
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"One form of torture Mr. Long can recall most vividly was something known as 'water treatment', an ordeal he was forced to undergo on a number of occasions.
Mr. Long was no exception among the prisoners--
It involved him being squeezed into a box 10 foot tall but no more than 15 inches square made out of bamboo poles. For eight hours he could not move and any hope of going to the toilet was forgotten as it was just not possible.
When he was dragged out of the box"--
"the Japanese soldiers forced a hosepipe into his mouth and pumped water into him before laying him on the floor where they proceeded to jump up and down on his stomach."
"It's not the money that's important--even if they paid me £14 million I still wouldn't be able to forgive them".
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