In the first testimony of its kind in a Japanese court, Chinese plaintiffs on Feb 16 described how their families had died of bubonic plague in World War II and urged Japan to admit to its use of germ warfare.
Hu Xianzhong, aged 66, said his parents and siblings had died of plague just weeks after a Japanese military plane scattered wheat over their village in southeastern China in August, 1940. He was among three plaintiffs giving testimony on behalf of 106 survivors of biological warfare allegedly carried out in China by the Japanese Imperial Army during the war. The plaintiffs are demanding that the Japanese government acknowledges its use of such weapons, apologises in writing and pays them US$75000 each in compensation.
Tokyo has refused to confirm or deny whether its army conducted biological warfare, but Chinese researchers say that such weapons were used on about 2000 occasions, resulting in the deaths of 94000 people between 1937 and 1945.
The plaintiff's lawyer, Koken Tsuchiya, said that the full extent of Japan's use of biological weapons is still not known. "It was only a few years ago that the victims realised what had happened and now more are making claims. Japanese veterans have also only recently started to admit that germ-warfare experiments were carried out. I think we are only just beginning to realise the scale of the matter."
Four years ago, the former head of scientific information in Japan's wartime Army Ministry reportedly admitted ordering the destruction of germ-warfare weapons on the day of surrender. Chinese scientists claim to have discovered several biological-warfare laboratories used by the Japanese military, including one in Guangzhou, southeastern China, near which up to 20000 villagers are said to have been killed in experiments on the spread of several fatal diseases.
By Jonathan Watts