Door dhr. Ted Hartman –  Dinsdag, 11 december  2012.  Eindejaars-demonstratie  Stichting Japanse Ereschulden

Het waren de diehards,  echte bikkels, die weer aanwezig waren om het bestuur te helpen te blijven  hameren op Japan. Een Japan dat zich niet schaamt om zijn wandaden, nog erger,  ze verheerlijkt. Dit keer een prachtig aangrijpingspunt om ze te wijzen op hun  verplichtingen tegenover de wereld. De softe behandeling van genaturaliseerde  Amerikaanse Japanners in de oorlog. Eens zullen ze zich niet meer op hun cultuur  kunnen beroepen om onder hun schulden uit te komen!
Ook de dialoog met de  Nederlandse staat houdt niet op. Het volgende gesprek is in januari gepland. Met goede moed zien we in het  Nieuwe Jaar de volgende demonstratiedag op 8 januari 2013 tegemoet.

Vrije vertaling  van Petitie  217: Zijne Excelllentie Yoshihiko  Noda
Den Haag, 10 December  2012.
Petitie: 217 Onderwerp: Erken morele  verantwoordelijkheid

 Excellentie,

Wij wensen u en het volk van Japan, in  deze moeilijke tijden, het allerbeste in het Nieuwe Jaar.

 Namens de Stichting Japanse  Ereschulden,

 J..F. van Wagtendonk,  voorzitter

Originele Petitie  217:

His Excellency Yoshihiko Noda

Prime Minister of  Japan

The Hague, 10 December 2012.

Petition: 217

Subject: acknowledge moral  responsibility

Excellency,

Recently an interesting discovery  was made in Denver, the United States. According to the Japan Times: “letters  arriving from Japanese-Americans internment camps during World War Two were  discovered during renovations.” Internees sent letters and postcards to a Denver pharmacy owned by  Japanese-Americans requesting them to send bath powder, cold creams or cough  drops. About 110,000 Japanese-Americans were interned during the war. The camps  were overcrowded and provided poor living conditions. However the internees were  able to correspond with the outside world requesting “luxuries”. The conditions  in the Dutch camps during World War Two were far worse. In fact these were  concentration camps run by the Japanese military in occupied Dutch East Indies.  The Dutch people were held in these concentration camps with the sole purpose to  destroy the Dutch influence in Dutch East Indies. They were terrorized, denied  medicines and provided with poor food. Many died. The survivors were left with  traumas, poor futures and as a result of the captivity lost but  all.

 Prime Minister

The Japanese-Americans received a formal apology from  President Reagan and a redress payment of US$ 20,000 each to the surviving  internees in 1988. Similarly in the same year the Canadian government issued  formal apologies to Japanese Canadian survivors, who were each paid CAN$ 19,000.  The value of these individual payments nowadays would be around € 80,000. Very  much like the Dutch situation when the Japanese Supreme Court dismissed the case  for reparations to the Dutch held in concentrations camps, so did the Supreme  Court of the United States rule in favour of the U.S. government. Crucially  however, the U.S. Congress did subsequently pass legislation to award the formal  payments. In fact, the American politicians accepted the moral obligation for an  unjust internment.

 Prime Minister

The generous gesture by the U.S Congress to accept the  moral obligation, to apologize and redress the sufferings of these  Japanese-Americans puts again in question Japan’s position in denying her moral  obligation to the Dutch. Japan should follow the American political example,  accept its moral obligation and must reconsider its position.

 We wish you and the people of Japan, in these testing  times, all the best in the New Year.

 On behalf of the Foundation of Japanese Honorary  Debts,

 J.F. van Wagtendonk

President