Seeking Justice

By+li+li

Zhang Shijie， 88， gave out a sigh of relief when his son Zhang yang told him that a Beijing court had accepted a lawsuit against two Japanese firms that forced him and another 36 plaintiffs to work as free laborers in Japan during World War II. “I finally have something to look forward to，” Zhang Shijie told Global Times， a daily newspaper published in Beijing.

Like other forced laborers from the time， Zhang Shijies biggest hope has been to receive compensation from the Japanese companies. Despite long-held grievances over the issue and the high profiles of some of the Japanese companies involved， March 18 marked the first time a Chinese court accepted a case of this kind.

“They forced us to dig coal all day long and didnt give us enough food to eat in the evenings. We were treated like prisoners，” Zhang Shijie said on the day the lawsuit was filed at the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate Peoples Court on February 26.

The two companies sued in the lawsuit are Japans Mitsubishi Materials Corp. and the Nippon Coke and Engineering Co.， formerly known as Mitsui Mining. The two are alleged to have forced 9，415 Chinese workers to work for them without compensation， with 1，745 of those having died in Japan as a result of forced labor.

According to the indictment， two survivors and 35 people whose relatives were forced into hard labor are demanding 1 million yuan（$161，600） in compensation for each worker， as well as apologies printed in newspapers in both China and Japan. The number of plaintiffs eventually grew to 40 and the court approved their application for deferral of court costs.

“I cannot find any reason that we cannot win this case based on the facts and evidence collected，” Kang Jian， a Beijing-based lawyer representing the plaintiffs， told Beijing Times newspaper. Kang has spent almost 20 years finding and visiting the victims of forced labor， collecting evidence and filing lawsuits in Japan and China alike.

Official documents from Japans Ministry of Foreign Affairs showed that a total of 38，953 Chinese people， aged 11 to 78， were captured by the Japanese army from April 1943 to May 1945 and forced to work for at least 35 enterprises. And 6，830 had died when Japan returned them to China after its surrender in August 1945.

On April 5， Beijings Museum of the War of Chinese Peoples Resistance Against Japanese Aggression published a name list of 34，282 Chinese people forced into labor and taken to Japan during World War II.endprint

According to a museum statement， the list was compiled in 1964 by an association based in Japan which collected the names of Chinese war casualties.

Inspired by the acceptance of the case in Beijing， two groups of forced laborers and their descendants filed two separate cases to two courts in north Chinas Hebei Province on March 26 and April 1， respectively. Neither court has decided whether it will accept the litigations or not.

yan Zizhen， 88， and his eight fellow plaintiffs， brought their complaint to the Tangshan City Intermediate Peoples Court in Hebei on March 26， requesting Coke Industry Co. Ltd. of Japan （formerly Mitsui Mining Co. Ltd.）， Mitsubishi Materials Corp. （formerly Mitsubishi Mining Co. Ltd.） and the Japanese Government pay 1.8 million yuan （$290，000） as compensation for forced labor.

They also demanded the defendants apologize to them and other victims through newspapers and on television.

yan said he has got 17 scars from when he was forced to work in Japan for two years starting in 1943.

More than 4，000 workers were captured in Tangshan and brought to Japan to work. Only 1，700 survived and returned home.

“What my father wants more than compensation is an apology. Meanwhile， the lawsuit will help remind the younger generation [of what their elders went through]，” said yan Min， son of yan Zizhen.

A long battle

On February 26， the day Zhang Shijies case was filed to the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate Peoples Court， Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular press briefing that she believed the court would handle the case according to the law.

“Forced recruitment and enslavement of labor was one of the grave crimes committed by Japan during its aggressive wars against foreign countries and the resulting colonial rule. It is an unresolved historical issue，” she told reporters.

“We urge Japan to adopt a responsible attitude to history， take the issue seriously and address the concerns.”

Japanese courts have rejected almost all compensation claims in the 14 lawsuits filed by forced Chinese laborers since 1995， saying that individual rights of Chinese nationals to war reparations were discarded under the 1972 Japan-China joint communiqué.

Fu Qiang， a Chinese lawyer representing forced laborers from Shandong Province of east China in several cases filed in Japan and China， said that other two most common reasons cited by Japanese courts are that the government is exempt from compensation liability for damages caused by civil servants illegal acts and that the statute of limitations has expired.endprint

However， many lawyers， including experts from Japan， disagree.

xin Chongyang， a professor and international law expert from the China University of Political Science and Law， said even though the Japanese courts had rejected all the compen-sation claims， they acknowledged the crimes that the Japanese companies had committed against forced laborers from China.

xin said although the Chinese Government had discarded the rights for national war reparations under the joint statement back in 1972， individual Chinese citizens still had the right to do so.

In a milestone case of two former slave laborers and three survivors against Nishimatsu Construction Co. filed in 1998， the plaintiffs lost at the Hiroshima District Court in 2002， but won a reversal from the Hiroshima High Court in 2004. However， in April 2007 the Supreme Court in Japan dismissed their claims on the grounds of the 1972 Japan-China joint statement.

“The verdict means that the door was closed for individual forced laborers trying to seek justice in Japans judicial system，” said Wang xuan， a lawyer representing Chinese forced laborers in several cases.

Determination

To date， in spite of receiving a series of rejections for compensation by Japanese courts， former forced laborers have not given up demanding reparations.

Since the beginning of this century， forced laborers and other victims of Japanese aggression during World War II began to send litigations to Chinas local courts in Hebei and Zhejiang provinces and Chongqing Municipality. They were determined to seek justice， especially after having seen a series of wins by former forced laborers in South Korea in their domestic courts since 2012.

Among these rulings for forced laborers， the first legal victory was South Koreas Supreme Court ruling in favor of nine South Koreans in May 2012 who demanded Japanese firms pay them for forced labor during Japans colonial rule of Korea.

In July 2013， in two separate cases， the Busan High Court ordered Japans Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. Co. to pay compensation to five South Koreans for forced labor that occurred under Japans colonial rule of the country. The Seoul High Court ordered Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. to pay compensation to four South Koreans for forced labor.

Many experienced lawyers representing Chinese forced laborers agreed that the acceptance of such a case by a Beijing court is a promising start for forced labor victims. Fu said that based on his years of litigation experience in Japan， forced laborers have a good chance of winning a suit against firms with operations in China in a domestic court.

“Over all these years of our work on compensation litigation for forced laborers， when we exposed the crimes committed to Chinese people during Japans aggression， it kept us moving on. But we also desire a legal victory，”said Fu.

“Forced laborers have been passing away more and more recently [due to old age]，” said Lu Tangsuo， secretary general of an association of former forced laborers in Japan. The son of a forced laborer himself， Lu said that when organizing a donation for these victims in 2007， he managed to find more than 500 of them from different parts of China and only around 50 of them were still around when another fundraising event was organized in January.

Lu said that lodging their suits in domestic courts might be the final battle for these victims in their senior years and they want justice before they leave this world.endprint