Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts, NGO Status Roster
Petition # 309: Still no change in not telling the true history and not the glorified lies.
His Excellency Shinzo ABE
Prime Minister of Japan
The Hague, 11 August 2020
Petition: 309
Subject: Still no change in not telling the true history and not the glorified lies.
Excellency,
On 9th September 2003 I wrote to the then Prime Minister of Japan his Excellency Junichiro KOIZUMI:
Quote: “Excellency,
In August we remember and celebrate the end of World War II. During the various ceremonies, the remembrances bring back our sufferings and the cruelty committed by the Japanese Imperial Army during the War in the Dutch East Indies and other places in Asia. We celebrate the ending of World War II which gave us back our freedom; albeit in a disunited country where almost all the surviving Dutch in the Dutch East Indies were forced to repatriate to The Netherlands. The remembrance evokes anger, that the Japanese government does not recognize the social and moral responsibility it has towards those who suffered at the hands of Japanese soldiers and civil servants. Let me repeat the anger:
It is beyond comprehension that the Japanese government is on the one hand proud to celebrate more then 400 years of friendship with the Dutch, but neglects its Honorary Debts to Dutch nationals originating out of World War II, hiding its responsibility on legal grounds.
True friends recognize their failures and do the utmost to repair the damage done, if they believe in the sincerity of friendship. It requires a meaningful gesture both in apology and material reparation to establish the friendship. In understanding the present, you must tell the true history and not the glorified lies. In remembering the actual facts the pain and the disbelief come back, but this horror must be faced as the world must know the truth of how the Imperial Army and the Japanese civil servants treated their friends for 400 years during World War II. The world must know that the present government of Japan appears not to learn from the past.” Unquote.
Prime Minister,
Ever since I wrote to His Excellency Junichiro KOIZUMI his successors, including you, ignored our petitions. I deeply regret such dishonorable attitude. The Japanese Ambassadors in the Hague had to refer to the San Francisco Peace treaty:” legally Japan is in the clear and has no obligations to an Honorary Debt”. However, it should be an honor for Japan to redeem the morally correct Honorary Debts together with a personal apology to the surviving victims.
Prime Minister,
Today I will be looking forward to your personal condolence.
On behalf of the Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts.
J.F. van Wagtendonk
President.
Comments