His Excellency Shinzo ABE
Prime Minister of Japan
The Hague, 9 October 2018
Petition: 287
Subject: Giri “Burden of obligation”
Excellency,
We congratulate you on your re-election as Party President of the Liberal Democratic Party, thus the favorite candidate for First Minister of Japan after the next election. In other words you have got the mandate to come to terms with the Dutch from Dutch Indies represented by the Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts. It is not a legal problem but a moral problem which we understand is Giri, a Japanese value corresponding to a “Burden of Obligation”.
Prime Minister,
For the surviving Dutch victims and their next of kin, who never accepted and dismissed the legalistic point of view by the Japanese and Dutch governments, this burden of obligation must be carried by the Japanese society: people, politicians and commerce. On that basis we feel that it is possible to come to agreeable terms for the moral obligations stemming from treatment by the Japanese military during the occupation of Dutch East Indies.
Prime Minister,
With your re-election as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party you are in a position to initiate “Giri” with respect to the Dutch from Dutch East Indies. They were interned in concentration camps and those outside the camps were as badly maltreated. They lost literally everything: their health, property, family and friends; all as a result of the Japanese occupation. Taking the initiative in the quest for a meaningful and quick solution should be part of your personal aim in building Japan into a “New Nation”. Thus applying Giri you resolve Japan’s war time past in an acceptable and traditional honorable Japanese way.
We look forward hearing from you personally.
On behalf of the Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts.
J.F. van Wagtendonk
President
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