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Vol. 71/No. 48      December 24, 2007

 
Chinese in N.Y. mark 1937 Nanjing massacre by Tokyo
 
BY CINDY JAQUITH  
NEW YORK—A protest consisting of a photo exhibit and speakers was held in Union Square here December 9 to demand that the Japanese government issue an official apology for atrocities committed during the 1937 invasion of the Chinese city of Nanjing (Nanking). Organized by the Nanking Massacre 1937 Memorial Foundation, it drew hundreds of people.

On Dec. 13, 1937, Japanese imperialist troops entered Nanjing, China’s capital at the time. Over the following weeks they slaughtered as many as 300,000 people. Many thousands of women and girls were raped by the troops. Some women were forced into sexual slavery, becoming “comfort women” for the occupiers. The Japanese government has never apologized for the massacre and some government figures in Tokyo dismiss the events as exaggerated.

The sponsoring group said in a statement, “Regardless of religion and belief, nationality and ethnicity, we aim to pressure the current Japanese Government and People to confess their brutal crimes in the past and to admit to coercing women into sexual slavery as so-called ‘Comfort Women’ in the Second Sino-Japanese War.” It said they aimed “to rise up the Asian voice about the unforgettable history of World War II.”

The U.S. government took advantage of the massacre to help justify going to war with Japan, the main U.S. rival in the imperialist conflict over who would control China and the Pacific. During the war, U.S. forces carried out their own atrocities when they firebombed Tokyo and other Japanese cities and dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands.

The December 9 protest here marked the 70th anniversary of Nanjing Massacre. Photographs of the atrocities committed by Japanese imperialism were on exhibit. Chinese speakers gave oral histories, translated into English, of what they had learned about the massacre from their parents and grandparents. Japanese were also invited to speak. One speaker encouraged those in attendance to join the annual protests against the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August. Literature was available in Chinese, Japanese, English, and Spanish. More information is available at the website www.1937nanjing.org.
 
 
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