Anger, bitter memories as Asia marks war's end

Asia marked 60 years since the end of World War II yesterday with quiet ceremonies amid lingering resentment over Japan's perceived refusal to take responsibility for wartime aggression that killed millions.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologised for the "huge suffering and damage" inflicted by Japan and was expected to refrain from visiting the Yasukuni shrine, where war criminals are honoured along with Japan's 2.5 million wartime dead.

China had already criticised him and called on Japan to face up to its past.

"Koizumi stubbornly persists in his efforts to please Japan's right-wingers, who insist on the belief that sweeping the dirt under the carpet is the only action they need to take," the state-run China Daily said in an editorial.

China stepped up security outside the Japanese ambassador's residence in Beijing, the scene of violent anti-Japanese protests this year.

But in southeast Asia, which also suffered from the Imperial Army's brutal style of occupation, the resentment at Japan's aggression appears to have been eased by decades of post-war investment and aid that helped fuel the region's economic boom.

In Manila, where 100,000 Filipinos died just in the month-long battle that destroyed the capital in 1945, the only commemoration was a small ceremony by Chinese-Filipino veterans.

Some put the lack of national outrage at Japan's actions down to national amnesia or the fact that Japan was only the latest in a series of brutal colonisers after Spain and the US.

A local government near Manila last year erected a statue of a kamikaze pilot that has become a magnet for Japanese tourists and veterans.

"Filipinos have very short memories," said the famous Philippine author, Francisco Sionil Jose, who lived through the Japanese occupation and who approves of the US decision to drop atomic bombs on Japanese cities in 1945.

"My ambition was to run amok in Japan and kill as many Japanese as possible."

For those who experienced the 1942-1945 occupation first hand, it is hard to forgive and impossible to forget.

Colonel Rafael Estrada, who fought in the defence of the Bataan peninsula from 1941, said he did not feel hatred for the Japanese when they first invaded the Philippines.

"But when the war started, of course, you can see your companions being killed, being shot at, being bombarded, then anger comes into play."

But Estrada reserves most of his anger for the Filipino politicians whose corrupt ways he says have dishonoured those who defended the country.

"What it is today after 60 years, we are very disappointed," he said. "This is the reward given us which we do not appreciate very much. We are very sad."

Thousands of men, women and children were shot or bayoneted by Japanese soldiers in the battle of Manila. Historians estimate that for every six Filipinos killed by Japanese forces, four were killed by American forces trying to liberate the city, whose modern-day ugliness still bears testament to the destruction.

In one atrocity recounted in the 1995 book The Battle for Manila, Japanese troops massacred about 60 people, including children and Catholic priests, who had taken refuge in a chapel at La Salle college.

Fernando Vasquez-Prada, who was five at the time, was quoted as saying he had forgiven the Japanese but could never forget how they bayoneted his mother to death at the college after she tried to protect him and also killed his father and three brothers.

"To forget is not required of a Christian. I cannot and will not forget the atrocities committed to my family during the Japanese occupation," he said.