Customer Reviews

The Tokyo Trial and Beyond: Reflections of a Peacemonger

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This is a five star book for students of the Pacific War, but could be boring to someone who expects a colorful and exciting narration about the trial. Most of the interview, which is written at the Playboy interview level, is about the Dutch judge's opinion of the methods used in the trials, and provides a good insight into international law with respect to war crimes. Judge Roling, and several other judges assigned to the trial, appeared to be outcasts for various reasons, and Roling creates the impression, without saying so, that much of the trial was simply a kangaroo court meant to satisfy political motives. A very interesting account, but not for the faint hearted reader.

The Tokyo Trial was the main engine of the U.S. post-war propaganda machine against Japan.

One does not have to wait for this detailed account on the trial of Judge B.V.A. Roling to understand the very nature of the trial: it was one of two post-war kangaroo courts held by the victorious Allied Powers exercising retroactive laws on the "evil" Axis losers. The official records of the trial show that the victors were completely immunised from condemnation for their own war crimes on Japanese soldiers and over a million of civilians while most of the decent counter-evidences of the defendants were summarily dismissed.
I must leave the argument that whether it was right thing to breach the universal consent on prohibition against the retroactivity for the sake of condemnation of Nazi Germany for the Holocaust with which the Allied Powers thought otherwise they could not have even tried the "evil Nazis", however, I must stress here that, even if retroactivity is justified in the case of Nuremberg Trial, it should not be applied to Tokyo Trial because in the first place Japan's crimes against peace and against humanity were never substantiated in the court.
The Tokyo Trial judged 25 Japanese with a bunch of unsubstantiated hearsay evidences and gross fabrications. That all of them were found guilty had been fixed from the first place. Judge Roling admits that the authority of the trial, i.e. the U.S. government, had never intended to allow "dissenting opinions".
Seven of the defendants, including Tojo Hideki, the Allied Powers' so-called "the Japanese equivalent of Hitler", were hanged. For their "PRESUMED" guilty charges. Is this their so-called "the judgments of the civilised countries"?

When one thinks of the true meaning of the Tokyo Trial, he / she must note that this is only part of the propaganda machine of the ex- (or, still be?) Allied Powers that has been condemning Japan for her "horrible war crimes" and that has successfully worked as various excuses whenever they want to sponge a big deal of money off Japan. The main body of the propaganda machine is the U.S. operated programme on occupied Japan from 1945 to 1952: The War Guilt Information Programme.
They controlled the Japanese mass opinion with their scrupulously perfect and covert censorship over the whole government body, mass media and education throughout the occupation. They gave children text books written by the U.S. occupation authority in Japan lead by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, General Douglas MacArthur. They broadcast radio and later TV programmes like "The Truth is This!" which was based on the Tokyo Trial and other local war crimes trials in the Far East to condemn Japanese Army's "barbaric acts" in the battlefields to the docile and gullible Japanese ordinary people hiding themselves behind NHK, Japanese state-running broadcast agency.
They purged every tiny element of the "militarist, Imperialist and ultra-nationalist" which applied to ex-soldiers, who returned from the battle fields in South East Asia and China, and the Japanese nationals who were not assumed as "leftists" which means, well, most of the Japanese who were ready to die fighting for their country. On the other hand, they released the left-wingers who had been imprisoned during the war. Consequently, Japanese communists and socialists who have been connected with former Soviet Union / the Comintern and / or Chinese Communist Party have grown influential in post war era with the support of the New Dealers within the Occupation Army authority. They supported to form the Japanese leftist Teachers Union. The JTU have been subversive ever in these decades imbuing innocent children's mind with their Chinese / Korean oriented propaganda; "Nanking Massacre", "Comfort Women", "Unit 731" and on and on and on......

To me, they are so shamelessly desperate to co-operate even with their arch-enemy, the "evil" king of capitalism / imperialism / "hegemonism", the U.S.A. in order to survive the post-Cultural-Revolution-and-fall-of-the-Iron-Curtain era.
But the U.S.A. may have been sharing the desperation for its own sake of dominance in the world.
Meaning of re-thinking of the Tokyo Trial is, therefore, too significant for the U.S.A. to ignore. It will challenge their very authority in the role of "the Police of the world". So is it for China and Russia and maybe other victorious countries in the World War 2. Without continuing to blame Japan for the old false allegations, they may lose their hegemony and authority over their respective nationals and that may even sully the authority of them in the executive committee of the world powers.
That is, in my humble opinion, the very reason why very few people, if it is not no one, from the countries of the victors of the WW2 show interest in rethinking of the trial.
Even this late Judge Roling, who I suppose is a very decent jurist and a fair thinker of the future of the International Law, did not dare make a searching inquiry into the dark-side of the Tokyo Trial. Then who dares now?

I am hoping that people like the accusers of opaqueness of the recent U.S. oriented attack on Iraq will pay a little attention to the injustice done to Japan by the U.S. and other Allied countries which is still haunting and damaging Japan's national interest and spirit. It should, I believe, do good to the future of the humanity in the light of the International Law as well.