Korean war criminal's bid to get military pension touches raw nerve in Japan
During World War II, Lee Hak-rae was known as Hiromura Kakurai. He was one of 240,000 Korean men who fought for Japan, which occupied the Korean peninsula at the time.
After Japan's defeat, he was stripped of Japanese citizenship and convicted of war crimes. Now 95, he has launched a campaign to secure a military pension, provoking fierce debate. Some Japanese argue he was merely following orders. Others insist he should have been executed.
Lee, who lives in Tokyo, claims he is entitled to the same pension as other Japanese veterans, which can be about US$41,000 a year.
"Listen to me," he said during a recent interview. "Why are they treating us differently? It's unfair and doesn't make any sense. How can I accept this unbelievable situation?"
Under the terms of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, Koreans who fought for Japan lost their Japanese nationality - as well as their right to a pension. South Korea also refused to provide them with financial support.
In 1955, a group of veterans living in Japan set up a group named Doshinkai to demand the government apologise for forcing them to join the Japanese military and to seek compensation for damage to their reputations. Lee is the last surviving member of the group but insists he will continue his campaign to the bitter end.
He has struggled to attract support, though, with many objections citing his conviction for war crimes. After Tokyo's surrender, 321 of its colonial subjects were convicted by Allied military courts of class B and C offences, including mistreatment of prisoners. In total, 26 Taiwanese and 23 Koreans were subsequently executed.
Lee was among those sentenced to hang for his brutal treatment of Allied POWs building the notorious "Death Railway" in Thailand and Myanmar - then known as Burma. About 12,000 POWs and 90,000 Asian labourers died from overwork, beatings and exhaustion during the construction, which was dramatised in the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Lee's sentence was commuted on appeal to 20 years in prison and he was released in 1956.
Lee Hak-rae (second row, left) with Korean colleagues at a POW camp run by the Japanese Imperial Army in Thailand in 1942. Photo: Reuters alt=Lee Hak-rae (second row, left) with Korean colleagues at a POW camp run by the Japanese Imperial Army in Thailand in 1942. Photo: Reuters
Some messages on the Japan Today website expressed support for Lee's demand to be treated the same as Japanese veterans, pointing out that even convicted war criminals who were spared execution were eligible to receive a military pension. With the August 15 anniversary of the controversial Yasukuni Shrine - which is the last resting place of millions of men and women killed in war approaching - the debate is taking on added urgency.
"They were soldiers and served the army. No matter what, they had to serve their duty, follow orders and sacrifice for the nation. No matter what, the nation has to take care of them for their service," one commenter wrote.
Another wrote: "There but for the grace of God go you, should you have been in his position at that time. War turns men into monsters and it's the winners who decide who are the criminals. There are always plenty of atrocities on all sides to go around."
Others strongly disagreed, pointing out that he was convicted on the evidence of former POWs at Hintok prison camp. Lee was known to the prisoners as "The Lizard" and was infamous for his brutality. A favourite tactic, they said, was to beat prisoners about the head with a length of bamboo and assault men in the camp's makeshift hospital if he believed they were fit enough to work.
In 2014, Arthur Lane, who was a bugler with the Manchester Regiment and was captured at the fall of Singapore in February 1942, said the troops from Japan's colonies were the most vicious abusers of prisoners.
"The Japanese guards were bad but the Koreans and the Formosans were the worst," he said. "These were men who the Japanese looked down on as colonials, so they needed to show they were as good as the Japanese. And they had no one else to take it out on other than us POWs.
"These men volunteered and they all knew exactly what they were doing. And they mistreated us because they wanted to please their masters and knew they could get away with it," said Lane, who died in 2017. "They joined up for kicks, when Japan was winning the war, and they took advantage of that for their own enjoyment."
Most messages on social media sympathised with that view, with one tweet asking pointedly: "What history does he want to be remembered for?" Another, in Korean, declared: "Never feel sorry for this person!"
A message on the Japan Today site read: "No sympathy for this pathetic old war criminal, nor any of his Japanese or Korean fellow criminals. I hope every night of their lives were haunted by those they cruelly bashed, starved, tortured and killed."
Another pointed out Lee has made no effort to express remorse for the men he abused, adding: "If a sliver of honour existed, Lee Hak-rae, on capture would/should have requested a pistol, and brought his crimes to a conclusion, so his family would not have to suffer the indignity and shame of his existence and crimes."
Another message read: "I'm surprised a convicted war criminal that escaped hanging has anything to complain about. What a shame he wasn't hanged."
Additional reporting by Reuters
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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