Japan's Unesco proposal for kamikaze letters draws flak from China & S. Korea
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Japan's Unesco proposal for kamikaze letters draws flak from China & S. Korea
Japan wants kamikaze pilots' wartime letters to be part of Unesco world heritage list
South China Morning Post Wednesday, 05 February, 2014
The proposal comes hot on the heels of the recent denial by a Governor of Japanese broadcaster NHK that the Rape of Nanking ever happened. As a wise man once said, "That's the metaphorical equivalent of flopping your wedding tackle into a lion's mouth and flicking his love spuds with a wet towel. Total insanity."
I/C
South China Morning Post Wednesday, 05 February, 2014
Japan is pushing to have more than 300 letters written by its second-world-war kamikaze pilots enshrined as UN world heritage items - a move that will likely stir up further controversy about the country's wartime past and which has already elicited condemnation from Asian neighbours.
The southern city where these suicide pilots were trained and based, Minamikyushu, has submitted these letters to the Unesco Memory of the World Programme, in the hope it will be listed next year as heritage items worthy of preservation along with the likes of the Gutenberg Bible and the diaries of Holocaust victim Anne Frank.
Minamikyushu Mayor Kanpei Shimoide told a news conference on Tuesday that the messages would help people think about the horrors of war ahead of the 70th anniversary of the end of the world war next year.
However, the Unesco submission has prompted a backlash from China and South Korea, which had been invaded or occupied by Japanese forces during the war.
"At such a speed, you [Japan] are going to enlist the Yasukuni Shrine as a world heritage [site]. Could you be more shameless?" the state outlet China News Services wrote in its official microblog account.
Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se expressed Seoul's opposition to Japan's move to honour the wartime relics after the news conference, saying the suicide notes went against the basic ethics of a Unesco world heritage.
The southern city where these suicide pilots were trained and based, Minamikyushu, has submitted these letters to the Unesco Memory of the World Programme, in the hope it will be listed next year as heritage items worthy of preservation along with the likes of the Gutenberg Bible and the diaries of Holocaust victim Anne Frank.
Minamikyushu Mayor Kanpei Shimoide told a news conference on Tuesday that the messages would help people think about the horrors of war ahead of the 70th anniversary of the end of the world war next year.
However, the Unesco submission has prompted a backlash from China and South Korea, which had been invaded or occupied by Japanese forces during the war.
"At such a speed, you [Japan] are going to enlist the Yasukuni Shrine as a world heritage [site]. Could you be more shameless?" the state outlet China News Services wrote in its official microblog account.
Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se expressed Seoul's opposition to Japan's move to honour the wartime relics after the news conference, saying the suicide notes went against the basic ethics of a Unesco world heritage.
I/C
