Public Demand Thorough Investigation to Identify Skeletons Discovered in Sinjyuku

The large number of human remains unearthed in Sinjyuku District, Tokyo 10 years ago recently once again aroused the public's attention.

In July 1989, a large quantity of human skeletons were unearthed in the construction site of State Preventive Health Research Institute in Kutoyama, Sinjyuku District. Here was once the location of the Japanese Army Medical College run during Japan's invasion of China, which is not far from the domestic research facilities of the notorious 731 unit. This unit used living bodies for bacterial and toxic lab tests in China. Therefore, the skeletons have always been doubted to be the remains of the living bodies used for lab tests in those years.

It is reported by Asahi News Agency that Japanese Health and Welfare Ministry at first took a passive attitude toward the investigation work, but later under the pressure of public opinion, it started investigation in 1992. While investigating into documents, the ministry also sent questionnaires to 293 graduates of the Army Medical College. Among half of the responders, most said they knew nothing about that, only a few said they had participated in vivisection practice, others claimed that corpses collected from the war theater were used as specimens..

Regarding this, the ministry declared, "As regards the origin of the human bones, some dead bodies were used as specimens and for teaching at the army medical college, there is also the possibility that the bones were the dead bodies collected from the battlefield, others remarked that the corpses were gathered from the battleground for use as specimens, but the concrete facts are still not clear."

Da Seiyi, member of Japanese Democratic Party, said at the conference of Health and Welfare Ministry of House of Representatives on March 14 that the Japanese government should conduct investigation in a responsible manner and regard this as part of the move to handle postwar matters. Tsuneishi, representative of Japanese "Human Skeletons Issue Investigation Institute", said that since the government investigation did not rule out the possibility that the human bones were of the war victims, the matter should be further made clear through scientific appraisal and investigation of historical materials. TutiYa kokoken, former chairman of Japan Lawyers Association, said that it is really astonishing that the bodies of the war dead were transported back to Japan for use in medical research. Since there are different sayings concerning the 731 unit, so the government should conduct serious investigation.

To clarifying historical facts is the first step Japan should take to win the confidence of Asian countries.

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