Anti-Yasukuni Campaign for Human Rights and Peace (2007)
Today, we’ve come here together for the Anti-Yasukuni Campaign for human rights and peace. We’re asking everyone who cares about peace, justice, and human rights to join with us to say no to war and no to the Yasukuni Shrine.
Korea and Taiwan have suffered for over a century from cruel colonization. During the colonization, Japan exploited not only material but also human resources from Korea and Taiwan in barbaric ways that the world had not witnessed until then. The numerous Japanese war crimes, ranged from human medical experimentations, ethnocide or cultural genocide, and sexual slavery, to mass murder, forced labor conscription, and forced military conscription. These horrendous crimes left significant and tragic marks in Korean and Taiwanese modern history.
The Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo deifies those responsible – it enshrines Japan’s war criminals as “Japanese heroes” - and it stands as a potent symbol of the government’s current path towards rearming the country.
Rather than attempting to mend foreign relationships by acknowledging its responsibilities for war crimes, Japan has expressed its intention to return to militarism – it has revised high school textbooks to teach that the Pacific War was a war to defend and liberate Asia, and has removed references to its war crimes, such as sexual slavery, forced labor conscription as well as forced military conscription. In addition, it argues that all invasive wars Japan has provoked in the neighboring countries were “Holy Wars”, attempts to defend Asia from foreign invaders and to economically develop other Asian countries. Japanese politicians and cabinet members have provoked other Asian neighboring countries by paying their respects at the Yasukuni Shrine, despite the World War II Class A war criminals enshrined there. Moreover, there is a movement to amend Japan’s “Peace Constitution” to rearm the country, disregarding its promise after the World War II not to own its own army and to give up any attempts at war.
The Yasukuni Shrine firmly stands at the core of these rightist campaigns. The Shrine has been the symbol of all Japanese incursions and wars on behalf of the Emperor and the object of the worship and state religion. It has been the main headquarter of Japanese militarism and of the actual military institutions, which invaded its neighboring countries and destroyed their cultures and own religions. It attempted to create colonial subjects of the Emperor in these neighboring countries through the Yasukuni shrine.
Many Koreans and Taiwanese were forced military conscripts – forced to fight for the Japanese during the war. 21,000 Koreans and 28,000 Taiwanese are among the enshrined war dead at the Yasukuni shrine though none of their family members were ever consulted. We do not want these 49,000 victims who were forcibly conscripted 
into Japan’s military during World War II to be worshiped as “Japanese war heroes” when they were in fact victims of kidnapping and murder.
Now, today, we are declareing the a start of an international solidarity action, in which all conscientious people of the world will work together for human rights and peace. In our tour of LA, NY, and DC, we will inform the public about the uncivilized and barbaric aspects of the Yasukuni Shrine. We request your participation and support in this Anti-Yasukuni campaign.
(November 2007)
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