The Rape of Nanking Redress Coalition and several affiliated San Francisco Bay Area groups to demand Japan to bring proper closure to all pending WW II issues on the 60th anniversary of the end of the war (V Day) will hold a protest rally. The groups express strong objection to the repeated visit of Yasukuni Shrine to warship war criminals and promote militarism by Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his cabinet and LDP party members, and their distortion of history, denial of war responsibility, and pay compensations to the victims of Japanese wartime atrocities. The rally will begin at Potsmouth Square. Keqny and Washington Streets in San Francisco, Chinatown, at 12 noon, August 14.
Sixty years has passed since Japan unconditionally surrendered to the Allied Forces at the end of World war II, but it has never come to term with itself to fully acknowledge and face its responsibility for bringing horrendous destruction and wholesale murders of tens of millions innocent people in its neighboring nations invaded and/or colonized by its deadly Imperial Army. Instead, the high officials in the Japanese Government continue to promote revisionism, distort history and refuse to offer official apology and provide adequate compensation to its wartime victims through legislation in accordance to the Constitution of Japan. Each time, any of its national leaders, prime minister or other officials, offers a public or private apology, other Japanese cabinet or ruling party members would negate the expressed contrition by opposite actions, typically going to the Yasukuni Shrine to openly worship war criminals and glorify its past brutal expansionism.
For the last decade, Japan has gone into reverse gears to repeatedly revise the contents of the high school history textbook and trivialize or intentionally omit the numerous war crimes committed against its victims. The protesters call on Japan to dully accept its responsibility and take construction actions to bring closure to all issues if it wishes to be recognized as "a normal nation with honor" which it claims to cherish. All commitments to address the pending issues must meet international standards and be committed through national legislation.