Criticism
According to Japanese tabulation, 5,700 Japanese individuals were indicted for Class B and Class C war crimes. Of this number, 984 were initially condemned to death; 475 received life sentences; 2,944 were given more limited prison terms; 1,018 were acquitted; and 279 were never brought to trial or not sentenced. The number of death sentences by country is as follows: the Netherlands 236, Great Britain 223, Australia 153, China 149, US 140, France 26, and Philippines 17. The Soviet Union and Chinese Communist forces also held trials for Japanese war criminals.
The Khabarovsk War Crime Trials, held by the Soviets, tried and found guilty some members of Japan's bacteriological and chemical warfare unit (Unit 731). However, those who surrendered to the Americans were never brought to trial. As Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, MacArthur gave immunity to Shiro Ishii and all members of the bacteriological research units in exchange for germ warfare data based on human experimentation. On May 6, 1947, he wrote to Washington that "additional data, possibly some statements from Ishii probably can be obtained by informing Japanese involved that information will be retained in intelligence channels and will not be employed as "War Crimes" evidence." The deal was concluded in 1948.
In 1981 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published an article by John W. Powell detailing Unit 731 experiments and germ warfare open-air tests on civilian populations. It was printed with a statement by Judge B. V. A. Röling, the last surviving member of the Tokyo Tribunal. Röling wrote that "As one of the judges in the International Military Tribunal, it is a bitter experience for me to be informed now that centrally ordered Japanese war criminality of the most disgusting kind was kept secret from the Court by the U.S. government."
Read more about this topic: International Military Tribunal For The Far East
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Cubism had been an analysis of the object and an attempt to put it before us in its totality; both as analysis and as synthesis, it was a criticism of appearance. Surrealism transmuted the object, and suddenly a canvas became an apparition: a new figuration, a real transfiguration.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“Nothing would improve newspaper criticism so much as the knowledge that it was to be read by men too hardy to acquiesce in the authoritative statement of the reviewer.”
—Richard Holt Hutton (1826–1897)
“It is the will of God that we must have critics, and missionaries, and Congressmen, and humorists, and we must bear the burden. Meantime, I seem to have been drifting into criticism myself. But that is nothing. At the worst, criticism is nothing more than a crime, and I am not unused to that.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)