PRINTER'S NO. 1965
No. 174 Session of 2000
INTRODUCED BY HART, WAUGH, ARMSTRONG, BOSCOLA AND DENT,
MAY 15, 2000
REFERRED TO INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, MAY 15, 2000
A RESOLUTION
1 Expressing concern for the war crimes committed by the Japanese
2 military during World War II.
3 WHEREAS, Our nation is founded on democratic principles that
4 recognize the vigilance with which fundamental individual human
5 rights must be safeguarded in order to preserve freedom; and
6 WHEREAS, Our nation must condemn all violations of the
7 international law designed to safeguard fundamental human rights
8 as embodied in the Geneva and Hague Conventions; and
9 WHEREAS, The 33,587 members of the armed forces of the United
10 States and 13,966 United States civilians who were captured by
11 the Japanese military in the Pacific Theater during World War II
12 were confined in brutal prison camps and subjected to severe
13 shortages of food, medicine and other basic necessities; and
14 WHEREAS, Many of the United States military and civilian
15 prisoners of the Japanese military during World War II were
16 subjected to forced labor, starved and beaten to death or
17 summarily executed by beheading, firing squads or immolation;
1 and
2 WHEREAS, The Japanese military invaded Nanking, China, from
3 December 1937 through February 1938, during a period known as
4 the "Rape of Nanking" and slaughtered by some accounts 300,000
5 Chinese men, women and children, and raped more than 20,000
6 women; and
7 WHEREAS, The people of Guam and the Marshall Islands were
8 subjected to acts of violence, including forced labor and
9 marches, and imprisonment by the Japanese military during its
10 occupation of these islands from 1941 through 1944; and
11 WHEREAS, Three-fourths of the population in Port Blair,
12 Andaman Islands, were exterminated by Japanese troops between
13 March 1942 and the end of World War II; and
14 WHEREAS, At the February 1945 Battle of Manila, 100,000 men,
15 women and children were killed by Japanese armed forces; and
16 WHEREAS, Japanese occupation of the Philippines began in
17 December 1941 and ended in August 1945; and
18 WHEREAS, The Japanese military enslaved millions of Koreans
19 during World War II and forced hundreds of thousands of women
20 into sexual slavery for Japanese troops; and
21 WHEREAS, International jurists in Geneva, Switzerland, ruled
22 in 1993 that women who were forced to be sexual slaves of the
23 Japanese military during World War II, referred to as comfort
24 women, deserve at least $400,000 each as compensation for their
25 extreme pain and suffering; and
26 WHEREAS, The Government of Germany has formally apologized to
27 the victims of the Holocaust and has gone to great lengths to
28 provide financial compensation to the victims and to provide for
29 their needs and recovery; and
30 WHEREAS, The Government of Japan has refused to fully
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1 acknowledge the crimes it committed during World War II and to
2 provide reparations to its victims; therefore be it
3 RESOLVED, That the Senate of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
4 call upon the Congress of the United States to adopt a
5 resolution calling on the Government of Japan to issue a formal
6 apology and reparations to the victims of its war crimes during
7 World War II.
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