
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 30, 1994                   TAG: 9411300057
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: KANCHANABURI, THAILAND                                 LENGTH: Medium

JAPANESE WEEP OVER ATROCITIES

116,000 PEOPLE DIED building the "death railway" for the Japanese Imperial Army. Fifty years later, some Japanese veterans returned and expressed their shame.

Japanese veterans of World War II wept tears of shame Tuesday upon learning how 116,000 people died at the hands of their Imperial Army while building the ``death railway.''

They walked the span crossing the River Kwai - a small portion of the 258 miles of track that Japanese troops forced more than 260,000 Allied prisoners and Asian slave laborers to cut through thick, malarial jungles.

And they paid respects at cemeteries where 16,000 Allied prisoners are buried alongside more than 100,000 Asian laborers. The victims died of disease, malnutrition, execution and torture during the 1942-43 construction of the railroad, a strategic link between Thailand and Burma.

``What we did, the Japanese should not have done,'' said Yoshio Fukuzawa, 74, weeping before hundreds of headstones. ``I had no idea what happened here.''

Fukuzawa, who served in a transportation unit in China during the war, learned about his army's atrocities in this western Thai province during the ``Cycle for Peace.'' Two dozen Japanese veterans from a variety of professions are riding their bicycles on a tour of atonement.

They were met at one cemetery by a former British prisoner of war, Trevor Dakin, 74, who moved to Kanchanaburi eight years ago.

Dakin, a naturalized Canadian who lived in Ontario, broke down after telling the Japanese of his 31/2 years of abuse under their army. All around him were the graves of Americans, Australians, Britons, Dutch and New Zealanders, some marked simply: ``A Soldier of the 1939-1945 War. Known unto God.''

He recalled walking the same stretch of land to bury the dead decades ago.

Japan has yet to offer a proper apology for the suffering and provide compensation to the victims and their families, he said.

``Now is the time to make this moral reparation,'' Dakin told the Japanese. ``And until you do ... we will never forget, and we will never forgive.''

Tears welled up in the eyes of some of the Japanese, several of whom grabbed his hand to apologize.

by CNB