Subject: [cwj 125] Neglected in Life, Indian Wartime Labourer Honoured in Film
From: Corporate Watch in Japanese <cwj@corpwatch.org>
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 17:12:41 -0700
Seq: 125
Neglected in Life, Indian Wartime Labourer Honoured in Film By Suvendrini Kakuchi TOKYO, Oct 21 (IPS) - It has the same title as a Hollywood movie starring action star Clint Eastwood, but the new documentary by noted Japanese director Hideki Nakamura is hardly about some gruesome murder like the one investigated by Eastwood's character. Still, in many ways, Nakamura's 'True Crime' can be said to be about the slow death of a man who may have escaped being killed during World War II, but found himself ''sentenced'' to a life of misery in a strange land. As far as Nakamura can ascertain, Dia, the Indian hero of the documentary, travelled from his homeland to Thailand through Burma during the war, as part of a group of prisoners captured by the Japanese Imperial Army. By the time Nakamura found him decades later, he was still in Thailand, living in a rundown shack in a corner of a cotton field in the western province of Kanchanaburi. ''He kept nodding when I asked him about his work for the Japanese military,'' says the 50-year-old director, who also recorded on film a scene with Dia tracing with a finger his route through Burma to Thailand. ''After talking with several other old people in the area,'' he adds, ''I came to conclusion that he worked on the long railway that was constructed between Thailand and Burma by the Japanese army.'' That ''death'' railway was made famous by another US film, 'Bridge on the River Kwai'. Released in 1957, that movie featured the harrowing experiences of prisoners from the Allied forces who were used as forced labour to build the 415-kilometer long bridge. More than 60,000 Allied prisoners of war were reported to have worked on the railway. Of these, some 15,000 died, many of them succumbing to either malaria or harsh working conditions at the Japanese-run camps. But Nakamura thinks that the number of men rounded up from South and South-east Asia and forced to work on the railway was higher, estimating it to be around 100,000. ''Apart from Dia, I met with several old Thai men who said they had to work for the Japanese Army,'' he says. ''The reason why I decided to film was to publicise their plight that is hardly known compared to their Western counterparts.'' In fact, Nakamura's first documentary, 'Railway to Death: Those Left Behind', features some of these Asian former prisoners of war. In that 1989 film, which was shot in Thailand and the border with Burma, the men -- including Dia, an Indonesian and some Malaysians and Thais, testified how they were forced to work on the railway. Dia, however, did not speak in 'Railway to Death'. He is also mute in 'True Crime', although it is apparent that he is not deaf and can understand what people are saying to him. ''I realised that Dia could not speak because of his great loneliness and sorrow from being separated from home,'' says Nakamura. ''The situation was very depressing.'' In one scene in 'True Crime', Nakamura takes Dia to the railway site and watches intently as the 80-year-old suddenly starts to pick weeds after he crouches on the side of the railway line. Says Nakamura: ''Dia would go on doing this for hours. I realised he was doing this out of habit, which indicated that this must have been his work for several years till the end of World War II.'' After that, from what Nakamura was able to piece together, it seems that the Indian, who must have been in his late 30s to early 40s at the time, was left penniless and alone in Thailand at the end of the Pacific War. He was able to find work as a hired labourer on various farms, but there is no telling how well -- or how miserably -- he was treated. At the farm where Nakamura met him, Dia was not paid any money for attending to the fields. Instead, his labour was considered payment for his shack, some food and a few clothes. ''His only belongings was a bundle, which contained a few remnants of his past such as a military medal, a few Thai baht and some old clothes,'' recounts Nakamura. ''He was so poor he could not possibly run away.'' Nakamura, a former schoolteacher, says he heard about Dia from his Thai friends and hastened to meet the tall, reed-thin old man. Nakamura says he felt a sense of responsibility as a Japanese to do something about the Indian's plight. It is evident in 'True Crime' that the two men formed a heart- warming friendship. In some scenes, Nakamura buys his new friend clothes and food during visits, and pays Dia's Thai neighbours to look after the lonely old man. The approximately 90-minute film also shows clearly how the silent Dia comes alive when he is shown some kindness. Nakamura says 'True Crime', which is to be released soon, is a kind of epitaph for Dia and other deceased Asian wartime labourers. ''If this film is successful I would like to make a Hindi-language version,'' he says. Nakamura's first documentary was well received in Japan and attracted donations for the ex-prisoners of war from the Japanese audience. Up to now, there is still a steady stream of inquiries for private viewing of 'Railway to Death' by people who believe it is a crucial documentation of Asian forced labour. At present, Japan is grappling with several lawsuits filed by former wartime labourers. Just last July, a Japanese machine toolmaker reached a settlement with three South Koreans who served as unpaid workers for the company. A lawsuit has also been filed in Los Angeles by a former US soldier against a Japanese company, claiming that he was a victim of forced labour. (END/IPS/ap-ae/sk/ccb/js/00) ------------------------------------- Corporate Watch in Japanese Transnational Resource and Action Center (TRAC) P.O. Box 29344 San Francisco, CA 94129 USA Tel: 1-415-561-6472 Fax: 1-415-561-6493 Email: cwj@corpwatch.org URL: http://www.corpwatch-jp.org ------------------------------------- ______________________ The Corporate Watch in Japanese http://www.corpwatch.org/japan (CWJ) mailing list is a moderated email list in English designed to connect activists campaigning against Japanese corporations and investments around the world. * To unsubscribe from the CWJ mailing list, send an email to majordomo@jca.apc.org with text "unsubscribe cwj". To subscribe to the CWJ mailing list, send a message to majordomo@jca.apc.org with the text "subscribe cwj" * The CWJ mailing list is NOT intended for wide distribution. If you would like to post messages from this list somewhere else, we ask that you first contact us at cwj@corpwatch.org ______________________