Subject: [cwj 138] Mitsubishi Heavy Sued for Forced Labor
From: Corporate Watch in Japanese <cwj@corpwatch.org>
Date: Thu, 07 Dec 2000 14:08:04 -0800
Seq: 138
South Koreans sue the state, MHI for wartime forced labor The Japan Times: Dec. 7, 2000 NAGOYA (Kyodo) A group of South Koreans filed suit Wednesday against the Japanese government and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., demanding 90 million yen in compensation for labor they were forced to perform during the war. Kim Song Ju, 71, Kim Bok Rye, 71, and Kim Jung Gon, 76, the brother of Kim Sun Rye, who was forced to work at age 14, filed the lawsuit with the Nagoya District Court, demanding an apology in addition to compensation for forced labor at an MHI plant in Nagoya. They are part of a group of forced laborers from South Korea who have filed two suits with the district court against the government and MHI. Five other South Korean women filed the other suit. In the latest case, the plaintiffs said the three women were forced to work at the MHI spinning factory, where Kim Sun Rye died when the factory collapsed in the wake of the Tonankai earthquake of December 1944. According to the suit, the three were taken to Japan by June 1944 after being told they would be paid and could attend school while working for MHI. Korea was under Japanese colonial rule at the time. But they were forced to toil under miserable conditions -- there was little food and they were not even paid minimum wage, the suit says. Kim Song Ju claims she lost part of her finger while working for the firm because safety standards at the plant were nonexistent. Kim Jung Gon meanwhile said the government and MHI are responsible for his sister's death because the plant's collapse was caused by the structure being weakened when it was converted into a military aircraft factory during the war. The suit came a week after a court-mediated settlement was reached in a 5-year-old lawsuit filed against Kajima Corp. by Chinese survivors of wartime forced labor at a mining site operated by its predecessor, Kajima-gumi, in the town of Odate, Akita Prefecture. Kajima agreed to set up a 500 million yen fund to compensate the 11 surviving victims, who had participated in an uprising toward the end of the war against cruel working conditions and torture. The case marked the fourth major lawsuit against Japanese companies that used forced labor during the war, following those filed against Nippon Steel Corp., NKK Corp. and Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp. Last week's case against Kajima was the first involving Chinese victims. The three other firms have already settled their disputes with Korean forced laborers. The uprising, known as the Hanaoka Incident, occurred on June 20, 1945. Five Japanese mining supervisors were killed amid the rioting, and in retaliation, 113 Chinese laborers were subsequently tortured to death. Of the 986 Chinese workers taken to the Hanaoka mine to engage in related construction work between August 1944 and June 1945, 418 are said to have died there by December 1945, including those killed after the riot. FAIR USE NOTICE. This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Corporate Watch in Japanese is making this article available in our efforts to advance understanding of ecological sustainability, human rights, economic democracy and social justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. ------------------------------------- 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 ______________________