The fallacy by a senior Japanese official denying the just sentence on Japanese Class-A war criminals by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) after World War II is a serious infringement on human conscience.

Masahiro Morioka, Japanese parliamentary secretary for health, labor and welfare, made the fallacy Wednesday at a meeting of multi-party lawmakers in Tokyo, saying "what tribunal was the IMTFE? Both sides do wrong in a war. It is erroneous to label only countries that won as right and nations that lost as wrong."

Morioka himself is also aware the widely known fact that the 14 Class-A Japanese war criminals, including wartime prime minister Hideki Tojo, honored at the Tokyo-based Yasukuni Shrine, are notorious for the most atrocious crimes in Japan's war of aggression.

These Class-A criminals, their hands stained with the blood of the Chinese people and other Asian peoples, played a key militarist role in Japan's aggression against the victim countries and committed flagitious crimes against the peoples of the countries. It is intolerable to exonerate these Class-A criminals from their crimes.

Although the Japanese government official is dare to challenge the IMTFE sentence, attempting to exonerate the convicted criminals and whitewash the country's militarism aggression against Asian neighbors, history can never be tampered and the indisputable evidence can never be covered up by flagitious lies.

Shortly after Morioka made the fallacy, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had to clarify his stance that Morioka's remarks are different from the Japanese government's position as it has accepted IMTFE's sentence on the Class-A war criminals. The prime minister also warned that Morioka "should be aware of his position " as an official in a key post of the government.

Morioka's fallacy is not an incidental event.

Koizumi has paid once a year to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine since he took office in 2001 and made chicanery that other nations should not interfere Japan on the issue of honoring the war dead. Koizumi's remarks and actions no doubt connive with the right wing views trying to deny Japan's aggression history and whitewash war criminals.

Recently, such fallacies have become rampant among a few senior government officials, including the Education, Science and Technology Minister Nariaki Nakayama who denies existence of " comfort women" and the Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura who denies existence of war-whitewashing textbook in Japan.

However, Morioka's fallacy, as well as other right-wing remarks, has been strongly protested by the people of the world, particularly China, South Korea and other Asian countries which suffered from Japanese aggression war.

Meanwhile, the fallacies have been slashed by Japanese people for justice and peace. Two prestigious lawyers Oyama Hiroshi and Tsuchiya Kohken pointed out in a joint statement that it is intolerable for Japanese government to allow a senior official to make the flagrant denial on IMTFE's justice and attempt to exonerate war criminal.

According to the Potsdam Proclamation, the Class-A war criminals had deserved their punishment. Japan's enshrinement of the criminals as "spirit of hero" in the Yasukuni Shrine severely violates the principle of the Potsdam Proclamation, they emphasized.

As a widely known fact, IMTFE's sentence on Japanese war criminals has thorough law base and is just, legitimate and authoritative. The legal virtues of the sentence, after detailed and strict court ruling process, have been recognized by the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation, Japan's capitulation in 1945 and other international documents.

The fallacies and actions of the Japanese statesmen attempting to distort history and whitewash aggression atrocities have deteriorated Japan's relations with Asian neighboring countries. If they insist on their stance on history issues, it will further hurt the heart of peoples from war victim nations.

Japan's issue is in fact a matter of facing squarely to the history. It is a must for Japan to make deep remorse over the history of aggression and treat with history issues with a correct view, which will help Japan gain trust from its Asian neighbors that suffered dearly from Japan's wartime atrocities.

Source: Xinhua