Opinion

The Japanese naval transport ship Ukishimamaru was blasted on the sea off Maizuru of Japan on August 24 1945.

The ship was carrying a large number of Koreans who were on the way back to their liberated homeland as they narrowly survived the grinding toil they had been forced into after being forcibly drafted or conscripted by the Japanese imperialists.

The Japanese reactionaries were the murderers who buried at sea thousands of Koreans who were on their way home filled with joy at national liberation (August 15 1945).

At that time the Japanese militarists were so enraged by their defeat in the war that they killed Koreans in different parts of the country. In such a situation, a plot was hatched in Ominato, Japan, to massacre the Koreans who had forcibly been drafted and their families.

Soon after the end of World War II, the navigation of vessels of more than 100 tons was prohibited in the territorial waters of Japan by an order of the Allied Forces.

But with the permission and under the instruction of the Japanese government, the Ominato naval guard department took the Koreans on board Ukishimamaru of thousands of tons by appeasing and deceiving them that the ship for Pusan was the only Korea-bound vessel.

Later, the ship left the naval port of Ominato in Aomori Prefecture on the night of August 22, 1945, and did not head for its original destination Pusan, but changed its course to the waters off Maizuru Port, a naval port north of Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, and it was sunk by an explosion as soon as it arrived there.

The Japanese imperialists accommodated those who narrowly survived the explosion in the Japanese naval quarters in Maizuru and blew up a steam tank there to kill them in an attempt to cover up their crimes forever.

Immediately after the occurrence of the incident, the Japanese authorities hurriedly announced the investigation data which said that the incident was an “inevitable accident” caused by a mine laid by the US forces.

The explosion was not an accident but a deliberate murder committed by the Japanese imperialists with a cunning plan.

The truth of the incident was revealed in detail with the passage of time.

The captain and all other Japanese escaped from the ship by boat just before the explosion; there was no column of water during the explosion; and when the wreckage of the ship was pulled up from the sea in 1954, the iron plates at its bottom were bent outward. These facts and testimonies by Korean victims, Japanese and other witnesses clearly prove that the incident was a deliberate and premeditated massacre of Koreans orchestrated by the Japanese military authorities.

The incident caused by the Japanese reactionaries was aimed at killing even one more Korean out of vengeance for their defeat.

It is an obligation and legal and moral duty of a human being to apologize and compensate for his crime.

The Japanese authorities, however, are describing the incident as “accident” and claiming that they can never accept any move to seek reparation. A few years after the explosion, they lifted up and dismantled the wreckage of the ship, saying that they were going to use it as scrap iron, and thus removed even the evidence for their crimes.

The behaviour of the Japanese reactionaries who have abandoned elementary morality and ethics is further arousing hatred from the Korean people.

Though time passes, the Korean people will never forget the past crimes of the Japanese imperialists but make them pay for the crimes.