[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 90 (Tuesday, June 26, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H3612-H3616]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PAYING HOMAGE TO A SPECIAL GROUP OF VETERANS, SURVIVORS OF BATAAN AND 
                               CORREGIDOR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shuster). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Rohrabacher) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to pay homage to a 
special group of veterans. As all vets, all World War II survivors, 
they sacrificed for their country. But this is a very special group of 
veterans, a very special group of veterans from the Second World War. 
They are special in that their fight for justice continues to this day. 
They fought for us, but their struggle goes on and goes on. Instead of 
fighting the militarists of Japan, they today are forced to fight the 
lawyers of Japanese global business giants like Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and 
Nippon Steel. Instead of battling in the jungles, they are battling in 
the courtroom.
  And the greatest irony is that instead of having the American 
government on their side, these heroic veterans find themselves arguing 
in legal battles against representatives of their own government. This 
is the story of the American survivors of Bataan and Corregidor, some 
of the most heroic of America's defenders in the Second World War. When 
they were captured, they were forced to serve as slave labor for 
private war profiteering Japanese companies. They were deprived of 
food, medicine, often even clean water. They were used as work animals 
and treated as animals. The Japanese companies that worked these 
Americans, they worked them often to death, violated the most basic 
standards of morality, decency and justice.
  But most important, these Japanese corporations violated 
international law. They were accomplices to war crimes. Some of them 
even committed those war crimes. Instead of righting wrongs and 
admitting mistakes and putting the past behind them, like many German 
companies have done, these Japanese corporations have stonewalled 
efforts to bring justice to those they wronged. And why should they not 
stonewall these American heroes? The United States State Department has 
taken their side against that of Americans who fought and gave their 
lives and put their lives on the line for the United States of America 
in the Second World War. The State Department has taken the side of our 
former enemy rather than the side of our defenders.
  Dr. Lester Tenney, a survivor of the death march in Bataan and of a 
slave labor camp says, and I quote, ``I feel as if I am once again 
being sacrificed by our government, abandoned not for the war effort as 
in the past but for the benefit of Japanese big business.''
  I believe Dr. Tenney has a point that deserves to be heard. In the 
hours following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese attacked U.S. 
installations in the Philippines. The United States forces retreated to 
the Bataan Peninsula and made their historic stand. Holding off the 
Japanese for months, they gave America time to regroup and to rally and 
to come back. Our government at one point had to make the heart-tearing 
decision to sacrifice the brave heroes of the Philippines because they 
knew they could not come to save them without causing the death of 
many, many, many more Americans in the long run and perhaps a failure 
of that operation itself. So the decision was made, yes, to abandon 
those American heroes, tens of thousands of them there in the 
Philippines. MacArthur was pulled out, he was ordered by the President 
to pull out, and our troops were left there. They were left there, as 
the song of the day went, with the battling bastards of Bataan, no 
mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam.

                              {time}  2215

  After the fall of Bataan, American and Filipino troops were forced to 
walk more than 60 miles in the infamous Bataan Death March. These were 
men that were weakened already, without food, without water, and they 
were denied any type of help along the way. Some Filipino people risked 
their lives; not only risked their lives, but gave their lives in order 
to throw little bits of water or food to these men as they marched for 
those 3 days of the Bataan Death March.
  They were beaten, and they were starved as they marched. Those who 
fell were bayonetted. Some of those who were not walking fast enough 
were beheaded by Japanese officers who were practicing with their 
samurai swords from horseback.
  The Japanese culture at that time reflected the view that any warrior 
who surrendered had no honor; thus, was not fit to be treated like a 
human being. Thus, they were not committing these crimes against human 
beings. The Japanese soldiers at that time, as was mandated and 
dictated by their culture, felt they were dealing with subhumans and 
animals.
  This is not a crime of the current Japanese generation. The Japanese 
for the past 50 years have had a strong democracy, at least for these 
last three or four decades have had a strong democracy, and the 
Japanese people are America's best friends. They have a civilized 
country, and none of them need ever to feel like any of the talk that 
is going to go on about these men receiving just compensation for what 
was done to them at Bataan and Corregidor and then later on in the 
Japanese Islands of Manchuria, the Japanese people themselves are not 
the target. We are not trying to make these people feel guilty. This 
was, after all, the culture of their day, and that culture has changed.
  America had a racist culture for many years. We had slaves in the 
last century, and the fact is that Americans corrected that. We paid an 
awful price. In the Civil War, we paid a price of hundreds of 
thousands, of millions of our own people who died trying to correct 
this evil in our society.
  The Japanese people of today who admit that their country in the past 
has done wrong need not hang their head in shame, but it will be a 
shame, and it will be a black spot on the Japanese people if these 
crimes are covered up and if wrongdoing is not admitted. That is the 
only accountability the Japanese people of today have.
  Those people and those corporations that worked these men as slaves, 
they have a legal responsibility. It is through these men who were 
wronged and worked as slaves by these Japanese corporations that still 
exist, by giving justice to these men we can close this book, and we 
can bring this chapter to a close and close this book and move on. The 
Japanese people need not feel guilty after that compensation and that 
apology is made.
  In the 3 days of the Death March, 650 to 700 Americans died. They 
died the worst possible death. Then after enduring this hell, many of 
the thousands of Americans that had survived that Death March, along 
with other American prisoners who had been taken prisoner in other 
areas of the Pacific theater, they were taken, thousands of them, in 
so-called hell ships to Japan and to Japanese-occupied territories. 
Packed into cargo holds, these POWs struggled for air, for simple air, 
in temperatures that reached 125 degrees. It is estimated that over 
4,000 American soldiers died aboard these hell ships.
  Again, the Japanese treated them like animals because at that time 
the Japanese were taught if anyone surrenders, they are no better than 
an animal because they have no honor.
  Our POWs struggled to survive the harshest conditions imaginable. 
Toiling beyond human endurance in mines, in factories, in shipyards and 
steel mills, often under extremely dangerous

[[Page H3613]]

working conditions, they were worked like animals. Company employees 
beat them and harangued them. Of course, the Japanese work force was 
all off in the army. They used these slave laborers to make sure Japan 
could conduct its war effort. In doing so, they treated these men, our 
men, our heroes, like animals, and they starved these men. They denied 
them medical care. These brave heroes, Americans, suffered from 
dysentery, scurvy, malaria, diptheria, pneumonia and many, many other 
diseases, yet they were not treated, and they were permitted to die. 
With few rations, and many rations that were simply unfit for human 
consumption, they worked and they were beaten. POWs were reduced to 
skin and bones.
  Today, many of those who survived this ordeal still suffer from 
health problems directly related and tied to that time when they were 
worked as slave laborers by the Japanese militarists. When one hears 
the survivors tell their stories, they will never forget how much we 
owe these heroic individuals.
  Frank Bigelow, 78 years old, from Brooksville, Florida, was taken 
prisoner at Corregidor. Mr. Bigelow was shipped to Japan, where he 
performed forced labor in a coal mine owned and operated by Mitsui. 
``We were told to work or die,'' Mr. Bigelow recalls. Injured in a 
mining accident, Mr. Bigelow had to have his infected broken leg 
amputated by a fellow POW. That leg was amputated without anesthetic. 
At war's end, though standing 6'4'', Mr. Bigelow weighed 95 pounds.
  Lester Tenney, 80 years old, of La Jolla, California, became a 
prisoner of war with the fall of Bataan on April 9, 1942. He was a 
prisoner of the Japanese, and he survived the Bataan Death March but 
was then transported to Japan aboard a hell ship. In Japan, he was sold 
by the Japanese Government to Mitsui and forced to labor 12 hours a 
day, 28 days a month, in a Mitsui coal mine. ``The reward I received 
for this hard labor was beatings by the civilian workers at that 
mine,'' he said. They worked him, and they beat him, and they treated 
him like an animal.
  These are just a couple of the stories. The horrors they suffered at 
the hands of profit-making Japanese corporations can fill the pages of 
a book and, in fact, have filled the pages of many books.
  Their case is clear. The facts cannot be denied. Their claims should 
not be dismissed or explained away, and their cause should be the cause 
of all American patriots, and especially should be the cause of the 
American Government, which they defended with their lives.
  What makes all of this more difficult to understand is why the State 
Department refuses to assist these heroic veterans. It is hard to 
fathom why the State Department was willing to help facilitate the 
claims of victims of Nazi Germany but not these victims of militarist 
Japan.
  Certainly the Germans committed atrocities during the war. Nazi 
Germany was a place of horrors, and the German people have admitted it 
and tried to make good and tried to bring justice to these claims, and 
we have backed them up. We have backed them up because it is the right 
thing to do. We have backed up those people making the claims, and we 
have encouraged the Germans to move forward in this way.
  There is no reason on God's Earth, there is no reason in the cause of 
patriotism and honor, that our government should not be assisting those 
Americans that were used as slave laborers by the Japanese 
corporations. These American heroes who survived the Bataan Death 
March, these heroes were worked nearly to death by these Japanese 
corporations. There is no reason that we should not be with them 100 
percent.
  Instead, they fight a lonely battle. The lawyers for the State 
Department are allying themselves with these war profiteers in Tokyo 
against the Americans they victimized. The best legalese they can 
muster is being used to undercut the claims of our American heroes. 
They are erroneously claiming that the peace treaty with Japan bars 
these veteran heroes from making these claims against these Japanese 
corporations that used them as slave labor.
  It is wrong, and it is utter nonsense, for a number of reasons. 
First, as the State Department has elsewhere conceded, the waiver 
claims of U.S. private citizens against the private companies of 
another country is not merely unprecedented in the history of the 
United States, it is not recognized under international law and raises 
serious constitutional issues under the fifth amendment.
  What that means is that it is unprecedented that the United States is 
claiming that our own citizens cannot sue another company in another 
country, especially when there are human rights violations involved and 
international violations of law. This is unprecedented that we are 
saying that our people cannot even make a suit.

  So it might violate the very Constitution, the constitutional rights 
of these heroic Americans who defended our country, who gave the 
greatest sacrifice, nearly gave their own lives, but saw many of their 
friends and loved ones give their lives. It could well be, and I 
believe that it is true, that this is a violation of their 
constitutional rights to seek legal redress for acts and crimes against 
them by these very same Japanese corporations.
  Let us again remember, these Japanese corporations are the very same 
corporations that existed in World War II. They are corporate entities. 
As long as they themselves exist, we are not asking for some type of 
legal right to sue the Japanese Government, but those corporations have 
legal responsibilities as corporations. They have the responsibilities, 
just as individuals do, to pay for their crimes.
  Second, if we take a close look at the history of the 1951 treaty, it 
reveals that negotiators considered treaty language which would have 
permitted POW lawsuits against Japanese companies that had exploited 
them. That reference, I might add, was deleted from the final draft at 
the demand of other allied powers who had made that agreement with the 
U.S. delegation. So that was part of the original language that they 
were going to get the right to sue.
  In the end, the bottom line is this: Our POWs do not have a right to 
sue the Japanese Government. That is true. And the Japanese people do 
not have a right to sue the American Government, but certainly these 
corporations are responsible. Just as the individual Japanese who 
committed war crimes, heinous war crimes, were responsible, and those 
war crimes, many of them were executed, these Japanese corporations 
have an obligation to those people who they wronged to compensate them, 
yet our government is taking the other side.
  I think it is fascinating to note that many more German war criminals 
were executed and brought to justice than were their Japanese 
counterparts.

                              {time}  2030

  Yet, the Japanese were clearly involved with criminal activity, with 
war crimes, on a massive scale, and especially against the Chinese 
people and against the Americans and Brits who fought against the 
Japanese and were captured early in the war. Why is this? Obviously we 
felt that Japan might be in danger of instability after the war and 
during the Cold War might go communist. That is clearly the reason this 
happened.
  The Cold War is over. It is time now for justice, at the very least 
justice for our own people. It is time that the Japanese corporations 
who committed these crimes at the very least offer an apology and 
compensation to those Americans who survived the Bataan Death March and 
were worked as slaves and saw their fellow countrymen gunned down and 
die of starvation. The very least these heroes deserve is some type of 
justice for their claims before they die of old age. We deserve to 
stand with them, and their government should stand with them. It is a 
shame for our government to be on the side of the enemy which these 
heroes fought.
  The treaty we are talking about also includes a clause which 
automatically and unconditionally extends to the Allied powers many 
more favorable terms granted to Japan than any other claim settlements. 
Japan has entered into the war claims settlements with the Soviet 
Union, for example, and Burma, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and the 
Netherlands and others.
  Thus, what we have here by this treaty we are talking about are other 
Allied powers, other countries in the world, have a right to sue, and 
there have been settlements, claim settlements, with the Soviet Union, 
people from Russia, Burma, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands 
and others. Yet these same rights to allow the

[[Page H3614]]

people from other countries to pursue their claims against the Japanese 
corporations are not being extended to the United States and our 
nationals.
  What is that all about? Why is that? There should be no waiver 
provision that waives the rights of American citizens to use their 
constitutional rights in court to seek justice when they were treated 
in this way, when criminal acts were taken against them.
  We side with other countries' rights, but not with the rights of the 
heroes of Bataan and the heroes who held the ground, who stood tall and 
gave us the chance to regroup and to organize and to come back and 
defeat the enemy that threatened the world.
  The United States State Department has no answer to these legal 
questions. On the public record to date they simply ignore them or 
obfuscate the facts.
  Two weeks ago, on Fox News Sunday, Colin Powell, our Secretary of 
State, promised to review the State Department's erroneous and 
unyielding stand against our heroes, our World War II heroes' right to 
sue their Japanese tormentors, their Japanese corporate tormentors. He 
provided hope to the survivors that justice will be served.
  But I have yet to hear anything else from our Secretary of State. I 
would hope that Secretary of State Colin Powell, a man of deep feeling, 
a man of great honor who served in our military, but also served his 
country so well in so many capacities, I hope that the bureaucrats in 
the State Department do not get to him and have him analyze this 
situation with a bureaucratic approach that would just put off and put 
off and put off any type of action until all of these heroes die of old 
age and are taken by God.
  This would be the gravest injustice of all. And those bureaucrats at 
the State Department, who never want to rock the boat, oh, we cannot 
rock the boat with Japan, well, the Cold War is over and we can rock 
the boat anywhere in the world. When Americans who have committed this 
type of heroism, Americans who are that solid and those people who gave 
so much for us, when they are being wronged, we can rock the boat 
anywhere in the world to see that they obtain justice.
  I hope that Colin Powell, Secretary of State Powell, sees through 
this bureaucratic maze that has been constructed and been used to 
thwart justice for these survivors of the Bataan Death March. I hope he 
sees through that, and I hope he listens to his heart and his 
patriotism.
  We have another opportunity. I hope Colin Powell acts, but we also 
have another opportunity. In a few days a new Japanese prime minister 
will be coming to the United States. Again, let me say that in no way 
do I hold the Japanese people of today guilty for the war crimes of 
their ancestors. However, those corporations that existed in that day, 
60 years ago, those corporations that committed those crimes are legal 
entities that bear the legal burden of what their corporations did 60 
years ago.
  But when we talk to the new Japanese prime minister and we welcome 
him, we should be welcoming him as a friend, and we should be talking 
to the Japanese people as our friends. What I say tonight is not meant 
in any way to be a slap at the Japanese people.

  For the last few decades, by the way, the only Japanese American in 
this body, I guess maybe there are two Japanese Americans in this body, 
but one of the two Japanese Americans in this body is the coauthor of 
this legislation that I have brought forth to try to bring justice to 
these American POWs. He is not about to insult the Japanese people, 
just as I mean no insult, and none of us involved in this do.
  The Japanese people are good friends of ours. I have many good 
friends in Japan. I lived in Japan as a young boy. The Japanese people 
now are an honorable people. Some of them are trying to cover up the 
mistakes, but the most honorable way to go forward is admit mistakes 
have been made, bring justice about, make an apology, if necessary, and 
then just move on. That is the way to handle it.
  But, instead, our government has been playing a game, playing a game 
with these very same Japanese corporations that committed these crimes. 
When the Japanese prime minister comes this week, many people are 
hoping that this issue does not come up. The diplomats are hoping that 
it is not to be an issue addressed at the summit. They believe that 
this issue should be swept under the rug, and we should keep just 
stirring the pot and trying to keep this situation confused until it 
goes away. And ``goes away,'' do you know what ``goes away'' means? It 
means those heroic men who gave their lives and sacrificed so much, 
those heroic men of the Bataan Death March, who served as POWs, our 
most heroic soldiers of World War II, that they are dead. That is when 
this ``goes away.'' That is what our State Department is waiting for.
  Well, the rest of us perhaps have a greater and a higher standard 
than that, and a higher appreciation of what that generation, that 
World War II generation, did for us, and we are not about to stir the 
pot. We are working now to have justice for these men, and it should be 
an issue at the summit with a new Japanese prime minister.
  And it will go away. It will go away when our heroes from the Bataan 
Death March and the Japanese slave labor camps and the mines and the 
Japanese war machines and the corporations that worked our people to 
death, when they compensate our heroes and apologize, it is over, and 
it will be done, and the book will be closed. But it will not be until 
then.
  Of the more than 36,000 American soldiers who were captured by the 
Japanese, only 21,000 made it home. The death rate for American POWs 
was 30 times greater in Japanese prison camps than in German prison 
camps. Let me repeat that: The death rates for American POWs were 30 
times greater in Japanese prison camps than in German prison camps.
  Even though Japanese companies profited from slave labor, these 
companies have never offered an apology or repayment. Perhaps they were 
being counseled. Maybe they were being counseled by our State 
Department. Maybe they were being counseled by lobbyists in this city. 
Maybe they were being counseled by people whose advice they sought and 
paid for.
  Just like with some of the things going on with China today, what we 
have unfortunately seen is that some Americans, many Americans, can be 
bought off. Can be bought off? Can you imagine this? Can you imagine 
someone taking a fee from a Japanese corporation and telling them how 
not to apologize and not to give compensation to a survivor of the 
Bataan Death March, to the greatest of America's heroes? Oh, yes, there 
are people like that in Washington, D.C. Yes, there are.
  Today there are fewer than 5,400 surviving former Japanese POWs. 
These survivors are pushing for justice; not just for themselves, but 
also for their widows and the families of those POWs who died 
prematurely due to the horrible conditions that they lived under while 
they were enslaved by these Japanese corporations.
  The POWs finally have a chance, however, to win justice, but they 
should not and they cannot be abandoned once again by their government. 
These men were abandoned in 1942 by a decision by our government that 
our government had to make, and there were many tears, I am sure by 
those commanders who had to make that decision and say that these tens 
of thousands of Americans will be permitted to be taken, captured by 
the Japanese, and they were abandoned.
  We will not abandon them again. If we do, if we permit this to 
happen, shame on us. As I say, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Honda), a Japanese American, I might say that he himself was interned 
during World War II as a Japanese American, he is coauthor of this 
bill. It is called the Justice for United States POWs Act of 2001. The 
bill number is H.R. 1198. I will repeat that. The bill is ``The Justice 
for United States POWs act of 2001,'' and the number is H.R. 1198.
  My name is Dana Rohrabacher. I am a Republican from California. I am 
the author of that bill. The coauthor of that bill is a Democrat from 
California, the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda). The gentleman 
from California (Mr. Honda) and I have put a great deal of time and 
effort into this legislation, and I commend my over 100 colleagues who 
have signed on as cosponsors and supporters of this legislation. I 
would urge my fellow colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. Speaker, I agree with those who say that Japan is a great 
strategic ally

[[Page H3615]]

of the United States; but a true friendship requires friends to speak 
out when there has been an insult or an injustice. And friends must 
join together to address that injustice. A true friendship can only 
exist when apologies have been made and wrongs have been righted, when 
the wrongs have been corrected and recognized.
  We are asking the Japanese people to be our friends, and they are our 
friends. Nothing damages our relationship with Japan more than the 
cold-hearted and unjustified refusal of these multinational 
corporations, acting with the support of the Japanese government, to 
make sure that our American hero veterans do not receive the 
compensation and the apologies that they deserve.

                              {time}  2245

  These POWs have asked for back pay, back pay, for a time when they 
were used as slave labor, and they are asking for an apology. What 
American could be opposed to that? I would ask, what Japanese person 
could oppose that? This would be a sign of good faith, and I would hope 
that this administration would counsel to the new Japanese Prime 
Minister, I hope Secretary of State Powell and President Bush counsel 
the Japanese Prime Minister to take a look at this bill and to reach 
out to the American people and to close this sad chapter. This issue 
must be addressed, and our State Department should hang its head in 
shame if it continues to try to undermine the efforts of these American 
POWs.
  Mr. Speaker, I have been asked often why I am personally involved in 
this issue? Why I, along with the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Honda), worked and wrote the U.S. POW Act of 2001, H.R. 1198, and it 
really is a very personal issue with me, a very personal issue. Mr. 
Speaker, at this time in my life, I am a very happy person. I am 
serious about the work I do here, but I am a very, very happy person. 
Three and a half years ago I was married after about 15 years of being 
a single man, and I found the woman that I love, and it was a wonderful 
thing. And when we were married 3\1/2\ years ago, my wife's father had 
passed away, he died of cancer about 6 years ago; and of course, 
someone had to give her away at the wedding, and her own father had 
died of cancer. Giving her away at the wedding, my wife, Rhonda's, 
Uncle Lou, Great Uncle Lou gave her away. That is the first time I ever 
had a chance to get to meet Uncle Lou.
  Uncle Lou is not this man's real name, but everyone calls him Uncle 
Lou. His friends call him Lou. Uncle Lou's real name is Arthur 
Campbell, Army Air Corps, 1941. Uncle Lou was unfortunate enough to 
have been stationed in the Philippines shortly before the war broke out 
and was captured by the Japanese and survived the Bataan Death March, 
the horrific death march. He was then taken on a hell ship to Mukden, 
which is a prison labor camp in Manchuria. Every day he would see his 
fellow prisoners murdered, beaten and tortured; scientific 
experimentation was conducted on these men and other prisoners. This 
was what Uncle Lou survived.
  Uncle Lou was a strapping young man who, by the time he was freed at 
the end of the war, was under 100 pounds. As I say, we call him Uncle 
Lou because Uncle Lou was called by his Japanese guards as, this man 
must be Lucifer, because he is so defiant. He was lucky to have 
survived at all with a defiant attitude, and all of the rest of the 
prisoners kept calling him Lou at that point, and he adopted the name. 
Uncle Lou told me about what happened to him, and I met with some of 
the fellow prisoners that served with him in the prison camp at Mukden. 
The stories will just tear your heart out.
  We cannot permit Uncle Lou and the Uncle Lous of this world to go 
without justice. Uncle Lou will not live forever. Uncle Lou is in his 
80s right now, and he has had a pacemaker put in; and the fact is that 
when he breathes his last breath and he takes a look around him, I want 
him to know that his country has done justice by him. I think every 
American should make that a goal, that the Uncle Lous of this world, 
that we do right by them, whether they are the survivors of the Bataan 
Death March or the other people who fought for this country during the 
Second World War.
  As Tom Brokaw says, this truly was the greatest generation; and we 
insult them, we do them a grave injustice, we trash their sacrifice by 
having our own government involved with legal wrangling to try to 
prevent their claims against these Japanese corporations that use them 
as slave labor. This is sinful. We cannot permit it to go on. We must 
do this before these people leave the scene. We must honor them.

  My father was also a veteran, a combat veteran of World War II. My 
father was a Marine pilot. He passed away 3 years ago. I looked into 
his trunk after he died and out came the Japanese battle flags and the 
memorabilia from World War II, and it seems that my father too fought 
in the Philippines. He was one of the pilots, Marine pilots that flew 
up and down the Philippines during the effort to recapture the 
Philippines from the Japanese in 1944.
  He passed away 3 years ago. I remember him telling me quite often 
about his experiences, and let me just say I am very proud of my father 
and I am proud of the things he did. But he harbored no grudges against 
the Japanese. He fought with the Japanese, he had Japanese battle flags 
in his trunk; but he had many Japanese friends, and I have many 
Japanese friends as well. Please, no one should take this as an attack 
on the Japanese people, and I repeat that again. The Japanese people 
have tried to leave that part of their culture behind that had them 
treat men and women as they did. They know that heinous crimes were 
committed against the Chinese people, and they know that men who gave 
up and surrendered and were treated like animals, they know that; and 
they have left that behind.
  They are trying to build a civilized society, a society of 
technology, a society of tolerance in Japan. They are trying to do 
that. We should help them do that by getting this behind us. We have 
our own haunts, our own ghosts in our past; and we too have tried to 
leave them behind us. We too have tried to say that we are going to not 
treat people in an unjust way, as we have in our society in the past.
  So let us not look at this as a condemnation of the Japanese. I am 
sure the Japanese people, the younger ones in particular, understand 
that there is no malice in our hearts. We wish nothing but success for 
the Japanese. Our economies are tied together. America cannot have a 
strong economy unless the Japanese economy begins to pick up and has a 
strong economy. We are tied together with the Japanese, and they were 
our enemies. Perhaps that is one of the greatest aspects of America, is 
our ability to forgive. But we have got to be asked for forgiveness. 
The people who have been wronged, the Japanese corporations that did 
this to our people, have to give some compensation to those men they 
wronged. This is not an unreasonable request.
  Finally, let me say this about the Philippines. The Philippines and 
the Filipino people are perhaps the best friends of the United States 
in the Pacific, maybe the best friends of the United States in the 
whole world. They like us, and we should like them. They are in a bad 
situation right now too. They are in a very bad situation.
  Just as the Japanese militarists sought to dominate Asia and the 
Pacific during the 1920s and 1930s, there is another power on the 
march, another militaristic power that threatens the stability of the 
world and is an enemy to all free governments. Its militarism and 
expansion are alarming. Just like the Japanese Government, this 
government has wiped out its democratic opposition. They are expanding, 
just like this government of the 1920s and 1930s, this current 
government that threatens the Philippines and threatens all democratic 
countries in that region, are trying to expand into island bases in 
which they will be used as power bases to assert their authority and 
power in given areas of the Pacific. We can see that now in the 
Spratley Islands, and we can see it in the Paracale Islands, we can see 
it throughout the South China Sea.
  This power that seeks to dominate the world today, or dominate Asia 
today is as racist as the Japanese were racist back in the 1920s and 
1930s. They felt they were racially superior. The Japanese people do 
not believe that anymore; they want to be part of the family of 
nations. They have discarded that, but they had to lose the war to 
discard that. We liberated the Japanese

[[Page H3616]]

people, just like we liberated the Philippines from Japanese 
militarism. We liberated the Japanese people the same, but today this 
other militaristic power is on the march. They too are racist, they are 
expansionary, they are militaristic, and they too understand that only 
the United States of America stands in their way, and that the 
Philippines is a friend of the United States of America.

  I am talking about, of course, the Communist Chinese. I am talking 
about the People's Republic of China, which is now engaged today in 
military naval exercises off the coast of the Philippines. This is an 
alarming piece of news.
  The security of the Pacific was won and the peace of the Pacific was 
won and the freedom of the Pacific was won by the blood and the 
sacrifice of American military personnel during the Second World War. 
People like Lou, my father and Uncle Lou. We cannot permit the Chinese 
Communists to expand their domain and to take over where the Japanese 
militarists left off.
  During the 1930s, the Japanese sank a U.S. patrol boat, the Panay, 
U.S.S. Panay, killing several of the people on board. A Chinese 
jetfighter knocks one of our planes out of the air several months ago 
while it was on a routine mission in international waters, knocking it 
out of the air, and they took 24 American military personnel and held 
them as hostages for 11 days. Things are getting worse with China and 
in the Pacific. We must do justice to those people who fought in the 
Pacific by ensuring that the Pacific remains free, remains prosperous 
and at peace; and today, there are ominous clouds on the horizon. Yet 
as things get worse, as they were getting worse in Japan, corporate 
America still demands on doing business as usual with the Communist 
Chinese.
  It is very similar, as we have heard so often quoted, where it is 
deja vu all over again; and I am afraid that this is a very frightening 
deja vu. The Japanese in the 1930s were insisting that America continue 
to sell them scrap metal and oil and aerospace, or I should say 
aeroplane, because there was not any ``space'' with it in that day, 
aeronautic technology. Many of the Japanese aircraft that fought 
against us in World War II actually were designed and were at least 
partially designed by American manufacturers. The scrap metal and the 
oil that was used to fuel their war mission can be traced back to the 
United States. Corporate America was willing to close its eyes to the 
threat that faced us in the Pacific back in the 1920s and 1930s, just 
as corporate America is trying to close our eyes today to the threat of 
Communist China.
  Mr. Speaker, we do not, we do not do justice to those who defended us 
in the Second World War by going for short-term profit in the mainland 
of China, letting these big corporations make billions of dollars off 
their slave labor, while those Chinese Communists are using their 
profit from that company to build up their military, which some day 
will perhaps kill Americans. We have already had, we have already had a 
transfer of rocket technology to the Communist Chinese that makes our 
country so much more vulnerable to a possible nuclear attack.
  It is frightening to think that American corporations, and the Cox 
Commission outlined how Lorell Corporation was selling technology that 
improved the accuracy and the capabilities of Chinese rockets.

                              {time}  2300

  There are American aerospace firms improving the capabilities and 
accuracy of Chinese rockets so that they could evaporate tens of 
millions of Americans if we get into a conflict with them.
  I do not want to have any conflict with the Chinese people. I do not 
want to have any conflict with China at all. War is horrible. I know. 
My father had told me and Uncle Lou's tales are very vivid.
  These people who we are trying to find justice for tonight, they 
certainly know how horrible war is. We do not want to have that. But 
the quickest way to have conflict is to seem to grovel before dictators 
and militarists, and that is what the Japanese knew of the United 
States before World War II and the Chinese Communists think the same 
thing of us today.
  They think that we have no honor, because our own corporate leaders 
sell out the national security interests of our country for short-term 
profit. No wonder they are treating us as a degenerate culture.
  We must stand firm. We must stand firm for the security of our 
country, and we must stand firm to keep our country a leader, a leader 
for world peace, yes, but also a leader for democracy throughout the 
world.
  We must be the friend of the Japanese people, because they want 
democracy and we liberated them from their militarists, but we also 
must be the friend of the Chinese people. The Chinese people live in 
oppression, we must free them from the militarists that oppress them 
and are threatening the peace of the world.
  If we do so, countries like the Philippines who are struggling now, 
they have no weapons that can deter the Chinese naval exercises that 
are violating their territorial waters right off their shore.
  The Chinese grab of the Spratley Islands and the vast mineral 
resources, under those islands that should belong to the Philippines, 
but instead the Chinese are permitted to, through aggression and 
militarism, to steal that from the Philippine person, but they do not 
have the means to defend themself.
  We should make sure, and I am very proud that I included in the State 
Department authorization this year a provision that permits us to 
provide obsolete weapons and the other type of gear that we would be 
mothballing from the American military that we can provide it to the 
Philippines, just as if we are providing it to any NATO ally.
  So we increased the Philippines to their status in terms of receiving 
weapons from the United States up to a NATO ally status.
  We must be strong and stand with the people who love freedom, whether 
it be the people of the Philippines or the people of Japan or the 
people of China against their own oppressors. We must insist on truth. 
There is an old saying, know the truth and it will make you free. It 
comes from the good book.
  We must insist on the truth. Yes, if we have to make compromises, if 
we have to go at problems obliquely rather than straight on, that is 
what it has to be, but it should not be based on the fact that we are 
lying to ourselves and lying to the American people.
  We need a regeneration, a rebirth of courageous leadership in this 
country of integrity. We had 8 years under the last administration 
where no one in this world, even our own people, could respect our own 
leaders. Many of our own leaders were just not respectable. Now we have 
a chance.
  This new administration has a chance. I would ask people to call 
their congressmen and talk about this piece of legislation, helping the 
American POWs from World War II.
  I would ask them also to contact the White House and see that the 
White House brings this issue up of American POWs from the Bataan Death 
March and to try to see what we can do to get President George W. Bush 
just to mention this to the Japanese prime minister when he arrives 
here within a few days.
  These are the things that we can do and we can do this because by 
doing so, we honor those 3,000 or 4,000 surviving Death March survivors 
who are still here waiting for their day, waiting for their day in 
court and waiting for justice.
  Tonight, I would hope all of those who are with these American POWs, 
I hope that they activate themselves, and I hope that our democratic 
process is working. I know that we are making them proud. My own 
father's watching down tonight and all of those who gave their lives in 
World War II and other all other American wars, they will be proud.
  Let us make them proud of us as Americans and by doing so and having 
the courage to do what is right, especially for the survivors of the 
Bataan Death March, America's ultimate heroes.

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