Japanese team in Nagaland to apologise for war crimes

GUWAHATI: A group of Japanese church leaders have apologised to the Nagas for atrocities committed by their soldiers during World War II in Battle of Kohima.
The church leaders are in Kohima leading the delegation of Agape, the charity supported by the Japanese government and business houses, to promote reconciliation between the Japanese people and those who bore the brunt of Japanese army atrocities.
"The Nagas suffered because they sided with the Allied forces. So we apologise to them," Keiko Holmes said on phone from Kohima.
She said that some Naga church leaders had organised the visit by getting in touch with Agape when they found that the charity was organising "reconciliation trips" to countries whose people suffered Japanese atrocities during the War.
On Tuesday, the visiting Agape delegation held a special service at the Commonwealth War Memorial in Kohima. "We prayed for those who suffered and died at the hands of the Japanese," Holmes said.
An eighty-year old war veteran, Dovi Khate, formally accepted the apology on the behalf of the Nagas and granted pardon. "My friends were tortured by the Japanese and I was very bitter but now that they have apologised, it is all over," Khate said at the end of the special service at the War Memorial, where nearly 2,000 Allied troops, mostly British, lay buried.
Agape has held similar "reconciliation meets" in Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, the US, Canada and Great Britain. This is their first visit to India.
Holmes, who is founder director of Agape and wife of a businessman who had died in a plane crash nearly 20 years ago in Bangladesh, said that she felt the people who suffered atrocities had to be reached out to.
She further said that some Japanese War veterans had also accompanied her during her visits to the UK and apologised to the people who were their prisoners of war. She said that they also planned to visit China in April 2002 and South Korea in May on a similar mission.
Rev Luoliehu Yimsung, who is leading the four-member delegation said that Holmes was awarded Order of British Empire by the Queen two years ago for bringing people closer and removing the bitterness some still had over the atrocities committed on them.