Senate Bill 2072
CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.
Florida Senate - 2000 (NP) SM 2072
By Senator Klein
28-1502-00
1 Senate Memorial No.
2 A memorial to the Congress of the United
3 States, urging Congress to call upon the
4 Government of Japan to apologize for the
5 atrocious war crimes committed by the Japanese
6 military during World War II and to pay
7 reparations to the victims of those crimes.
8
9 WHEREAS, our nation is founded on democratic principles
10 that recognize the vigilance with which fundamental individual
11 human rights must be safeguarded in order to preserve freedom,
12 and
13 WHEREAS, this resolution condemns all violations of the
14 international law designed to safeguard fundamental human
15 rights as embodied in the Geneva and Hague Conventions, and
16 WHEREAS, this resolution vociferously condemns all
17 crimes against humanity and at the same time condemns the
18 actions of those who would use this resolution to further an
19 agenda that fosters anti-Asian sentiment and racism, or
20 "Japan-bashing," or otherwise fails to distinguish between
21 Japan's war criminals and Americans of Japanese ancestry, and
22 WHEREAS, since the end of World War II, Japan has
23 earned its place as an equal in the society of nations, yet
24 the Government of Japan has failed to fully acknowledge the
25 crimes committed during World War II, and to provide
26 reparations to the victims of those crimes, and
27 WHEREAS, while high-ranking Japanese government
28 officials have expressed personal apologies, supported the
29 payment of privately funded reparations to some victims, and
30 modified some textbooks, these efforts are not adequate
31
1
CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.
Florida Senate - 2000 (NP) SM 2072
28-1502-00
1 substitutes for an apology and reparations approved by the
2 Government of Japan, and
3 WHEREAS, the need for an apology sanctioned by the
4 Government of Japan is underscored by the contradictory
5 statements and actions of Japanese government officials and
6 leaders of a "revisionist" movement who openly deny that war
7 crimes took place, defend the actions of the Japanese
8 military, seek to remove the modest language included in
9 textbooks, and refuse to cooperate with United States
10 Department of Justice efforts to identify Japanese war
11 criminals, and
12 WHEREAS, during World War II, 33,587 United States
13 military and 13,966 civilian prisoners of the Japanese
14 military were confined in inhumane prison camps where they
15 were subjected to forced labor and died indescribable deaths,
16 and
17 WHEREAS, the Japanese military occupied Nanking,
18 China, from December 1937 until February 1938, during the
19 period known as the "Rape of Nanking," and brutally
20 slaughtered, in ways that defy description, by some accounts
21 as many as 300,000 Chinese men, women, and children and raped
22 more than 20,000 women, adding to a death toll that may have
23 exceeded millions of Chinese, and
24 WHEREAS, the people of Guam and the Marshall Islands,
25 during the Japanese occupation from 1941 to 1944, were
26 subjected to unspeakable acts of violence, including forced
27 labor and marches and imprisonment by the Japanese military
28 during its occupation of these islands, and
29 WHEREAS, three-fourths of the population of Port Blair
30 on Andaman Islands, India, were exterminated by Japanese
31 troops between March 1942 and the end of World War II, and
2
CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.
Florida Senate - 2000 (NP) SM 2072
28-1502-00
1 many were tortured to death or forced into sexual slavery at
2 "comfort stations," and crimes beyond description were
3 committed on families and young children, and
4 WHEREAS, at the February 1945 "Battle of Manilla,"
5 100,000 men, women, and children were killed by Japanese armed
6 forces in inhumane ways, adding to a total death toll that may
7 have exceeded one million Filipinos during the Japanese
8 occupation of the Philippines, which began in December 1941
9 and ended in August 1945, and
10 WHEREAS, at least 260 of the 1,500 United States
11 prisoners, including many Californians, believed to have been
12 held at Mukden, Manchuria, died during the first winter of
13 their imprisonment and many of the 300 living survivors of
14 Mukden claim to suffer from physical ailments resulting from
15 their subjection to Japanese military chemical and biological
16 experiments, and
17 WHEREAS, the Japanese military enslaved millions of
18 Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, and citizens from other occupied
19 or colonized territories during World War II, and forced
20 hundred of thousands of women into sexual slavery for Japanese
21 troops, and
22 WHEREAS, the International Commission of Jurists, a
23 nongovernmental organization in Geneva, Switzerland, ruled in
24 1993 that the Government of Japan should pay reparations of at
25 least $40,000 for the extreme pain and suffering caused to
26 each woman who was forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese
27 military, yet none of these women have been paid any
28 compensation by the Government of Japan, NOW, THEREFORE,
29
30 Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
31
3
CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.
Florida Senate - 2000 (NP) SM 2072
28-1502-00
1 That the Congress of the United States is requested to
2 take all appropriate actions to bring about a formal apology
3 and reparations by the Government of Japan to the victims of
4 its war crimes during World War II.
5 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be
6 dispatched to the President of the United States, to the
7 President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the
8 House of Representatives, and to each member of the Florida
9 delegation to the United States Congress.
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
4