As tensions rise in Asia over a Tokyo shrine honoring war dead, actual remains of Japan's top war criminals lie here at a quiet temple dedicated to the Buddhist goddess of mercy.
On a wooden hillside overlooking Atami Bay, some 90km southwest of Tokyo, a statue of the goddess, Kannon, stands with half-closed eyes which, the nuns say, are gazing toward China.
Ashes of seven top war criminals including General Hideki Tojo, the prime minister who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor, were buried on the temple grounds among other individual sites in Japan after they were hanged in December 1948 by order of a US-led tribunal.
PHOTO: AFP
Flanked by two stone lions and Japanese flags, the temple in 1959 set up a marker to the "seven warriors." A nearby monument honors 1,068 Japanese who were executed as war criminals or died in prison elsewhere in Asia after Japan lost the war and its empire.
But today the Koa Kannon temple is deserted save for two elderly nuns, the Itami sisters, who live here permanently and welcome the rare visitors.
"Around 80 people come here each month. They are people of all backgrounds. Some of them are passionate about history and there are young people as well," said the elder sister, Myotoku Itami, 63, a petite, smiling woman with a shaved head and a somber robe.
It is a world away from the scene at the Yasukuni Shrine, which was built in the heart of Tokyo by the state in 1869 and now lists the names of 2.5 million war dead including top war criminals such as Tojo.
The Yasukuni Shrine has become a rallying ground for war veterans and nationalists. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has visited the Shinto site every year, saying he is praying for all war dead, provoking furious protests from Asian nations invaded by Japan.
Koizumi, who steps down next month, has sent signals he will visit tomorrow, the sensitive anniversary of Japan's 1945 surrender, despite rising domestic opposition.
At Koa Kannon, in another era, commandos of the now defunct far-left Japanese Red Army in 1971 partly dynamited the monument to the seven war criminals. A black stain still remains on the stone marker.
The Japanese traditionally hold Buddhist funeral rites, although the indigenous Shinto faith was elevated to the state religion during World War II.
General Iwane Matsui -- another of the seven war criminals whose ashes were deposited here -- built the Koa Kannon temple in 1940 and would pray here every day.
Supporters of the temple point out proudly that Matsui built it in honor not only of Japanese soldiers but also Chinese troops who died in war during Japan's invasions and occupation of its neighbor.
"It is natural for victors to venerate the souls of the dead. Whether one wins or loses, one must stop hatred from perpetuating or else war will never end," said veteran Tasaburo Tokutomi, 80, president of the Association of Friends of Koa Kannon.
Matsui was hanged for his campaign in China which included the 1937 capture of the eastern city of Nanjing, where Japanese troops went on a rampage of murder and rape of the civilian population.
The massacre, which remains an issue of deep anger for China, left 300,000 people dead, according to Chinese historians. US-led war crimes trials documented 140,000 dead.
A black lacquer box at the temple keeps enclosed the written names of 23,104 Japanese soldiers who died under Matsui's leadership.
In 1944, another list was added to the temple honoring other Japanese who died during the "Great East Asia War," as Japan called its invasions of Asia.
There is no question here of debating whether Japan was responsible for the war.
"There is no consensus on the interpretation of the war," Tokutomi said. "Sixty years have not been enough to erase the [anti-Japanese] prejudices and reveal the truth."
Underneath a wooden ceiling decorated by a magnificent dragon, the temple has a mish-mash of mementos to both Japan and China.
At the entrance, a calendar depicts the family of Crown Prince Naruhito and his US-educated wife Masako. On the walls are General Matsui's uniform, a bamboo sword, etchings of soldiers and old photographs, including one of Radha Binod Pal, the virulent Indian critic of the West who was the sole judge at the war crimes trials to acquit Japanese leaders.
Two wall paintings show scenes of the Chinese countryside from 1939-1940 and the altar has two glazed wooden placards dedicated to the memory of Japanese and Chinese soldiers.
In the same vein, the statue of the goddess Kannon is mixed with earth from Japan and the battlefields of China.
"The Japanese people ought to be proud of the spirit of Koa Kannon, which honors both the souls of enemies and allies," said Yasuo Nara, 76, a military historian.
But few Japanese trek to Koa Kannon and the enduring controversies about history have cost Japan dearly in terms of relations with its neighbors, even as the generation born after the war takes political power.
"It's difficult for young people to understand but it's important to send a message," said Tokutomi, who was a 19-year-old pilot in training when the war ended.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.