Japan's Emperor Akihito bowed deeply atop a cliff where his countrymen plunged to their deaths to avoid capture by US troops and -- for the first time -- paid his respects yesterday to the Koreans who died while fighting for the Japanese in World War II.
On the first trip by a Japanese monarch to a World War II battlesite overseas, Akihito and Empress Michiko visited several memorials on this tiny Pacific island honoring Japanese, Americans, local islanders, and for the first time, Koreans forced to serve in the name of his father, the late Emperor Hirohito.
The two-day royal visit comes amid growing anger in China and the Koreas over what many there see as Japan's failure to make amends for its brutal past.
PHOTO: AFP
Akihito's visit to the Korean war dead memorial could be seen as an attempt to ease those tensions, coming as it did after Koreans living in Saipan threatened to stage protests during his trip. The imperial couple was not initially scheduled to stop at the memorial, which some Koreans had considered a snub.
A senior palace official said the memorial visit had been approved days before the emperor left Japan but was kept secret from the media until the last minute because of concerns it might be "compromised."
Korea was made a Japanese colony in 1910, and 1,000 or so Koreans were brought to this island before the war as laborers.
Families of those South Koreans killed in the war welcomed Akihito's visit to the memorial, but said it should be backed up by serious reflection from officials in the Japanese government.
"Because he is a symbolic figure, if he apologized with a sincere heart, I think we can accept it," Kim Jay-gun, vice president of the Association for the Pacific War Victims, said of Akihito. "Following the emperor's action, the prime minister and other officials should also repent."
Not all Koreans on Saipan felt Akihito's decision to go to the memorial was enough, however.
"Japan has never really apologized," said Ryan Kim, a local tour guide. "There is more for Japan's emperor to do than go on tours like this."
The fall of Saipan was a turning point in the war in the Pacific. Its fall allowed US B-29 bombers to pound Japan's cities, and the neighboring island of Tinian was used as the launch point for the planes carrying the atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August 1945.
As many as 55,000 Japanese troops and civilians died in the three-week "Operation Forager," which began on June 15, 1944.
Early yesterday, Akihito offered prayers at "Banzai Cliff," which owes its name to the shouts of banzai -- a cheer wishing long life to the emperor -- by Japanese who plunged to their deaths rather than face capture by US troops.
Before leaving yesterday evening, the royal couple also visited monuments to more than 5,000 Americans, about half of them Marines, and 1,000 or so islanders who were killed on Saipan or nearby islands.
Akihito has been to China and has expressed remorse for the past during visits to Japan by South Korean leaders.
But he has never made a trip to offer condolences at a battlefield overseas.
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