Nine people injured by WWII chemical weapons left by the
Japanese army in China are leaving to take a petition to Tokyo this
Friday, accompanied by lawyers from both countries.
"Our aim is to urge the Japanese government to give better
treatment to these victims and step up its efforts to dispose of
chemical weapons Japanese troops left in China," Luo Lijuan, one of
the Chinese lawyers in the delegation, told China Daily,
"What we want to see is a change in their attitude towards this
event."
In August 2003, five barrels of mustard gas were dug up at a
construction site in Qiqihar, in northeast China's Heilongjiang
Province. The ensuing gas leak killed one and injured 43
others, one of the worst accidents involving abandoned Japanese
WWII chemical weapons in China.
Luo said they will try to present a detailed report of the
tragedy to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on August 4,
the second anniversary of the incident.
According to her, the detailed medical records of all 43
survivors constitute a key part of the report. "Although most of
the victims had left hospital two months after the event, all of
them are still suffering symptoms and many have to occasionally
return to hospital for treatment."
"The victims' skin burned after contact with the gas," she said,
"A slight touch of the healed wound may trigger bleeding and may
further infect other parts of the body."
Among the nine petitioners, Wang Cheng, 25, a worker at a refuse
recycling station, is said to be the most severely injured?--
large areas of skin on his lower limbs are necrotic and he is
unable to have children.
"At 1.7-metre-tall, he weighs only 36 kilograms," Luo said,
adding that the toes of another survivor, Ding Shuwen, 27, a
construction worker, became webbed after exposure to the gas.
Three others in the delegation, Feng Jiayuan, Gao Ming and Chen
Ziwei, were affected by the leak while playing barefooted on their
school playground. "Their feet become red and swollen on rainy or
hot days," Luo said.
The report is the result of a two-year joint effort in which
Chinese lawyers collected evidence and Japanese lawyers wrote the
report and dealt with legal procedures.
After pressure from the Chinese government, the Japanese
government agreed to give the victims 21.9 million yuan (US$2.7
million) to cover medical expenses in October 2003, but not to
compensate them for culpability in the incident.
Luo said the report did not include a demand for a specific
amount of compensation, but that they hoped they would be
compensated. "If this fails, we will launch a lawsuit."
Bu Ping, a Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences researcher,
estimated that over 2 million chemical munitions could have been
abandoned across China at the end of WWII, though the Japanese
government estimates the figure to be 700,000.
Around 2,000 people are thought to have been injured by them as
their metal casings corrode and start to leak and as they are
unearthed by construction work.
Under the UN Chemical Weapons Convention, which came into force
in April 1997, Japan has until 2007 to destroy all the chemical
weapons its troops left in China. In 1999, Japan promised to
provide funding, technology, personnel and facilities needed to
scrap them, but little progress has been made.
(China Daily July 26, 2005)