A solemn public memorial service was held yesterday in Fushun, Northeast China's Liaoning Province, to mark the 70th anniversary of the "Pingdingshan Massacre."
"The memorial is to remind the Chinese people of the national humiliation 70 years ago," said Fushun Mayor Wang Daping. Some 4,000 people -- including 400 Japanese -- attended the activity sponsored by Fushun municipal government.
"On behalf of the Japanese, I convey my condolences to the victims and also the families of the deceased in the Massacre," said a representative from the Japanese Small and Medium Enterprise Association, who declined to give his name.
He condemned the Japanese imperialist act of aggression and expressed his hope that peace could be safeguarded in Asia and the whole world.
Japanese troops drove more than 3,000 local villagers at the foot of Pingdingshan Hill in southern Fushun to grassland in the west of the village and massacred them on September 16, 1932. To conceal their crimes, Japanese invaders burned the bodies and 800 houses in the village.
Only 36 people survived the massacre and 31 of them provided testimony for the "Pingdingshan Massacre" Museum, which was built in 1972 at the scene by Fushun municipal government.
More than 5 million visitors have visited the museum during the past 30 years. A half-month exhibition sponsored by Fushun City Museum to show evidence of aggression of the Japanese invading army opened yesterday.
(Xinhua News Agency September 17, 2002)
