Posted on: Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Inouye fights POW measure
By Susan Roth
Advertiser Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Sen. Dan Inouye picked a fight with other veterans yesterday, as he tried but failed to defeat a measure allowing World War II prisoners of war to seek reparations for forced labor.
The legislation, an amendment to the $41.5 billion fiscal 2002 spending bill for the Commerce, Justice and State departments, would prohibit the Justice and State departments from using taxpayer dollars to oppose veterans' lawsuits against Japanese companies. The House overwhelmingly passed its version of the bill with a similar amendment in July.
The State and Justice departments currently oppose such lawsuits against Japanese companies on grounds that they violate the treaty that ended the war with Japan and tread on the administration's authority to carry out the treaty.
After an afternoon of impassioned debate, the Senate voted 58-34 against Inouye's motion to table the measure and then approved it by a voice vote. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i, voted with the senior senator and fellow Democrat.
The sight of the generally reticent Inouye, one of the Senate's consummate backroom deal makers, rhetorically slugging it out on the Senate floor was unusual enough, but for him to lead the charge against a bill that would benefit World War II veterans was extraordinary.
Inouye is a Medal of Honor winner who lost his right arm fighting with the Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II.
"I was certain this debate would become a highly emotional one," Inouye said, referring to his opponents' mention of the infamous Bataan death march in their arguments that prisoners of war deserve reparations.
"A few of us were involved in that ancient war," he said. "We know what that death march was all about. I'm not here to provide a rationale for actions taken by the Japanese troops. Far from it. I'm here to maintain the integrity of our country and our treaties.
"This amendment is not necessary," Inouye said. "If you want to sue the Japanese government, (the U.S. government) will voluntarily enter into agreement with you to compensate you for whatever claims you may have. But this amendment will without question abrogate the treaty, and other countries will begin to doubt our good word."
Democrat Tom Harkin of Iowa argued that the action has plenty of precedents.
If the veterans' lawsuits fail, "at least the prisoners of war will have had their day in court. That's all we're asking with this amendment," Harkin said.
"There are 30,000 men who served their country under unbearable conditions and there are only 700 of them now seeking long-delayed justice, demanding compensation from the companies that abused them," he said. "It is unconscionable that our own State Department has intervened to keep the POWs from getting their cases heard."
In Hawai'i, Sam Araki, the state adjutant for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said he had mixed feelings about allowing the veterans to file the lawsuits.
On the one hand, Araki said, the Japan army often was cruel and inhumane to its enemy during the war. But Araki, who served with the Air Force in Vietnam, said permitting the lawsuits will "open a can of worms."
He said other countries, such as China and the Philippines, also will seek reparations.
"I would think that they should let it be," Araki said.
The local VFW chapter took no position on the issue, he said.
Staff Writer Curtis Lum contributed to this report.
