WAR TRIAL IN TOKYO

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24905, 19 June 1946, Page 7

WAR TRIAL IN TOKYO

Prosecution Opens Case

GENERAL TOJO’S DEFENCE (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9 p.m.) TOKYO, June 17. At the trial of General To jo and 27 other Japanese alleged war criminals, the assistant prosecutor charged the defendants with beginning in 1928 to prepare Japan for war. The hearing proceeded to-day, and the first witness was called in spite of the resignation of six defence counsel and their corhSlaint that ‘‘unsolved-problems” were ampering them in the task of preparing their cases. In reply to the prosecution’s allegations against himself and his codefendants, General Tojo says that a coalition of Britain and America “chased the Japanese empire into a conflict which is now called a civilisation.”

General Tojo’s aeply was issued through his defence counsel, Ichiro Kiyose. It listed the causes or the Pacific war and placed the origin of the war many years before the date set by the prosecution, which in general begins its case with the preludes to the Manchurian incident- in 1931.

Carises Listed The causes listed by General Tojo are: (1) pressure by the British and American coalition against the Japanese Empire after the 1914-18 war; (2) the suppression of the Japanese empire’s trade development by the objection of a certain big Power (presumably the United States) against East Asiatic immigration, the adoption of a high tariff policy and the formation of an economic bloc; (3) racial discrimination; (4) the economic blocks ading of Japan immediately before the Great East Asia war through joint British and American might and military and economic threats; (5) the adoption of a policy to cause China to continue resistance and to cause China and Japan to fight each other; (6) the presentation of impossible proposals to Japan at the last stage of the Japan-ese-American negotiations. The first witness for the prosecution was Lieutenant-Colonel Donald Nugent, chief of the civil information and education section, who taught in Japan before, the war. He said the Japanese war plotters used the schools to instil into Japanese youth that their nation had a divine mission to rule East Asia. Students were told that Japan eventually would dominate the world under one roof. They were put through field manoeuvres, street fighting problems, bayonet drill, and ma-chine-gun instruction. Such teaching inculcated in them both ultranationalism and militarism, and taught them,fanatical devotion to their coun* try and blind obedience to authority. Right to Fight

‘ “Japan in ner major fciternational commitments always reserved the right to fight in self defence, and this right included attacking without warning,” said General Tojo to the Associated Press, following up the statement of his defence in which he outlined his version of the events leading to the Pacific war. “The United States was gmlty of a planned mass massacre, in its bombing pattern for Japan, and trampled on treaties in its conduct of the war.

‘‘Even the Kellogg Pact outlawing war permitted war in self defence,” continued General Tojo. ‘‘Japan, in entering this pact, reserved the right to fight for her protection outside the range of the treaty. Japan, for the same reason, was not bound by the Hague Convention regarding the opening of a war.” General Tojo, replying to the prosecution’s contention that atrocities were part of a planned pattern ordered by Tokyo, asserted that Japan was a civilised nation and had tried to respect the war regulations and customs. It was blind judgment that barbaric acts whifeh some persons might have committed on the battlefield constituted one of the ways in which Japan waged war. -General Tojo said the Tripartite Pact (with Germany and Italy) did not intend world domination but to give each nation its rightful place in the world and thus lead to permanent peace.