August 24, 80 years ago, a Japanese ship Ukishimamaru was sunken by an explosion.
On August 15, 1945 imperialist Japan was defeated and Korea was liberated. Korea’s liberation brought delight to the Koreans including those who had been drafted into military base construction sites, coal mines and other places in Aomori Prefecture and Hokkaido in Japan. The Koreans who survived the gruelling slave labour tried hard to return to their motherland.
But the Japanese imperialists attempted to kill them in a merciless way in a bid to prevent the secrets of the military bases built at the cost of the sweat, blood and lives of Koreans from being made public, bury forever their barbaric maltreatment and heinous murderous crimes and work off frustration at their disgraceful defeat in the aggressive war.
For this reason, the Japanese militarists who had doggedly hindered the repatriation of the Koreans suddenly changed their “mind” and allowed them to return to their home country aboard Ukishimamaru .
On the night of August 22, 1945 the ship with a displacement of thousands of tons and thousands of Koreans aboard, left a military port in Ominato in Aomori Prefecture. The ship, however, did not make for Korea, its supposed destination, but veered to Maizru naval port in northern part of Kyoto Prefecture. And it sank on the 24th by an explosion near the port.
When the ship was going down in the wake of the explosion, some desperately swam ashore.
But the Japanese imperialists plotted to kill them.
“The survivors were not many. They were camped in a place. But none of them knew that a terrible murderous plot was being hatched against them. The following day a steam tank in the camp exploded for no reason, heavily wounding scores of them,” said one of the survivors.
Ever since the incident broke out, Japan has never admitted the fact. It has rather concealed and flatly rejected its past crimes, far from repenting of and apologizing for them.
This is as good as insulting and mocking the victims of the incident and other Korean people.
The then Japanese government was morally and legally responsible for the safe return home of the Koreans who had been forcibly taken away for its aggressive war effort, but it connived at and inspired the massacre of thousands of innocent Koreans. The deadly crimes can never be forgiven.
The souls of the victims of the Ukishimamaru incident still call for revenging on the sworn enemy.
Pak Jin Hyang
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