COURT REJECTS SUITS SEEKING REPARATIONS FROM JAPANESE FIRMS FORMER POWS WANTED SETTLEMENT FOR THEIR SLAVE LABOR IN WORLD WAR II.Byline: Staff and Wire Services The U.S. Supreme Court turned aside appeals Monday from former American prisoners of war prisoners of war, in international law, persons captured by a belligerent while fighting in the military. International law includes rules on the treatment of prisoners of war but extends protection only to combatants. and others who claim they were forced to work for private Japanese companies This is a list of companies from Japan. Note that 株式会社 can be (and frequently is) read both kabushiki kaisha and kabushiki gaisha (with or without a hyphen). See that article for more details. as slave laborers during World War II. The court's action, taken without comment, ends lawsuits in California against Japanese firms or their successors that allegedly forced prisoners to work in mines, dig roads and perform other duties more than 50 years ago. Japanese conglomerates now known as Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Nippon Steel and others survived the war in part by using slave labor, and then thrived in the postwar industrial boom, lawyers for former prisoners claimed. Former Japanese POWs in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. were angry at the decision. ``Our worst enemy is our own government,'' said Harry Corre, California commander of American Ex-Prisoners of War American Ex-Prisoners of War is a service organization based in Arlington, Texas, which was founded in 1942 and chartered by the United States Congress in 1982. The organization attempts to assist the surviving POWs, many of whom are elderly and/or have psychic scars and longterm , a national group fighting for war reparations War reparations refer to the monetary compensation intended to cover damage or injury during a war. Generally, the term war reparations refers to money or goods changing hands, rather than such property transfers as the annexation of land. . Corre, 80, of Los Angeles, is one of an estimated 250 California veterans who filed individual lawsuits against Japanese companies. ``I think it's totally unfair - what they're doing is putting the (U.S.) State Department before so many men, their wives and their dependents,'' said Corre. ``It is definitely wrong.'' A federal appeals court dismissed the claims earlier this year. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said treaties signed by the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. barred prisoners from seeking restitution. That ruling said federal power to make foreign policy overrode o·ver·rode v. Past tense of override. a 1999 state law in California that gave survivors and ex-POWs the power to sue. Lawyers for aging veterans made an emotional appeal to the high court, which represented the last hope for resurrecting their claims. ``Having suffered unspeakable abuse in 1942-1945, the youngest of the survivors is nearly 80,'' the appeal said. ``These men represent the finest of the generation that fought and won the Second World War, incurring enormous personal loss to preserve our way of life against severe and imminent threats.'' Corre was stationed with an artillery unit in the Philippines when he was captured in 1942 and forced to join the infamous Bataan Death March Bataan Death March (April 1942) Forced march of 70,000 U.S. and Filipino prisoners of war (World War II) captured by the Japanese in the Philippines. From the southern end of the Bataan Peninsula, the starving and ill-treated prisoners were force-marched 63 mi (101 km) to a . A month later, after he managed to escape on a raft of driftwood, he was captured a second time on the island Corregidor. Corre said he then spent the next 3 1/2 years as a POW working 14- to 18-hour shifts digging in an undersea coal mine for the Mitsui Manufacturing Co. on the island of Kyushu, 30 miles across the bay from Hiroshima. ``They put us in a condemned mine they wouldn't put their own people in, under the ocean. I was caught in a couple of cave-ins myself - and a lot of guys died,'' he said. ``It's the same disservice we got during the war,'' said Corre of his scuttled lawsuit against Mitsui, in which he had demanded unspecified reparations reparations, payments or other compensation offered as an indemnity for loss or damage. Although the term is used to cover payments made to Holocaust survivors and to Japanese Americans interned during World War II in so-called relocation camps (and used as well to . ``We called ourselves the battling bastards of Bataan - no mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam. And we're getting the same treatment now, 50 years later.'' Lawyers for the Japanese companies noted that the treaty ending the war in the Pacific specifically said that Japan would be unable to pay reparations for all damage and suffering during the war. Under the treaty, Japan agreed to pay the allies about $4 billion in reparations. Staff Writer Dana Bartholomew contributed to this story. CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1) Martin Christie of West Hills, a former prisoner of war PRISONER OF WAR. One who has been captured while fighting under the banner of some state. He is a prisoner, although never confined in a prison. 2. In modern times, prisoners are treated with more humanity than formerly; the individual captor has now no , attends a ceremony to honor POWS last month in Sepulveda. Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer (2) Harry Corre, a POW in Japan during World War II, said he was forced to work in a condemned mine for Mitsui Manufacturing Co. Charlotte Schmid-Maybach |
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