REGAINING LOST TRUST: STATEMENTS FROM JAPANESE PARTICIPANTS IN THE SINGAPORE WAR CRIMES TRIALS
LIM JIA YI
LIM JIA YI
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Abstract
In the 1950s, the Japanese government put together an investigative unit to collect statements
from Japanese participants in the post-war class B and C war crimes trials (BC war crimes
trials). The collection process began with BC trials prosecuted by British and American courts,
but later expanded to cover also Soviet and Chinese courts, among many others. BC trials
were conducted across East and Southeast Asia by the different Allied governments, but this
work will focus solely on statements regarding the British Singapore War Crimes Trials, due
to Singapore’s centrality to the British prosecution of Japanese BC war criminals.
This thesis argues that the Japanese government had two major goals in collecting statements
from BC trial participants: to gather evidence in support of their view of the trials as victor’s
justice, and to reassert authority over the participants. The initial aim of confirming unfair trial
would fail almost immediately, once statements began to be collected and read. Most
respondents acknowledge British efforts at dispensing fair sentences, especially in the chaotic
context of post-World War II actions. However, given that the investigation team continued to
collect such statements without obvious content regulation, and archive those documents
without content censorship, it seems that the government’s main aim lay elsewhere. As this
thesis will explain, it was not the desire to argue illegality of the BC war crimes trials, but
rather the purpose of regaining participant belief in the government, that would prove
paramount.
Japanese names in this thesis are written in the Japanese style (family name before first name),
except for scholars who prefer their name written in the Western style.
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2018-04-23
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