Japanese Lawyer in L.A. as Voice of War Victims

Touring Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo for the first time this week, Japanese attorney Takashi Niimi paused in front of the eye-catching “Friendship Knot” monument.

What an unusual work of art, he was thinking, when his eye caught the bronze inscription at the foot of the sculpture.

“I could hardly believe what I was seeing,” said Niimi, who is in Los Angeles this week to drum up international support for a court battle in Japan between 11 Chinese survivors of a World War II slave labor camp and the giant corporation that exploited them.

Morinosuke Kajima--to whose memory the Little Tokyo landmark was dedicated--had been a central figure in the enslavement of nearly 1,000 Chinese workers, including Niimi’s clients, who are now in their late 70s and 80s, the lawyer said.

To memorialize Kajima, who ran the predecessor company of Japanese construction giant Kajima Corp., is akin to honoring a slave owner, he said.

Today, the 49-year-old attorney who helped ethnic minorities stand up to powerful Japanese institutions will address a multiethnic meeting of human rights activists and social service agencies at the American Civil Liberties Union office in Los Angeles. Niimi’s delegation includes Hiroshi Tanaka, an authority on Japan’s historical role in Asia, and Akinori Fukuda, secretary-general of the Japan Assn. for the Study of Chinese Forced Labour.

And on Friday, Niimi will receive a “certificate of recognition” from the Los Angeles City Council for his human rights endeavors.

An activist since his student days at Tokyo University, Niimi has represented the Chinese survivors’ case since he learned of their plight a decade ago.

He is the lead attorney in the 15-member legal team that is facing a crucial hearing May 13 in Tokyo District Court.

Niimi also has represented European former prisoners of war who sued the Japanese government.

To Niimi, the “Friendship Knot” monument symbolizes far-reaching adverse ramifications of Japan’s censored history.

“As I became more and more involved in representing ethnic minorities in Japan, I came to see non-Japanese perspectives of Japan,” he said.

“I wanted to bring out in the open the arrogance and selfishness of Japan.”

As a Japanese citizen, Niimi was embarrassed to learn of his country’s war-time atrocities committed on its neighbors throughout Asia, he said.

But he concluded that the only way to settle the past was to face history head on and through “self-reflection and self-criticism” and change.

One such way was to help the victims receive compensation for their suffering, he said.

“The people I represent are old and frail,” Niimi said, adding that time is of the essence. “One has died since we filed the suit last year.”

The plaintiffs are seeking $50,000 each, a formal apology and memorial halls in Japan and China.

Just as he would not have known about the monument honoring Kajima had he not stepped inside Little Tokyo, many people around the world do not know that 40,000 Chinese were arrested and taken to work in mines, construction sites and factories operated by Japanese companies to make up for a labor shortage between 1943 and 1945.

The people he represents were among the 986 taken to work on a Kajima Gumi project in Hanaoka in the Akita Prefecture in northern Japan.

Unable to bear malnutrition and the wretched conditions under which they were forced to live and work, a group led by Geng Zhun, now 81 and living in Hunan, China, attacked the Kajima office on June 30, 1945, to seize weapons and try to escape north to Hokkaido. But they were swiftly overpowered and 113 were killed in what has become known as the Hanaoka Incident.

After nine years of trying to settle the case with Kajima Corp., the survivors finally sued last June.

In 1990, Kajima executives apologized and admitted the company’s responsibility for forcing the Chinese to work in the Hanaoka project, but negotiations held since then over compensation broke down.

Kajima Corp. headquarters in Tokyo was closed for Japanese holidays and officials were unavailable for comment.