Sook ching massacre why chinese

He received further detailed instructions from the chief of staff, Lt. Suzuki Sosaku, and Lt. Colonel Tsuji Masanobu. Kawamura then consulted with the Kempeitai commander, Lt.

Oishi Masayuki. The plan to purge the Chinese population was drawn up in the course of these meetings. Under this scheme, Chinese males between the ages of 18 and 50 were ordered to report to mass screening centers.

Those deemed anti-Japanese were detained, loaded onto lorries, and taken away to the coast or to other isolated places where they were machine-gunned and bayoneted to death. This second record is important because it was drawn up as a secret document shortly after the purge took place. However, it includes both bombing and purge casualties and offers no basis for the figure. In Singapore it is generally believed that the number killed in this event was about 50, Although I can not present exact figures, my estimation is that a minimum of died; I can offer no figure for the maximum.

The issue of numbers remains unsettled. The mass screening was carried out mainly by Kempeitai personnel between 21 and 23 February in urban areas, and by the Imperial Guard Division at the end of February in suburban districts. Most accounts of the killings include a map that shows the island divided into four sections, and explain that the Imperial Guards, the 5th Division, and the 18th Division carried out the mass screening in suburban districts.

According to war diaries and documents relating to these two divisions, neither played a role in the mass screening in Singapore.

Nishimura Takuma, on charges related to the Singapore Massacre, but not the commanders of the 5th or 18th Divisions. This version of events is correct, and the conventional mapping of the massacre is incorrect. It is important to note that the purge was planned before Japanese troops landed in Singapore. The military government section of the 25th Army had already drawn up a plan entitled, "Implementation Guidline for Manipulating Overseas Chinese" on or around 28 December It is clear that the headquarters of the 25th Army had decided on a harsh policy toward the Chinese population of Singapore and Malaya from the beginning of the war.

According to Onishi Satoru, [10] the Kempeitai officer in charge of the Jalan Besar screening centre, Kempeitai commander Oishi Masayuki was instructed by the chief of staff, Suzuki Sosaku, at Keluang, Johor, to prepare for a purge following the capture of Singapore. Although the exact date of this instruction is not known, the Army headquarters was stationed in Keluang from 28 January to 4 February Rebuttal of the Defense.

Let us consider the justification or defense for the actions of the Japanese army presented by some Japanese writers and researchers. One of the major points is that the Chinese volunteer forces, such as the Dalforce, the Singapore Overseas Chinese Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army, fought fiercely and caused heavy Japanese casualties. This is supposed to have inflamed Japanese anger and led to reprisals against local Chinese. Some 30 per cent of Dalforce personnel either died in action or were killed during the subsequent Purge.

The volunteers of Dalforce were equipped only with outdated weapons. Japanese military histories make no reference to Chinese volunteers during the battle of Singapore, and report that the opposition put up by British forces was weaker than expected. The greatest threat to the Japanese was artillery bombardment.

During the war crimes trial of , no Japanese claimed that losses suffered by Japanese forces at the hand of Chinese volunteers contributed to the massacre. As noted above, the 25th Army had planned the mass purge even before the battle of Singapore.

This sequence of events clearly rebuts the claims. A second point raised is that the Chinese in Malaya were passing intelligence to the British and that Chinese guerrillas were engaged in subversive activities against Japanese forces during the Malayan campaign, for example by flashing signals to British airplanes.

The Kempeitai of the 25th Army was on the alert for such activities during the Malayan campaign, but made only two arrests. Kempeitai officer Onishi Satoru said in his memoirs that they had been unable to find any evidence of the use of flash signals and that it was technologically impossible.

Thus, this line of argument is refuted by a military officer who was directly involved in the events. A third explanation offered for the massacre is that anti-Japanese Chinese were preparing for an armed insurrection, and that law and order was deteriorating in Singapore. They claim that a purge was necessary to restore public order, and this point was raised at the war crimes trial in Singapore. The same evidence was presented to the Tokyo War Crimes Trial.

They were provided with proof of their cleared status in the form of a piece of paper with a stamp that said "examined", or through similar stamps marked on their face, arm, shoulder or clothing. Appointed as advisor to defence headquarters after the fall of Singapore, Shinozaki used his position to issue personal protection cards to thousands of Chinese.

Suspected of being anti-Japanese elements, these men were loaded into lorries and transported to remote areas such as Changi , Punggol and Bedok for execution. At these sites, the suspects were machine-gunned to death and often their bodies were thrown into the sea.

The official figure given by the Japanese is 5, although the actual number is believed to be much higher. Lieutenant Colonel Hishakari Takafumi, a newspaper correspondent at the time, claimed that the plan was to kill 50, Chinese and that half that number had been reached when the order was received to stop the operation. After the war, this fear turned into anger. In , seven Japanese officers were charged during a war crimes trial in Singapore for their participation in Operation Sook Ching.

All seven officers were found guilty. Two officers, Lieutenant General Saburo Kawamura and Lieutenant Colonel Masayuki Oishi, were sentenced to death while the remaining five were given life sentences. The Overseas Chinese Appeal Committee that represented the families of victims protested that the sentences were too lenient.

They called for the execution of all seven Japanese soldiers and the arrest of all those who had participated in the operation. A joint memorial committee for Chinese massacre victims was set up to collect the remains of victims from various sites and rebury them in a dedicated memorial site. Following the discovery of the mass graves in Siglap, the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce lobbied for the Singapore government to press their Japanese counterparts for compensation for the massacre.

Massacre or Genocide? Redefining the Sook Ching Singsank, Lauralei. Date: It will be argued that the Chinese collective memory of the massacre was shaped by constant interaction between repetition and recollection of wartime suffering.

A collective memory based upon the grievances of punishing the Japanese for their brutality resulted because the notion that they had been victims of miseries inflicted upon them by the Japanese, for no other reason than that they were Chinese, strengthened the Chinese community's identity. In contrast, the Japanese counter-narrative to the events of paralleled the early postwar development of the right-wing nationalist view of Japan's wartin.