6月1日に書いた新妻ファイルについてだ。
ベトナムのサイトが、新妻フィルが防衛庁に寄贈された、という共同通信電を次の見出しで伝えた。
Japan destroyed germ warfare evidence in 1945
日本は1945年に細菌戦の証拠を廃棄した。
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/international/2006/06/576607/
08:28' 01/06/2006 (GMT+7)
本文は以下の通りだ。日本語訳は後日アップします。
Historical documents presented to the Japanese Defense Agency on Wednesday reveal that the Japanese Army destroyed evidence of biological weapons development in China upon surrender in 1945, Kyodo News reported.
The Niiduma documents, named after Seiichi Niiduma, a deceased former army officer in the Imperial Japanese Army, also show that at the end of World War II, the United States occupation authority had exempted Japan from liability of having conducted human experiments in China.
The documents included Niiduma's record of the Japanese Army ordering Unit 731 on Aug. 15, 1945 to have evidence of developing germ weaponry destroyed, as well as his records of the U.S. authority questioning himself and other Japanese officers, the report said.
According to his records, the U.S. authority told Niiduma and others "not to mix scientific research with war crimes," which practically exempted Japan from liability of conducting human experiments in China.
The bunch of documents, collected by Niiduma during the war, were given to a research institute of the Defense Agency on Wednesday by his second daughter Tomoe Obata.
The documents also included a letter from Tomosada Masuda, an army doctor of Unit 731, to Niiduma in November 1945, which recorded that another army doctor, Ryoichi Naito, had proposed concealing the fact that human experiments were conducted in China.
VietNamNet/Xinhuanet
確かに、同ファイルでは、8月15日に、731部隊などに「特殊研究」の全「証拠を陰(ママ)滅」するよう指示したメモが残っている。
しかし日本人である僕にとっては、9月以降の米軍とのやり取りが興味深く、この証拠隠滅について、言ってみれば当然のことでもあり、深く考えなかった。足元を救われた感じだ。
いろいろな視点からものを見、考えなければいけないことを改めて実感した。
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