Japan's Unesco bid omits history of slave labour, former POWs claim

Former US prisoners of war have expressed "serious reservations" about Tokyo's application to have several industrial facilities recognised as World Heritage sites, saying many were used as "industrial prisons" for slave labourers in the second world war.

Japan has applied to Unesco, the United Nations' Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, to have 23 industrial sites across southern Japan granted World Heritage status, with the 39th session of the committee that approves requests opening in Bonn, Germany, yesterday.

The campaign has ignited fierce criticism among nations that felt the full force of Japan's colonial years - notably South Korea and China - as well as from former POWs who were used as slave labourers in mines, shipyards, factories and foundries.

Jan Thompson, president of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society, has written to the Paris headquarters of Unesco to express her concerns about the nomination of the "Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution: Kyushu-Yamaguchi and Related Areas".

In her letter, a copy of which has been seen by the South China Morning Post, Thompson writes: "I have serious reservations about whether the application meets the Unesco criteria of 'universal value' and meaning."

"Japan's use of Allied POW slave labour in its corporate metal and mineral mines is an essential part of POW history, and a central and long-term feature of the history of the nominated sites," Thompson wrote.

"From late Meiji onward, Japan used forced convict labour in its extractive industries and created 'industrial prisons' to supply workers to factories and mills at private companies. The Japanese World Heritage nomination focuses on the history of Japan's mining and steel industries, but completely omits the history of POW labour," she added.