US veterans' groups concerned about Japan's effort to gain World Heritage status for sites built with slave labour

Veterans' groups in the United States have joined the chorus of concern over the Japanese government's efforts to have industrial sites in southern Japan - some of which were built with slave labour - added to the Unesco World Heritage list.

Tokyo's campaign to list mines, ports, foundries and factories across southern Japan has already made headway, with an advisory panel to the UN body recommending in early May that "Sites of the Meiji Industrial Revolution" be put to the full World Heritage Committee meeting in Bonn from June 28.

Tokyo insists that the 23 sites are of global importance because they demonstrate that Japan was the first Asian nation to develop into an advanced industrial society after importing shipbuilding and other heavy industrial technologies from the West.

Critics point out that the sites were built by thousands of slave labourers from the Korean peninsula, which was at that time under Japanese control, many of whom died.

Many Allied prisoners of war were forced to work in the mines, factories and shipyards, often in appalling conditions.

In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying on May 14 demanded Japan "properly deal with the relevant concerns".

Rah Jong-yil, South Korea's former ambassador to Tokyo, described the attempt to list the sites as "adding insult to injury".