Japan studies new info as doubts rise over old soldiers
04.07.2009, 19:46
Japanese officials were studying new information on Sunday to confirm whether two elderly men in the southern Philippines were soldiers left over from the Second World War, but suspicion was rising of a hoax or a trap set by kidnappers.
Üdülési csekk elfogadóhelyek,
Budapest
The story of former Japanese soldiers ready to emerge from the mountains 60 years after the war has attracted a horde of media, mostly from Japan, to the city of General Santos on the troubled island of Mindanao.
On the third day of waiting for a Japanese contact to produce the two men, Shuhei Ogawa, the embassy spokesman, said officials had sent information from several sources, including the Philippine government, to Tokyo for analysis.
"We have a clearer picture now. That means it's easier to make a decision whether to proceed or not," he told reporters.
Japanese officials met the Japanese contact -- a trader who only gave his name as Asano -- on Sunday, he said.
Ogawa said he had been told to wait in General Santos for instructions from Tokyo. He did not give details of the information or say whether it confirmed that the two men were the first cases in 30 years of wartime stragglers being found.
Scepticism began to grow three days after the stragglers' story broke in Japan's media, because there has been no credible proof the two elderly men exist.
Media named the pair as Yoshio Yamakawa, 87, from the western city of Osaka, and Tsuzuki Nakauchi, 85.
The last known Japanese straggler from the war was found in 1975 in Indonesia.
DOUBTS AND DANGER
Philippine police officials also doubted the presence of war-time stragglers in mountains near the port city of General Santos, known as the country's tuna capital.
"All the information about these stragglers is hearsay," said Robert Kunisala, head of the regional police's intelligence office.
"We would like to caution everybody this might be a big scam. There are kidnap gangs operating near the mountains and the stragglers' story could be the bait."
He said the police had briefed embassy officials on the security and personal safety situation outside the city, especially near the mountains, a stronghold of communist and Muslim rebels and kidnap gangs.
On Saturday, Japanese embassy officials posted a note outside their hotel warning reporters not to leave General Santos and investigate on their own near the mountains.
Some journalists are starting to doubt the story after Asano, the Japanese embassy contact, began asking for money in exchange for information. A member of a Japanese television network said Asano offered to sell video of the stragglers.
"I am convinced the story was a hoax," said Pedro Juachon, a retired air force general, who led a team of Philippine soldiers in tracking down Hiroo Onoda, the last known Japanese straggler from the war in the Philippines, in 1974.
Onoda, a former Japanese army intelligence officer, was found living in the jungle on the island of Lubang. He was unaware of Japan's defeat in 1945.
The Philippines, invaded by Japan in 1941, was the scene of heavy fighting at the end of the war as Japanese soldiers fiercely loyal to the emperor fought U.S. troops across the sprawling country, which has thousands of remote islands.
Japanese media have played the story of the hunt for the former soldiers prominently, showing footage of Japanese troops during the war but not touching on a brutal occupation believed to have left as many as one million Filipinos dead.