Monday, March 05, 2007

Japanese-occupied Malaya's 'comfort women'

A 1993 commentary in the International Herald Tribute revealed that KL " alone had about 20 military brothels" during WWII although the Japanese government asserted that there was none.

Meanwhile, Cambridge historians Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper write in their book Forgotten Armies - The Fall of British Asia, 1941-1945 (London, Penguin, 2004) that in 1995, some 3,500 letters were received by “a Malaysian political party” alleging the extensive existence of comfort women but “none has been published”.

According to an estimate cited in a memorial service by the Chinese community in Kuala Lumpur in 2003, during the Occupation, about 70,000 people of all ethnic communities were killed, while another 80,000 perished as the result of tortures and imprisonments and also an additional 300,000 died because of malnutrition and physical exhaustion in performing forced hard labour.

In the total number of those who perished, an estimate of 300,000 were Chinese. That figure represented 17 percent of the then entire Chinese population in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore.

Also, in an estimate presented by Professor P. Ramasamy in a 1984 study of Indian Malaysians' socio-political development from a historical perspective, " 60,000 Malayan Indians died while working for the Japanese on the Siamese 'Death Railway' ".

In addition, after the fall of Singapore, thousands of British, Australian, Indian and other soldiers and commanders were interned as imperial Japan's prisoners of war in, among other places, Kuala Lumpur's Pudu Prison, Singapore's Changi Prison as well as POW camps in Northeastern China (formerly known as Manchuria).

Picture of Japan's WW II sex slaves in Malaya

Ponnusamy remembers Japan's Death Railway

Visiting a graveyard during Chinese New Year

Salute anti-fascist martyrs, patriots of all races !

Recognise CPM's contributions, sack Zainuddin !

Children & Families of Far East Prisoners of War