Mitsubishi apology to forced labourers, now that most are dead

This video from the USA says about itself:

Mitsubishi to Apologize for American POWs‘ Forced Labor in WWII

19 July 2015

A major Japanese corporation planned to offer a landmark apology on Sunday for using US prisoners of war for forced labor during the second world war.

A senior Mitsubishi Materials executive was to offer the apology to former POWs during a ceremony at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, an associate dean at the center who focuses on Holocaust education, said he believed the move to be unprecedented.

Japan’s government issued a formal apology to American POWs in 2009 and again in 2010. But the dwindling ranks of POWs who were used as slaves at mines and industrial plants have so far had little luck in getting apologies from the corporations who used them.

Japan: Mitsubishi will issue an apology to WW2 PoWs

Thursday 23rd July 2015

NON-EXECUTIVE director Yukio Okamoto disclosed yesterday that huge transnational Mitsubishi Materials hopes to apologise to former British, Dutch and Australian prisoners forced to work in Mitsubishi mines and factories.

The company also intends to reach an amicable solution with Chinese forced labourers, following a landmark apology to US prisoners earlier this week.

“If there is such an opportunity, we will do the same apology,” he said, admitting that prisoners brought to Japan during the second world war had been subjected to inexcusable working conditions.

“What other companies will do, we don’t know … Ours is one of those who tortured PoWs most, so we have to apologise,” he said.

The former diplomat was among company officials who delivered an apology to surviving US PoWs and family members on Sunday in Los Angeles.

Chinese slave labourers sent to work in Japan and their descendants are suing Mitsubishi for financial compensation in China.