PHILIPPINES: JOURNALISTS AND DIPLOMATS WAIT FOR THE THIRD DAY TO CONFIRM IF TWO ELDERLY JAPANESE SOLDIERS FROM SECOND WORLD WAR ARE HIDING IN MOUNTAINS
Record ID:
648466
PHILIPPINES: JOURNALISTS AND DIPLOMATS WAIT FOR THE THIRD DAY TO CONFIRM IF TWO ELDERLY JAPANESE SOLDIERS FROM SECOND WORLD WAR ARE HIDING IN MOUNTAINS
- Title: PHILIPPINES: JOURNALISTS AND DIPLOMATS WAIT FOR THE THIRD DAY TO CONFIRM IF TWO ELDERLY JAPANESE SOLDIERS FROM SECOND WORLD WAR ARE HIDING IN MOUNTAINS
- Date: 29th May 2005
- Summary: (ASIA) GENERAL SANTOS, PHILIPPINES (MAY 29, 2005) (REUTERS) 1. VARIOUS OF JAPANESE AND FILIPINO JOURNALISTS OUTSIDE HOTEL 0.13 2. CLOSE OF NOTICE THAT READS IN JAPANESE "WARNING, EXERCISE CAUTION WHEN LEAVING HOTEL" 0.26 3. VARIOUS OF JOURNALISTS 0.33 4. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (English) POLICE CHIEF REGIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND INVESTIGATION DIVISION SUPERINTENDENT ROBERT KUNISALA SAYING: "To warn these reporters to just be very careful, be very cautious, not just to entertain somebody else because I think, we believe that if this not true, somebody is making money out of this thing. Perhaps the report is a hoax." 1.02 5. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (English) NEWSPAPER REPORTER MICHITAKA YAMADA, DAILY MANILA SHIMBUN SAYING: "This case is rather different from the Onoda case. Maybe if there are some old Japanese soldiers, maybe they are already assimilated into the local people. Maybe for sixty years, they already have family, probably they already knew the end of World War II." 1.28 6. SLV JOURNALISTS OUTSIDE HOTEL READING NEWSPAPERS 1.32 7. CLOSE OF MAP OF GENERAL SANTOS CITY 1.36 8. WIDE OF STREET IN GENERAL SANTOS CITY 1.41 9. WIDE OF STATUE OF GENERAL SANTOS 1.45 10. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Filipino) MAGUINDANAO GOVERNOR DATU ANDAL AMPATUAN SAYING: "They must have families here. If we see them then, maybe it's true." 2.03 11. SLV JAPANESE JOURNALISTS ARRIVING AT THE AIRPORT 2.06 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 13th June 2005 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: GENERAL SANTOS,PHILIPPINES
- Country: Philippines
- Reuters ID: LVA5ZUGC28LD7SBBRDDY5ZPZ401I
- Story Text: Doubts rise as Japan waits to confirm reports of
war-time stragglers.
Japanese diplomats waited for a third day on Sunday
(May 29) to confirm reports that there were two elderly men
in the southern Philippines left over from the Second World
War, but suspicion was rising that the whole thing may be a
hoax or trap set by kidnappers.
An official from Tokyo's health ministry is due to join
four staff from its embassy on Sunday, to meet with a
Mindanao-based Japanese trader to discuss arrangements to
get the two elderly men down from the mountains, where they
have reputedly been hiding for 60 years.
But scepticism began to grow three days after the
stragglers' story broke in Japan's media, because there had
been no credible proof the two elderly men exist.
The media named the pair as Yoshio Yamakawa, 87, from
the western city of Osaka, and Tsuzuki Nakauchi, 85, and
said they could be the first cases in 30 years of war-time
stragglers being found.
The last known Japanese straggler from the war was
found in 1975 in Indonesia.
Philippine police officials also doubted the reported
presence of war-time stragglers in mountains near the port
city of General Santos, known as the country's tuna capital.
Police say they have 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 (May 28), Japanese embassy officials posted
a note outside the hotel where they are staying warning
reporters not to leave the city and investigate on their
own near the mountains.
"To warn these reporters to just be very careful, be
very cautious, not just to entertain somebody else because
I think, we believe that if this not true, somebody is
making money out of this thing. Perhaps the report is a
hoax," said Robert Kunisala, Police Chief Regional
Intelligence and Investigation Division Superintendent.
A horde of foreign journalists, mostly from Japan, has
descended on the south, but some are now starting to doubt
the story after the Japanese embassy contact -- a trader
who only gave his name as Asano -- began asking for money
in exchange for information.
A member of a Japanese television network said Asano
even offered to sell video of the two stragglers. Some
Japanese reporters told Reuters that Asano was also asking
for money to cover his expenses in locating the stragglers.
Another Japanese reporter said Asano told them he had
paid $50,000 to the people holding the stragglers, whom he
described as guerrillas.
The amount was about five times the original price
after the stragglers' story was flashed on local newspapers
and national television stations in the Philippines.
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 said he was convinced the story was a
hoax.
A former Japanese army intelligence officer, Onoda was
found living in the jungle on the Philippine island of
Lubang. He was unaware of Japan's defeat in 1945.
"This case is rather different from the Onoda case.
Maybe if there are some old Japanese soldiers, maybe they
are already assimilated into the local people. Maybe for
sixty years, they already have family, probably they
already knew the end of World War II," said newspaper
reporter Michitaka Yamada from the Daily Manila
Shimbun.
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 played the story of the possible former
soldiers prominently at home, showing footage of Japanese
troops during the war but not touching on a brutal
occupation that is believed to have left as many as one
million Filipinos dead.
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