Stichting Vervolgingsslachtoffers Jappenkamp
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Stichting Vervolgingsslachtoffers JAPPENKAMP

Foundation in support of the victims of Japanese concentrationcamps in the Dutch East Indies
and other by Japan occupied territories in South-East Asia.
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april 2004
The State of the Netherlands still in debt with its World War II Jap Camp victims.



JES and EJOS loose all claims against Japan.


It has been officially announced that the Japanese Appellate Court has rejected the appeal of the Honorary Debt procedures by JES and New Zealand’s EJOS.
This final verdict terminates 12 years of legal court suits to make Japan pay compensations for 3 to 3,5 years of concentration camp life and the loss of everything. Twelve wasted years of false hope and expectations. Why were we so ignorant?
We now know that a special commission of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs came to the conclusion that the San Francisco Peace Treaty (SFPT) of 1951 blocked all claims of victimized nations and their nationals, and that this Treaty could not be overruled by time laps, or other international treaties and protocols. Therefore, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Professor P. Kooijmans strongly advised JES not to start a File Case against Japanese State. Why was the advice to deaf ears?

The US Government had paid $ 20.000 to the Japanese community, who were interned during 1942, after the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941. In 1989 the Federal Government of the USA decided that a compensation should be paid to all 120.000 Americans of Japanese origin, who had suffered the degradation of internment. The second trigger was the payment of the German State. A role model for decency, that paid a sum total of over 100 billion D-marks to their victims and victimized nations during the Nazi occupation, the looting and the cruelties.
Anyway, there was no such a thing as the SFPT, which the Allied Powers, including the Netherlands, signed in 1951. Article 14B compelled the victimized nations and their nationals to waive all compensation and reparation claims. An article that seems to have an eternal value, as becomes evident from the verdict of the Japanese Court:

“In other words, individual rights of the Allied Forces and their citizens seeking compensation were renounced by the Allied Forces themselves and the substantial rights to claim compensation lapsed at the same time.”


in other words: You owe it to your Government that Japan was safeguarded against all responsibilities towards your country and yourselves. So due to the fact that our Government signed the SFPT with Japan at the time, we Japan’s victims, lost every right to compensation and rehabilitation, contrary to the victims of Nazi Germany. After half a century the UK and its Commonwealth Countries, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, finally decided to accept the consequences of their Governments’ signature. They paid each and every victim or his deceased next-of-kin an ex gratia payment of ? 10.000 (15.000 euro’s) instead of Japan. France and Norway followed. Only the Netherlands is lagging behind. Or did the Government of Former Prime Minister Kok (1998-2002) really think that the responsibility towards the victims of the Japanese Camps was fully compensated with the ex gratia payment in 2000/2001 (Het Gebaar).

If so, why was the total amount of 250 million guilders, meant for the victims of the Japanese Camps had to be shared by people who were not incarcerated; which made the group three times as large, while the amount was only increased by a mere 100 million?

The grounds for the payment were, according to former Minister of Welfare, Ms. Els Borst-Eilers, a compensation for the assumed shortcomings in the post-war redress, and the far from hospital reception in the Netherlands between 1946 and 1966.
A very cheap deal, if we may say so.

Not included are the separation and compensation of all things lost, backpay, and 3,5 years of inhuman suffering in Japanese Concentration Camps. These conditions were accepted from Japan on signing the SFPT.

The Dutch Government still owes a settlement to us, and our deceased next-of-kin.
Isn’t it the duty of our Government to take over all responsibilities for compensations we that are not covered by third parties?
Now that we are quite sure that Japan waives all responsibilities according to the SFPT. The State of the Netherlands is now compelled to take over all responsibilities, according to National Law.

Postwar redress has nothing to do with reparation and compensation for all things lost, including 3,5 years of incarceration.

© Lilian Sluijter, St. Vervolgingsslachtoffers Jappenkamp 1942-1945

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