Nov 27 12:41 AM US/EasternTOKYO, Nov. 27 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Researchers of the 1945 Battle of Okinawa agree that the Japanese military "forced and steered" civilians in Okinawa to commit mass suicide during the only full-scale ground battle in Japan during World War II, an authority on modern Japanese history said Tuesday.
Hirofumi Hayashi, professor at Kanto Gakuin University in Yokohama, said he conveyed the view in a statement submitted to the Japanese government's textbook-screening panel, which is considering requests by publishers to reinstate references about the Japanese military's role in forcing civilians to commit mass suicide.
Hayashi said he responded to a request from the Textbook Authorization Council, which advises the education minister and had asked a number of researchers on the battle to file their opinions.
Opinions from researchers, including Hayashi, will be used in screening requests from six textbook publishers to reinstate references about the Japanese military's role in the mass suicide, government sources said.
In the statement to the panel, Hayashi said, "The question is not whether there was an order from the military but the process that resulted in driving Okinawa residents to commit mass suicide." The residents committed suicide "effectively under the military's order," he said.
Hayashi criticized the Textbook Authorization Council for "distorting and misusing" passages from his work on the Battle of Okinawa, published in 2001, in urging textbook publishers to correct references on the military's role.
In the book, Hayashi writes, "the Japanese military did not directly order the residents on (Zamami Island of the Okinawa island group) to commit suicide."
Hayashi said he has rejected the education ministry's request not to make public his statement to the media before the textbook panel comes to a conclusion.
Hayashi said he decided to divulge his statement because secret screening is one of the major causes behind the confusion involving history textbooks.
Kisaburo Tokai, minister of education, culture, sports, science and technology, told a news conference Tuesday that he would refrain from commenting to help the textbook panel conduct its work under quiet conditions.
In the initial screening process, the education ministry instructed publishers to delete references to the military's role in the mass suicide from high school textbooks on Japanese history to be used in the 2008 academic year starting next April. The publishers complied and revised the books.
But the ministry's instruction angered people in Okinawa. In September, they staged a rally in Ginowan, just northeast of Okinawa's prefectural capital Naha, demanding a retraction of the ministry's instruction and reinstatement in the textbooks of the military's role.
Organizers put the number of protesters at about 110,000. It was the largest rally in Okinawa since its reversion to Japan from the United States in 1972.
Amid rising protests from the prefecture, the education minister said in October that applications to modify the textbooks would be referred to the council for further screening.
Earlier this month, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kenzaburo Oe testified in court that he believes an order from the Japanese military led to the mass suicide committed by civilians during the Battle of Okinawa. "I believe there was an order from the military," Oe, 72, said at the Osaka District Court.
Hayashi is known for his research on the Battle of Okinawa, the Japanese armed forces' atrocities in Southeast Asia and their use of so-called comfort women.
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