Mario Okuhara, second from right, and Akira Miyagi, left, attend a press conference in Sao Paulo on Tuesday.
1:00 JST, May 24, 2024
RIO DE JANEIRO – Light may soon be shed on the persecution of Japanese immigrants in Brazil during World War II, following a recent decision to review demands for an apology from Brazilians of Japanese descent. The chairman of the Brazilian government’s amnesty committee has announced plans to apologize.
That chairman, Enea Almeida, indicated that the intention was to fully resolve the issue of Japanese persecution, stating that any apology would be “targeted at all Japanese-Brazilians and their descendants living in Brazil.”
It appears the apology will cover incidents over a period beginning in 1946 and lasting about two years in which Japanese people were sent to a prison off the coast of Sao Paulo. An estimated 189,000 people moved from Japan to Brazil before World War II. During the war, Brazil sided with the Allies and Japan became a hostile state, but even after peace returned, anti-Japanese sentiment remained strong.
The Japanese community at the time was divided between “winners” and “losers” – those who believed that Japan had won World War II and those who acknowledged Japan’s defeat, respectively. This division led to incidents of violence between Japanese, in which some people were killed and others injured. The Brazilian authorities responded by sending many of the ‘winners’ to prison as terrorists. However, it is believed that 70 to 80% of prisoners are innocent of any crime.
At a press conference on Tuesday, third-generation Japanese-Brazilian Mario Okuhara, along with others demanding an apology, expressed the belief that “it is necessary to ensure that similar tragedies do not happen to anyone, not just Japanese people.”
Groups such as an association of people of Okinawan descent are also demanding an apology for a 1943 incident in Santos, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, in which about 6,500 Japanese immigrants were ordered expelled. Although the committee is currently discussing matters that occurred during and after 1946, Almeida has hinted that the 1943 incident could also be included in the apology.
