P. M. BRIEFING : Firm Apologizes for Forced Labor
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TOKYO — A leading Japanese construction company has formally apologized to Chinese people it employed as forced laborers in World War II and agreed to open talks with a group of them on compensation.
A spokesman for Kajima Corp. said today that during a meeting with a group of eight former workers and relatives of workers Thursday, company executives apologized and admitted the company’s responsibility for forcing 986 Chinese to work in northern Japan in 1944 and 1945.
In 1945, hundreds of the workers revolted at Kajima’s copper mine in Hanaoka, but the uprising was put down by Japanese security forces.
Of the Chinese at the mine, 418 were believed to have been killed by overwork, torture or in the suppression of the revolt, Japanese media have reported.
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