Monthly Archives: March 2005

by | 10 March 2005 · 6:28 pm

Acts of War, 60 Years Ago

The Marmot reminds us that today marks the 60th anniversary of the fire-bombing of Tokyo, as a BBC report notes.

People in Tokyo have been marking the 60th anniversary of a massive US night-time bombing raid which destroyed much of the city in 1945.

Several memorial services have been held across the city to remember the more than 100,000 people who died.

The raid was part of an American strategy to try to wear down Japanese morale ahead of a possible invasion.

Last month, we commemorated the 60th anniversary of the fire-bombing of Dresden.

An aspect of the Dresden bombing that remains a question today is how many people died during the attacks of February 13/14, 1945. The city was crammed with uncounted refugees and many POWs in transit when the raids took place. The exact number of casualties will never be known. McKee believed that the official figures were understated, and that 35,000 to 45,000 died, though “the figure of 35,000 for one night’s massacre alone might easily be doubled to 70,000 without much fear of exaggeration, I feel.”

The battle of Iwo Jima began 60 years ago, shortly after the fire-bombing of Dresden, and didn’t end until after the fire-bombing of Tokyo.

The battle for Iwo Jima began Feb. 19, 1945, but didn’t end until March 15, with nearly 7,000 Americans and more than 20,000 Japanese killed. After years of retaking soil conquered by a Japanese military machine, America was knocking on the enemy’s door by taking Iwo Jima. It was the first invasion of Japanese soil since Pearl Harbor. Iwo Jima was heavily entrenched with a network of caves, tunnels and pillboxes. The brilliant Japanese commander defending the island, Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi, had been told to fight to the death — no Japanese survivors — hoping high American casualties would deter further attacks against Japanese territory.

And in April, we will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the battle of Okinawa.

Okinawa was the largest amphibious invasion of the Pacific campaign and the last major campaign of the Pacific War. More ships were used, more troops put ashore, more supplies transported, more bombs dropped, more naval guns fired against shore targets than any other operation in the Pacific. More people died during the Battle of Okinawa than all those killed during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Casualties totaled more than 38,000 Americans wounded and 12,000 killed or missing, more than 107,000 Japanese and Okinawan conscripts killed, and perhaps 100,000 Okinawan civilians who perished in the battle.

The battle of Okinawa proved to be the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War. Thirty-four allied ships and craft of all types had been sunk, mostly by kamikazes, and 368 ships and craft damaged. The fleet had lost 763 aircraft. Total American casualties in the operation numbered over 12,000 killed [including nearly 5,000 Navy dead and almost 8,000 Marine and Army dead] and 36,000 wounded. Navy casualties were tremendous, with a ratio of one killed for one wounded as compared to a one to five ratio for the Marine Corps. Combat stress also caused large numbers of psychiatric casualties, a terrible hemorrhage of front-line strength. There were more than 26,000 non-battle casualties. In the battle of Okinawa, the rate of combat losses due to battle stress, expressed as a percentage of those caused by combat wounds, was 48% [in the Korean War the overall rate was about 20-25%, and in the Yom Kippur War it was about 30%]. American losses at Okinawa were so heavy as to [elicit] Congressional calls for an investigation into the conduct of the military commanders. Not surprisingly, the cost of this battle, in terms of lives, time, and material, weighed heavily in the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan just six weeks later.

Japanese human losses were enormous: 107,539 soldiers killed and 23,764 sealed in caves or buried by the Japanese themselves; 10,755 captured or surrendered. The Japanese lost 7,830 aircraft and 16 combat ships. Since many Okinawan residents fled to caves where they subsequently were entombed the precise number of civilian casualties will probably never be known, but the lowest estimate is 42,000 killed. Somewhere between one-tenth and one-fourth of the civilian population perished, though by some estimates the battle of Okinawa killed almost a third of the civilian population. According to US Army records during the planning phase of the operation, the assumption was that Okinawa was home to about 300,000 civilians. At the conclusion of hostilities around 196,000 civilians remained. However, US Army figures for the 82 day campaign showed a total figure of 142,058 civilian casualties, including those killed by artillery fire, air attacks and those who were pressed into service by the Japanese army.

The only TV news that I can sit through for more than 15 minutes without channel-surfing away (usually in response to commercials or “celebrity justice” stories) is The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, which ends each broadcast with a photographic listing of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq (no other individuals killed in Iraq or elsewhere). I view them all, with a mixture of sorrow and respect. Can you imagine how long The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer would have to be to list onscreen the names and photos of just the U.S. military personnel killed during World War II? It would have to be NewsWeek 24/7 with Jim Lehrer. I remind myself of that when I get too depressed about the state of the world 60 years later.

An imaginary Jim Lehrer Sr. in 1945: “And now, in silence, are 7,000 more …”

UPDATE: Tokyo-based White Peril has much more.

Leave a comment

Filed under Japan, Pacific, U.S., war

by | 9 March 2005 · 8:04 pm

Indonesia and Malaysia at Odds

Malaysia and Indonesia had a naval stare-down recently over an oil-rich area in the Sulawesi Sea. From a Singapore Angle (formerly “Singapore Tsunami Relief Effort” blog) covers the story in four parts, with a lot of background about effects on ASEAN and other regional relationships.

Meanwhile, Colby Cosh (on 7 March) covers another angle of dispute between the two states, the huge number of illegal (and indispensible) Indonesian workers in Malaysia.

Recognizing the perceived need for cheap Indonesian labour, the Malay government decided to seek a middle course: give the workers an amnesty period to return to Indonesia, have their status regularized and documented, participate in classes that would instruct them in the distinctive cultural sensitivities of their Malay masters, and return to Malaysia to get back to the saw and the scrub-brush.

What the Malaysians didn’t foresee was that once the workers had returned to Indonesia with their Malaysian savings, they might not be allowed back over the border so easily. Indonesian officials, it appears, have jumped at the chance to hold their rich neighbour’s workforce hostage, or at least to squeeze it for every penny they can get.

Leave a comment

Filed under Indonesia

by | 8 March 2005 · 6:33 pm

An Afghan Woman Contemplates Exile, April 1980

The country’s conditions had become even worse. Several months had passed since I applied for a passport and I still didn’t know whether I would be able to make the planned trip to India, because the report from the secret police had not been made yet. With great sorrow I resolved to leave the country–for who knew how long?–the country to which I owed my entire life, the country my husband took such pride in serving [in the Afghan military], the land we cherished, treasuring its memories deeply, the one we always felt homesick for when we traveled.

This day, on my way home, I reviewed the situation carefully and these were my conclusions: It had been two years since my husband had gone missing, with no word about him or the reason for his disappearance. I didn’t know whether he was alive or not. I had a sick child and was not permitted to have her admitted to the only hospital that had proper facilities, even though I was willing to pay the entire cost up front. We had lost not only the benefits of health insurance but also Saleem’s social security and the retirement money he had paid into the fund directly out of his paycheck every month.

Many young students had disappeared lately without a trace. The schools were getting dangerous. I could not send my children to school without worrying about them all day long. I’d had them stay home several times during the past two weeks because of student demonstrations and the brutal efforts of the police to repress them. Omar and Ali both complied with my orders but didn’t understand my position. They thought I was paranoid.

I did not have security at my job. Any minute, I thought, they would come and arrest me. There were no guarantees of safety for any one of us anymore. In fact, circumstances were forcing me to leave as soon as possible–not for myself but for the safety of my family. It was the hardest decision I ever made in my life. To assuage my agony, I promised that I would return when conditions became right. Surely the Russians would not last very long.

The day I decided to leave, I cried all the way home from the office. A searing pain shot through my heart when I looked at the Aliabad Mountains behind the university. I remembered the times in college when we frolicked and played games among those steep rocks. We even tried one day to climb a large boulder but didn’t get very far before one of our classmates got stuck between two rocks. The rest of us tried to rescue her and the whole class missed a lecture. The dean didn’t let us make up the test we missed that day; he never understood the pleasure we derived from going up there.

All night long my head was full of unanswered questions. What was I going to do in a foreign country with no money, all by myself with three children? How would I be able to earn money for their food and education? Would I be able to provide the comforts they had here at home? What if my husband was released and I wasn’t home? Would he understand? Was I doing the right thing? What about the promise I’d made to him: “In bad times as well as good, in sickness and in health, I will stay by your side until death parts us”?

I had applied for a passport, but then my idea had been to return home after my daughter’s medical treatment. Now I must change the plan and I needed more money. I couldn’t sell our real estate because of the uncertainty concerning my husband; and even if he were no longer living, it could not be sold till all the children had passed their eighteenth birthday. I dare not sell the household goods because that would attract attention. Even if I did, they would realize only a small fraction of their original price. So I would have to give away everything we had accumulated and saved bit by bit over the years. My heart broke when I remembered that Saleem had sometimes saved money by canceling a movie or a trip in order to have enough to build our house.

Could I keep my plan secret? I certainly could not tell my husband’s family that I was leaving. The very few whom I trusted could not keep the news to themselves, especially my mother-in-law, who would begin to cry, and then others would know. Would our departure be too hard on her, especially at this time when my husband was missing too? What would happen to my mother and brothers and sisters? Would the government arrest them because I had left the country? Many close relatives were arrested and questioned if one family member left the country. Yet how could we all leave with our children, twenty-six of us, without being noticed? The more I thought, the more questions appeared in my head which called for answers–answers that I did not have. In fact, everything seemed impossible, out of reach.

Finally, early in the morning, I decided to put all the negative and all the positive points of my plan on the two sides of an imaginary balance. On the left side went all the negatives, such as lack of money, trouble finding a decent job, starting all over again from zero, leaving all my property behind; on the right side were the positive points, such as having a safer life for my sons and not being afraid of losing them, having proper health care and a good education for my children, not having to worry about spies and false reports. I still was not able to decide. In fact, it seemed I might lose a whole lot more than I gained in the deal. The future lay ahead of me as a somber blur.

At last I realized that what I would really gain from leaving would be freedom. The thought of freedom grew larger and larger in my mind until it completely weighed down the right side of that imaginary balance. It would be well worth fighting for. I thought, I can trade everything in the world, all the luxurious and elegant things in my life, in order to earn freedom for my family and for my mother, my brothers and sisters, and their families. The idea of achieving freedom for all of us gave me the peace of heaven.

SOURCE: An Afghan Woman’s Odyssey, by Farooka Gauhari (U. Nebraska Press, 1996), pp. 171-174

Leave a comment

Filed under Afghanistan, war

by | 7 March 2005 · 7:58 pm

Danny Reviews Ibn Battuta

Danny Yee reviews The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, by Ross Dunn (U. California Press, 2005):

Ibn Battuta set off from Tangier in 1325, visiting Egypt, Mecca, Syria, Iraq, Anatolia, the Central Asian steppe, India, the Maldives and possibly China before returning home nearly twenty five years later. After additional trips to Spain and West Africa he settled down and his story was turned into a Rihla (travel narrative) by Ibn Juzayy….

Dunn provides information about the people Ibn Battuta met and the places he visited and background on the broader history, society and culture. So the opening chapter “Tangier” looks at the geography of the city and the Straits of Gibraltar and the history of the Almohad dynasty, for example, while the chapter on Persia and Iraq begins by describing the impacts of the Mongols and Turks on Mesopotamia. More general material includes explanations of the different schools of Islamic law, Sufism, the role of Arabic, and other aspects of the common culture of the Islamic world.

The result makes The Adventures of Ibn Battuta almost a guide to the Islamic world in the second quarter of the 14th century. With the travel and biographical material providing an extra attraction — Ibn Battuta’s adventures get more exciting than the consumption of watermelon! — it would make an excellent entry work for those with no background knowledge of Islam or Islamic history.

Leave a comment

Filed under China, Spain

by | 7 March 2005 · 7:45 pm

Communists Win/Lose in Moldova

Siberian Light has been tracking the Moldovan elections.

Here’s the breakdown of the three parties that forced their way over the five percent threshold and into 101-seat parliament.

  • Communist Party: 46.1% / 56 seats
  • Democratic Moldova Bloc: 28.4% / 24 seats
  • Popular Party Christian Democratic: 9% / 11 seats

But Publius Pundit has a different headline: Communists lose majority in Moldova.

Leave a comment

Filed under democracy, Eastern Europe, USSR

by | 7 March 2005 · 8:39 am

The Aftermath of Taiwan’s Uprising on 2-28

The [Nationalist] state responded to the challenge presented by the [Taiwanese] uprising [on February 28] and demands for reform with overwhelming force. On the morning of March 8, the first Nationalist military reinforcements arrived in the northern port city of Jilong [= Keelung]. As these forces moved southward toward Taibei, fighting broke out with Taiwanese. Over the next two days, thousands of soldiers landed in Jilong and on the south coast at Gaoxiong [= Kaohsiung]. They reasserted the government’s control by indiscriminately shooting anyone on the streets. Martial law was declared throughout the island on March 9. On March 10, [Taiwan administrator] Chen Yi announced that the resolution committees had become part of the revolt and were now illegal. He also ordered all workers to return to their posts and shopkeepers to open for business, implemented price controls, and outlawed meetings or the collection of money for any purpose. Since Taiwanese were poorly armed and lacked a unified command, resistance collapsed quickly. Furthermore, most prominent islanders never sought a pitched battle with mainland forces….

Estimates of the number killed range from unbelievably low (500) to absurdly high (100,000). Those with close ties to the Nationalist government claim lower figures for the dead and injured, while supporters of Taiwan independence and critics of Jiang’s regime insist on higher numbers. The rough consensus among scholars is 10,000 killed and 30,000 wounded. Although discovering whether 5,000, 10,000, or more died is an important way of understanding the scope of the massacre, knowing who was killed helps make clear the incident’s effect on later political activity. As soldiers spread terror through the island, they crushed the Taiwanese as a political force able to advocate change outside the Nationalist state or Guomindang party structure. The elite’s struggle to position themselves between the Nationalists and the bulk of the island’s population failed. Instead, the government saw as one the elite, urbanites who took up arms, and even Taiwanese who stayed home throughout the crisis. All were part of a rebellion against the state.

The [2-28] incident and its aftermath had a greater impact on the island’s elite than did retrocession [to Chinese rule]. Many of the most vocal critics of the state and promoters of expanded self-government, usually prominent figures from the Japanese era, died, fled, or were frightened into silence. For example, two members of the Provincial Consultative Assembly were killed and five others arrested, while four members of the Taibei City Council died and nine were jailed. Others killed included lawyers, professors, teachers, landlords, merchants, and journalists. Because of their political activity under both Japanese and Chinese rule, these were among the best educated and most prominent islanders….

The February 28 Incident was a watershed in Taiwan’s modern political history. Decolonization essentially came to a close in early March 1947. At that point, many of the Taiwanese most likely to use the Japanese-era experience as a basis for evaluating the Nationalists and promoting expanded self-government were killed or cowed into silence. Now, the state dominated debate over the colonial legacy and thus prevented Taiwanese reference to it as justification for political reform. After the incident, the Nationalists combined limited reforms with increasing repression to solidify their rule. Subsequent changes in the political and economic spheres came from and through the state, not as a result of initiatives from the Taiwanese themselves. The events of early 1947 also marked the conclusion of debates over provincial-central relations in Republican China. The centralizers, represented by the Nationalists, had won. And in their victory, any hope for islandwide self-government, for which the Taiwanese had yearned throughout the colonial occupation, was dashed.

The incident is fascinating on two levels. First are the facts, what actually happened on Taiwan in February and March of 1947. Second is the way the incident illustrates the impact of history upon politics and vice versa. Paul Cohen, in his research of the Boxer Movement in China, examines how political context influences the memory of important events. “Certainly, mythologizers start out with an understanding of the past,” Cohen writes, “which in many (though not all) cases they may sincerely believe to be ‘correct.’ Their purpose, however, is not to enlarge upon or deepen this understanding. Rather, it is to draw on it to serve the political, ideological, rhetorical, and/or psychological needs of the present.”

SOURCE: Between Assimilation and Independence: The Taiwanese Encounter Nationalist China, 1945-1950, by Steven E. Phillips (Stanford U. Press, 2003), pp. 81, 83, 87-88

Leave a comment

Filed under China

by | 6 March 2005 · 10:46 am

Afghanistan, 21 May 1978 (31 Saur 1357)

During the first week of the new government Taraki was elected president and prime minister of the Revolutionary Council of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Babrak Karmal was elected vice president and deputy premier and Hafizullah Amin was deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs. The Revolutionary Council was the core of government power. It was made up of twenty cabinet members, who unanimously agreed that martial law should remain in force throughout the country indefinitely. Although the government always announced that all parts of the country were under their control, there were strong indications that the three-week-old regime had still not quelled all the opposition.

In a news conference Taraki declared that Afghanistan was a nonaligned country and that his government would seek friendship from all nations, including Western countries. All the political speeches began hypocritically with the familiar words “In the name of God Almighty we begin…”; “In the name of God Almighty the benevolent and merciful….” Taraki and other members of his government were seen on TV attending mosques–a very wise move, but it did not impress many university people. Those who knew the present leaders of Afghanistan and their ties to the Soviet Union could easily guess that this was not a nonaligned country. I think Taraki and his followers figured that an orthodox Communist regime would not be favored by Afghans, so it was important for the survival of the new government to be very careful. Such precautions did not last very long, however. Soon Taraki was collaborating with the Soviet Union, his closest ally. Decree after decree was approved by the inexperienced Central Committee members, who were still giddy with pride and joy at their easily gained positions. They were in a great hurry to make changes, forgetting the ingrained, time-tested old customs and traditions of the Afghan culture.

Every night I listened to broadcasts from outside the country, switching from the BBC to the Voice of America and to Pakistani and Indian radio stations. With great sadness I realized that the outside world, even the United States, did not react strongly to the coup. From my colleagues’ comments at the university I could guess that they also were listening to those stations, but none of us dared to talk about it.

During the previous week, classes at the university and other schools had been called off almost every afternoon. The students were ordered to go to the auditoriums and listen to Marxist speeches in which Taraki was touted as the greatest leader of all time. Generally, several school days were wasted for every new decree. Most of us were tired of all the propaganda but we couldn’t say a word. Disobedience to the rules or expression of our opinions had no place in the present regime.

SOURCE: An Afghan Woman’s Odyssey, by Farooka Gauhari (U. Nebraska Press, 1996), pp. 100-101

Leave a comment

Filed under Afghanistan

by | 6 March 2005 · 9:20 am

Afghanistan, 10 June 1978 (20 Jawza 1357)

Three new decrees, the first two concerning the selection ofRevolutionary Council members and the third one the military court, were repeated hour after hour, day and night, on radio, TV, and even at the school assemblies. But still the new regime refused to release any information as to [my husband] Saleem’s whereabouts. It seemed that he was a forgotten case, as if he had never existed. Most often, when I asked an official about Saleem, he would give me a dirty look, one that made me freeze for a second. I was treated like an antirevolutionary, with no rights at all.

On weekends (Fridays) I unfailingly joined the mass of people taking clean clothes, food, and other supplies to relatives who were thought to be imprisoned at Puli-Charkhi. I always tried to be among the first few in a very long line of people who were waiting there. The line increased throughout the day, and as time went on, it seemed that there was no end to this infinite queue of worried and miserable human beings. When the gate opened at eight in the morning, we each gave our package to the man in charge to be passed along to the intended recipient. Then we waited for a response. For some a note came back from their beloved one, along with dirty clothing to be washed and returned. For others, the package was kept for hours and then was returned with the simple comment “He is not here.” I always hoped that someday they would give my package to Saleem.

The first few weeks after the coup, most of the visitors to the prison were from educated, well-to-do families; I could easily tell from the way they talked and dressed. But later all sorts of men and women from every sect and group of society could be seen: rich, poor, educated, nomads, Uzbeks, Hazaras, Kabulis, Kandaharis–almost every ethnic group of the country was represented.

SOURCE: An Afghan Woman’s Odyssey, by Farooka Gauhari (U. Nebraska Press, 1996), p. 104

Leave a comment

Filed under Afghanistan

by | 6 March 2005 · 8:17 am

Afghanistan, 24 June 1978 (3 Saratan 1357)

All convicted criminals, even murderers, were released in most parts of country, making big news on radio and TV. According to the minister of education, “The doors of the prisons are being closed and the doors of the schools are being opened.” Yet, paradoxically, the political kidnappings continued and people still disappeared. The jails were being emptied to make room for the new political prisoners!

People were getting tired of all such propaganda. As I was crossing Puli-Baghi Umomi Road I noticed that someone had written under the government’s famous slogan of “Food, Shelter, and Clothing for All,” in large letters that could be read from far away, ‘Address: Puli-Charkhi Prison.” Whoever did it took a big risk to write such words on a very busy road.

SOURCE: An Afghan Woman’s Odyssey, by Farooka Gauhari (U. Nebraska Press, 1996),
p. 107

Leave a comment

Filed under Afghanistan

by | 6 March 2005 · 7:31 am

Afghanistan, 26 March 1979 (6 Hamal 1358)

Our New Year came on March 21 and I don’t think people celebrated it the way they used to. School started right after the New Year. My daughter told me that a new subject, one hour daily, had been added recently to their curriculum. It was called itla-at, or “information” class. During this class the teacher asked the students about their homes, what went on there, what their parents said about the new regime and who visited them. This was a new wrinkle in the spy network that was spreading through the schools.

Rumors were rampant that even children had been disappearing from schools and the streets. The Marxists had supposedly taken them to special “indoctrination schools,” but people kept quiet and didn’t talk about their missing family members.

Both of my sons were going into the tenth grade, while my daughter was in the fifth. They were growing fast and making new friends. There were times when I felt so uncertain about decisions. I wanted Saleem’s opinion when it came to raising my children. One day Ali wanted to go out and play football with his friends but I wouldn’t let him. I was scared, I was scared even of my own shadow. I didn’t know who I could trust anymore. I was afraid that if I let him go and play, he would not return safely. I didn’t know his friends. Times had changed so much that I was afraid I might lose the children exactly the way I had lost my husband–and I wouldn’t be able to find them either. When I told Ali no, he cried. His tearful eyes were killing me.

SOURCE: An Afghan Woman’s Odyssey, by Farooka Gauhari (U. Nebraska Press, 1996), pp. 113-114

Leave a comment

Filed under Afghanistan