Tokyo firebombing victims plan to sue government

TOKYO, Oct 30 (Reuters) Victims of US firebombing raids on Tokyo in World War Two are among about 100 people who planto seek compensation from the Japanese government for startingthe war and taking too long to stop it, the group's lawyer said today.

One of the worst incendiary bombings of Tokyo took place just moments after midnight on March 10, 1945, engulfing the capital in a firestorm and killing an estimated 100,000.

At least 138 people, some of them survivors of the firebombing and others relatives of those killed, plan to demand 10 million yen each and a government apology.

''The government began an invasive war, and by the time of the firebombing things were not going well. They should have been able to predict that something like that would happen,'' said Taketoshi Nakayama, the group's chief lawyer.

''If they'd stopped the war sooner, neither the firebombing nor the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (in August 1945) would have taken place,'' he added.

The plaintiffs, who intend to file suit next March 9, say the government has offered compensation for the war only to military veterans and their relatives, violating constitutional principles of equality.

The only similar previous suit was filed by two women demanding government compensation over the bombing of the central city of Nagoya.

The Supreme Court rejected that suit in 1987, ruling: ''In an emergency situation where the fate of the nation is at stake, people just have to endure.'' Nakayama said the latest suit was being filed now because the survivors of the bombing were growing older.

He said the number of plaintiffs was likely to rise by the time the suit was filed. ''After all, there were 100,000 dead, and many people want to raise questions about national responsibility.'' Survivors and relatives of those who died in Tokyo firebombings on other dates as well as those from other cities would also take part, Nakayama said.

Debate about war responsibility in Japan remains a touchy issue, frequently raised by Asian neighbours China and South Korea, which say Japan has not squarely faced up to its wartime aggression and colonisation.

In 1990, Hitoshi Motoshima, then mayor of Nagasaki, was shot and injured by a right-wing extremist angered by his remarks that wartime emperor Hirohito, father of the current emperor, bore some responsibility for the war.

But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in a nod to Beijing and Seoul before visits there earlier this month, told a parliamentary panel that wartime leaders, including his cabinet minister grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, had ''great responsibility'' for starting the war.

REUTERS SP BST1428