It looks like the Japanese government has yet another World War II related lawsuit they are going to have to answer for:

Shin Jin-tae says he lives in the unluckiest town on Earth.

During World War II, when the Japanese occupied Korea, thousands of residents of this small farming community were shipped to Japan to work in munitions factories.

Their destination: Hiroshima.Shin and his family were there on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, when the U.S. military dropped the atomic bomb, leveling the city center and vaporizing many of those within a mile of the blast.

Along with Japanese civilians, thousands of people from Hapcheon died instantly. Others lived, only to face poverty, prejudice and loneliness, some of them marrying other survivors because no one else wanted them.

“Sometimes I ask God, ‘Why Hapcheon?’ ” said Shin, now 65 and a rice farmer. “And why did we have to go there? There were so many other Japanese cities. Why did it have to be Hiroshima?”

Monday, Shin and about 300 other Hapcheon residents will join atomic bomb survivors in South Korea and other countries in filing suit against the Japanese government for wartime reparations.

The survivors, represented by a team of Japanese lawyers, were spurred on by a Japanese Supreme Court ruling that recognized their right to receive reparations for mental anguish.

Shin Jin-tae, leader of a group of South Korean survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, poses before a memorial to the victims. He and other residents of the South Korean town of Hapcheon are suing the Japanese government for mental trauma.

Although lawsuits seeking medical benefits have been filed over the years, suits seeking compensation for emotional suffering are a new element in the legal battles between bomb survivors and the Japanese government.

“We’re poor farmers and we are dying off,” said Shin, director of a local chapter of the Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Assn. “For Japan to really repay us, the amount is uncountable.”

An estimated 40,000 Koreans died and 30,000 were injured in the atomic blasts over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For years, survivors lobbied for medical care.

Progress has been slow. Although Japan has paid for medical treatment for its own victims — known as hibakusha, or “explosion-affected people” — foreign survivors were ignored until November 2007, when the Supreme Court voided a 1974 government declaration that atomic bomb survivors living outside Japan could not receive benefits.

The ruling prompted the government to offer $10,000 in compensation to each overseas survivor recognized as an atomic bomb victim in lawsuits already lodged against the state.

Japanese officials say they have been responsive to the survivors.

“Let me emphasize that we take various health and medical measures for survivors living in and out of Japan,” said Masato Kumaki, an official with the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. “And we will continue to pursue measures to support atomic bomb survivors under the law.”  [LA Times]

Read the whole the whole article because it is a good read, but approximately 2,665 atomic bomb survivors plan on suing the Japanese government for reparations. I found it pretty incredible that Japan denied these people medical care for their injuries until a 2007 court ruling so I can easily understand their frustration with the Japanese government.

Anyway, the big question I am wondering is if these survivors plan on suing the US government as well?  In the article the leader of the survivor group planning on suing the Japanese government was critical of the United States as well.  He doesn’t think the United States should have dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima because it would kill civilians.

Well I disagree and this topic is one that has been discussed quite a bit before here on the ROK Drop.