Japan readies bill on allowances to POWs captured by Soviet Army.

10/1 Tass 21

TOKYO, January 10 (Itar-Tass) - Japan drafted a bill on paying cash
compensations to former POWs who had been at labour camps in Siberia and
Mongolia, reported the leading Japanese newspaper Yomiuri on Sunday.

The bill, worked out by deputies of the ruling Democratic Party,
provides for payment of special allowances between 250,000 yen (around
2,700 US dollars) and 1.5 million yen (16,000 dollars), to former men and
officers of the imperial army, depending on the time of their stay in
captivity.
The authorities plan to appropriate 23 billion yen (250 million
dollars) for this purpose and to pay out this sum from reserves of one of
disbanded funds. The newspaper notes that up to 100,000 Japanese whose
average age reaches 90, may claim this compensation. The bill is backed by
lawmakers from opposition parties and, according to experts, "will be
quite evidently approved by the legislature during its regular session,
scheduled for January 18".
Last March, a similar bill was approved by the upper chamber at the
initiative of the Democratic Party which was in opposition at the time,
but the ruling (at the time) Liberal Democratic Party scuttled it at the
key lower house. Following their victory at the general elections last
August, Democrats enjoy now the majority in both chambers of the country's
supreme legislative body.
The new bill has some provisions, judging by which the Japanese
government "should strive for getting full information on the stay of
Japanese citizens at camps for POWs and a return to the homeland of the
remains of those who died in captivity".
According to press reports, Soviet troops had captured 600,000
Japanese men and officers at the end of the Second World War in Manchuria,
Korea and South Sakhalin. All of them were interned at camps of the
Russian Interior Ministry in 30 regions of the country, including Siberia.
The repatriation was carried out between 1946 and 1950.
-0-bur/usn