2009 Annual Meeting

APHAFIC held its seventh annual meeting at Emerald Chinese Seafood restaurant on May 30th ,2009. A total of 70 people attended. This meeting featured an invited talk by Dr. Peter Stanek, President of GA (Global Alliance for preserving history of WWII in Asia) on "Reflections on GA movement and its mission: Successes and objectives". He pointed out that both Japanese and US government have ignored the demands from Ex-POWs and WWII victims. For example, Dr. Lester Tenney and the ADBC (The American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, Inc.) have spent over six decades asking for justice in courts in Japan and the US and got no response, from either US Congress or Japanese Diet. Another war crimes issue is the 500,000 sex slaves, mainly Korean, Filipino,Chinese, Dutch and Indonesian, kidnapped by Japanese Imperial Army, raped daily for years and the Japanese government response was denial. During his trip to China in July 2008, he met Ms. Tian ,a frail 80 year-old lady. With a firm voice, she today asks only that her story be told: Kidnapped as a teenager, raped everyday for years. She asks nothing more than truth, and points to each of us with her demand. Japanese government response was again denial. He also interviewed Germ warfare survivors in Changde, China, like Mr. Zhang. Before germ attacks, there were eight members in his family. After the attack, only Mr. Zhang survives,…. However the rest world understand the stand of victims and many countries passed legislations to ask Japanese to acknowledge, apologize for, and repay sex slave victims:

Dr. Peter Stanek’s talk raised awareness of the tragedies during WWII in Asia. Many audience had long discussions with him after his talk. The GA strives to preserve the historical truth of the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945). For its major activities, please visit the website http://www.global-alliance.net/ or aphafic.org

Other Pictures

2009 Activities