Japanese a ‘cruel enemy’, says Australia

CANBERRA: The Japanese were a “cruel enemy” in World War II, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Monday at a ceremony marking Tokyo’s surrender 60 years ago. Without naming Japan, Howard said 20,000 Australians were captured in the space of a few weeks in 1942 - a reference to the sweep through Southeast Asia by Japanese forces and the fall of Singapore in February. The Australians “passed into captivity only to endure years of forced labour, starvation and brutality at the hands of a cruel enemy,” Howard said at a ceremony at the war memorial in the capital Canberra. “Our prisoners of war came face to face with barbarity of a kind that younger generations can scarcely imagine,” he said. afp

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