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Tainted money

OXFORD University has accepted a scholarship endowment from a Japanese corporation that used prisoner-of-war slave labour during the Second World War.
Student groups have attacked the decision, claiming this to be a further example of the University’s willingness to ignore ethical considerations when receiving endowments and donations.
The Aso Group, a Japanese industrial corporation, has never admitted or apologised for the firm’s use of British and Allied prisoners as slave labour.
In 1945, Aso forced 197 Australian, 101 British and 2 Dutch PoWs to work at its mines at a site known as Fukuoka PoW Branch Camp 26, along with 12,000 Korean slaves. The camp was closed later that year, following the surrender of Japanese forces.
In surrender documents given to General MacArthur at the end of the Second World War by Japan, Fukuoka was listed in a list of prison camps which contained Allied PoWs used by private companies.
Japanese authorities ordered records of the company’s mining activities destroyed in 1945, but amateur historians later discovered that prisoners were forced to work underground for 15 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The Aso-funded scholarship will cover University and college fees, fund return air travel to the UK and provide accommodation at New College outside of term-time.
David Amos of Oxford’s People and Planet Group, which campaigns for fair and ethical investment, condemned the University’s decision to accept money from the group.
“Given the University’s investment history, this hardly comes as a surprise,” he said. “It is time that Oxford University took its ethical responsibilities over investments and scholarships seriously.”
The scholarship will be open to Japanese nationals, or individuals who speak Japanese as a first language. It will also be necessary for them to have a link to the Fukuoka Prefacture, a province in Kyushu Island, where the Aso Mining Corporation’s PoW camp was based.
Harold Newman, National Chairman of the Association of Jewish ex-Servicemen and Women, said, “If the Aso group acknowledge that they employed prisoners of war as slave labour, and when they offer compensation to the victims and their families, we would not object to the scholarship.” He added, “We have members of our organisation who were treated harshly.”
The President of Aso Group is Yutaka Aso, a former student of New College who was taught by its current Warden, Professor Alan Ryan. From 1969 to 1971, he studied for a Diploma in Social and Political Studies at New College. In 2005 Yutaka was also awarded the French Légion d’Honneur by the French Ambassador in Tokyo.
Earlier last year Yutaka Aso’s brother Taro Aso, who at the time was Japan’s foreign minister, refused to confirm that PoWs were forced to work for his family’s company. Taro Aso was previously President of what was then called Aso Cement.
Among the war veterans who have demanded compensation is an 87-year-old Australian man who was forced to work at the camp. He sent a personal letter to Taro Aso, requesting an apology and compensation for his unpaid work at Aso Mining Co but received no reply.
A spokesperson for the University said that funding for the scholarship would not come from the part of Aso Group that used PoW labour.
“The Aso Group is an umbrella for a number of companies,” she said. “One is Aso Cement, which was formed from Aso Mining. Aso Cement is separate from the part of the Aso Group that the scholarship funding has come from.”
She added that the ex-Foreign Minister, who is the brother of the benefactor and a previous head of the company, was not involved in the scholarship agreement.
In an official statement, University Vice-Chancellor John Hood said, ‘The University is very grateful for Mr Aso’s generosity, and we hope the scholarship will help to strengthen our ties with Japan, and Japanese students, in particular.”

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