LONDON (Kyodo) Former Far East prisoners-of-war in Britain have given a mixed reaction to a proposal by an Imperial Japanese Army veteran to have the ruins of the infamous Thailand-Burma railway designated a World Heritage site.
Some former POWs are suspicious of the initiative and fear it could be aimed at glossing over their continuing demands for compensation for their suffering and a meaningful apology from the Japanese government.
Others worry that giving special status to the railway could lead to commercialization of the site, where over 13,000 Allied POWs died and 100,000 Asian forced laborers perished. Around 60,000 POWs were made to work on the railway.