Japan kamikaze statue lures tourists, in Philippines
By Sebastien Berger (telegraph.co.uk)
Updated: 2005-09-06 10:45

The statue of a kamikaze pilot looking towards the horizon, his expression evocative of duty, sacrifice and death, is not - surprisingly - sited on the Japanese coast, gazing at the Pacific where the suicide attackers met their end.  

The kamikaze pilot memorial has not been welcomed by the locals.

Instead it has been erected at Mabalacat airfield in the Philippines, from where the first kamikaze raid took off, in an attempt to draw Japanese tourists to a land where more than a million people died under wartime occupation.

With the Philippines stuck in poverty, 40 per cent of the population live on less than ￡1.10 a day. More than half the Philippines' overseas aid comes from Japan, which last year overtook the US as its biggest trading partner, with imports and exports totalling more than $15 billion.

The sculpture was cast and paid for in Japan, and a Japanese firm is the lead contractor building a highway alongside the site.

Tino Arceo, 69, its caretaker, was only a child during the occupation but he remembers it well.

"The majority of them were really rude and ill-mannered. Some Japanese, when they saw a beautiful-looking girl, tried to snatch her and rape her, even if she was with her husband and children.

"I'm angry with the Japanese for what happened but I leave it up to the Lord to make the punishment for them. As far as I'm concerned this is just a job. I'm working to earn money to make a living to provide for the family."

Others are less sanguine. The vast majority of visitors in the months since the statue was installed have been Japanese. Mr Arceo described them as "proud and happy", but one Filipino visitor wrote in the visitors' book: "This memorial is an outrage and insults the memory of Filipino veterans. It glorifies war, contrary to its stated intentions. It is revolting."

The panel describes Lt Yukio Seki, the leader of the first kamikaze raid in October 1944, as The World's First Official Human Bomb!

The area's economy was devastated when US forces left, at Manila's behest, in the early 1990s. But local officials behind the project insist it is driven by a desire for peace.

The 60th anniversary of the formal Japanese surrender in the Philippines was marked at the weekend. Guy Hilbero, Mabalacat's tourism officer, said: "We are using our history to promote goodwill and closer relationships between the nations."

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