- Sone Tribunal
Sone, our Camp Commandant on trial for war crimes in Singapore. He was convicted and executed.
Sone Tribunal
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The Author, Age 7
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
My great uncle Frank Samethini was a Dutch POW at “Bicycle Camp” in Batavia, where Sonei was the commandant in late 1942. In his memoir “The Sky Looked Down” (Chapter 6), Frank recounts Sonei’s torture of a Dutch prisoner, and later his flogging of a Japanese guard.
Thanks Robin. Yes, our camp guard left a huge trail of destruction behind. He paid for it with his life, but since the Japanese considered suicide an acceptable way out of self inflicted difficulties and the honourable thing to do if captured, one could argue that his execution was a relatively painless way for him to avoid the humiliation of returning to his home town. I do not dwell on this moral issue in my book, since it detracted from the story I was trying to tell. Emotions around Sonei run very high and quite understandably so. Anyone bothering to read my book is free to read as well between the lines.
Suicide is not always easy. I have an additional problem with his trial: It seems to me that the rascal who put Sonei in charge of prison camps bears a considerable share of guilt for Sonei’s impact on his prisoners. Sonei in fact was promoted in July 1945 for the excellent job he had done in the eyes of his superiors who surely could not have been blind to Sonei’s mischief.
So where is Justice when we need her most?
One can take this debate one step further and consider the entire war crimes issue. War crimes are only committed by the losing party, regardless of the ends to which the victor might have been tempted to go to win his victory. A wise observer noted long ago that the strong do as they will and the weak do as they must. That is history for you.
An unhappy sequel to the struggle for Java was aired in the media a number of months ago: the atrocities (or war crimes) committed by some Dutch troops during the post WWII independence war on Java. No one has clean hands. War brutalizes people.