In a statement, the assembly said, "It is undeniable that mass suicides could not have occurred without the involvement of the Japanese military.

"We strongly call on the government to retract the instruction and to immediately restore the description in the textbooks so the truth of the Battle of Okinawa will be handed down correctly."

Okinawa was the only inhabited part of Japan where ground fighting took place in the closing days of World War II. Many Okinawan survivors say Japanese soldiers, on the brink of defeat, told them to kill themselves and their loved ones.

In March, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry advised publishers of the textbooks to be used in the next school year to reword descriptions that the embattled Imperial Japanese Army forced civilians to kill themselves in the war.

According to the results of the screening, one textbook initially stated that "the Japanese Army gave hand grenades to residents, making them commit mass suicide and kill each other."

But the textbook was revised to state, "Mass suicides and killings took place among the residents using hand grenades given to them by the Japanese Army." Other textbooks deleted the words "by the Japanese Army."

The Japan Times Weekly: June 30, 2007
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