OTTAWA,ON,  May 27, 1987 - A claim for compensation for maltreatment and forced labour for Canadian soldiers who were prisoners of war of the Japanese government during World War II was filed today with the United Nations by Cliff Chadderton, Chief Executive Officer of The War Amps who is handling the claim on behalf of the Hong Kong Veterans' Association.

The claim is based on nearly two years of research carried out by The War Amps who raised the money to process the appeal from corporate donors on behalf of their fellow veterans who served with the Hong Kong Force.

The request to the UN was filed in accordance with the procedure established by the United Nations Economic and Social Council's Resolution 1503 (XLVIII) (1970), which requires that a submission be filed with the Commission on Human Rights.

Chadderton stated that he had been interested in the Hong Kong claim dating back to the time when he was secretary of a government committee in 1945 which was dealing with veterans benefits. A submission was first made to the War Claims Commission in 1950 which resulted in the token payment of one dollar a day for the Canadian servicemen. The request for compensation had been kept alive through the years by means of attempts to have the matter studied by various agencies of the Canadian government and parliamentary committees.

"The introduction of R1503 in 1970 by The United Nations extended the powers of the Human Rights Commission thus opening the way for an appeal to the United Nations," Chadderton stated.

Acting on behalf of the Hong Kong Veterans, he first asked, in a letter to the Japanese Ambassador in Ottawa on December 17, 1985 that the Japanese government reconsider the claim. This was denied in a letter addressed to Chadderton by Tadashi Ikeda, Charge d'Affaires, under date of May 21, 1986. The refusal of the Japanese government to act in the matter made it necessary that the claim be taken to the UN.

The War Amps, in accordance with the requirements of the United Nations Subcommittee, undertook to submit both medical and legal reports to substantiate the claim.

The services of Dr. Gustave Gingras, well-known specialist in physical medicine and former Director of the Montréal Rehabilitation Institute, were available as Dr. Gingras acts as medical consultant for The War Amputations of Canada. The files on the Hong Kong Veterans, held by the Department of Veterans Affairs, were made available with the veterans' consent. These were studied together with a number of interviews following which Dr. Gingras prepared a 250-page report which has been submitted to the UN as part of The War Amps claim.

An examination of the report indicates that Dr. Gingras has been able to conclude that the health and well-being of the Hong Kong Veterans who survived the Japanese PoW camps was, and continues to be, severely impaired by reason of the torture and inhuman living conditions experienced in the Japanese camps during their 44 months of captivity between their capture in the summer of 1941 and their release in August 1945.

The basis of the claim was prepared by Chadderton, an Officer of the Order of Canada who is considered a leading spokesman for veterans, based on his personal involvement with the matter going back to the early 1950s.

The legal aspects of the claim are being handled by Brian Forbes, legal counsel to The War Amps organization.

The documentation is based on evidence of brutality and overt acts by the Japanese of starvation and the deprivation of adequate clothing and medicine. In this part of the report, The War Amps has relied on documentary evidence filed before the Far East War Crimes Tribunal which tried a number of Japanese military and civilian personnel following the capitulation of the Japanese in 1945.

The War Amps' submission refers also to a report contained in a book written by Carl Vincent entitled: NO REASON WHY. Mr. Vincent is an accredited historian who resides near Ottawa, Ontario. He had access to documentation held by both the Canadian and British sources, some of which had never been made public before the release of his book.

The thesis in the book, which appears to be well-founded, is that the Canadian Force was sent to Hong Kong for purely political reasons. Factual evidence in the book indicates also that British and Canadian military strategists were aware that the Hong Kong garrison could not withstand an attack from Japanese troops and that, if the defense of Hong Kong failed, there was no hope of evacuating the Hong Kong defenders.

Additional documentary evidence concerning the atrocities, incorporated into The War Amps submission, has been extracted from numerous sources, including a thesis written by Grant S. Garneau entitled: The 1st Battalion of the Royal Rifles of Canada, "The Record of a Canadian Infantry Battalion in the Far East -- 1941-1945".

Dr. Gingras' report includes an introduction by Professor John P. Humphrey of McGill University, Montréal who served as consultant on Human Rights to the UN from 1975 to 1985. Professor Humphrey is of the opinion that the claim under the UN provisions which he authored while he was with the UN.

The procedure now requires the UN Secretariat to refer the claim to the Japanese government. If no action is taken on the claim by the Japanese, the Human Rights Commission, sitting in Geneva, Switzerland, would conduct a hearing with the two parties involved.