by Philip Dwyer
In Southeast Asia, an area where the Japanese hoped to win support for their professed ‘liberating mission’, opposition from local populations was even more crucial to the emergence and radicalisation of violence. The development of tenacious armed opposition in the Philippines, for instance, was fundamental to the shift away from limited pacification efforts and promises of liberation in 1942 to violent subjugation and the eventual adoption of measures that allowed for the elimination of large numbers of Filipino civilians in 1945. Where racial arguments may have enabled and justified the use of violence in other empires, for the Japanese, insecurities, fears and perceptions of threat were more prominent factors in the acceptance of increasingly brutal methods of suppression. Beginning with an overview of Japanese attitudes towards violence and resistance in Southeast Asia, I then analyse violence in the Philippines (one of the most thoroughly documented, yet relatively under-studied instances of extreme violence in the Empire) in order to emphasise the importance of what might be termed security logics, to understanding the complexities of the relationship between violence and resistance, not just in the Japanese Empire, but in empires generally.
Violence and Resistance in Southeast Asia
The way in which conflict in the Pacific was characterised by the Japanese leadership as a benevolent struggle on behalf of the peoples of Asia meant that, as the subjects of the professed ‘liberating mission’, other Asians were not viewed as enemies. In fact, military strategists recognised that the compliance, if not the support, of local populations would be indispensable to the successful prosecution of the war, especially since Japanese forces had limited resources to spare in the administration of the occupied territories. 5 Furthermore, their cooperation was coveted; they were to play a vital role in the realisation of Japan’s grand vision of establishing the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere intended to be an economically prosperous and autarkic regional defensive bloc based both politically and culturally on Japanese values. 6 The military leadership, having had difficulties maintaining troop discipline in China , came to realise that atrocities perpetrated against ‘peaceable citizens’ had meant that ‘no pacification in the world, no matter how well executed, gain[ed] anything but the hatred of the Chinese’. 7 Thus, in Southeast Asia, there was a more determined effort to minimise opportunities for violence.
Troops were ‘strictly forbidden’ from looting or ‘disgracing’ local women and, in efforts to stamp out these crimes, harsher punishments were implemented. Since it was recognised that such acts were opportunistic and usually committed by men whose behaviour became ‘lax’ when out from under the ‘watchful eye of authority’, commanders were advised to reduce ‘unnecessary foraging’ expeditions and to send a responsible leader when they were unavoidable. Access to local inhabitants was also restricted and troop movements closely monitored, especially in densely populated areas where soldiers were required to get passes to enter certain zones. 8 If taken prisoner, Asians were to be treated ‘benevolently and humanely’ and commanders were warned that ‘[v]iolence, insult and bad treatment must not be inflicted without good reason’. 9 Finally, it was repeatedly stressed that ‘natives’ be treated kindly and their religion and customs be respected. 10 Sources indicate that the kempeitai (military police) were more rigorous in their efforts to keep troops in line in Southeast Asia. A Japanese sergeant interrogated in October 1943 had even remarked that ‘there was no possibility of ill-treating natives…as Military Police were insistent that they should not be antagonised’. 11 Violence would, nevertheless, become an issue and, at times, a policy in Southeast Asia.
Japanese attitudes towards those they ‘liberated’ went some way towards facilitating the persistence of sporadic atrocities perpetrated by individual soldiers. Though there were some exceptions, soldiers tended to look down upon the peoples of this region as backwards, lazy, uncivilised and inherently inferior, especially given their status as colonial subjects. 12 An unwavering belief in Japanese superiority had a detrimental impact on relations with local populations, despite an embrace of pan-Asian ideals in some quarters. Troops expected their so-called ‘Asian brothers’ to address them as ‘masters’ and often forced them to bow, threatening slaps to the face, humiliation or worse if they did not show enough deference or respect. 13 As Grant Goodman has observed, the arrogance of Japanese soldiers belied declarations of an ‘Asia for the Asiatics’, highlighting the hypocrisy of Japanese pan-Asianism and reinforcing the very colonial relationship that Japan claimed to be overturning. 14 Much like in other empires, such attitudes allowed troops to rationalise otherwise morally reprehensible and objectionable measures against peoples who, according to Third Class Seaman Yokoda Shigeki, ‘could not be treated in the same manner as the Japanese’. 15 The origins of violence as an element of occupation policy, however, lay more in Japanese attitudes and responses to opposition.
Indeed, while troops had been instructed that ‘[t]o harm non-resistant natives is to shame the banner of the Imperial Army and bring about misunderstandings’, such constraints were, as implied by the quotation, not applied to those who offered opposition. 16 Warnings, such as the following extract from a speech delivered by Lieutenant-General Honma Masaharu in the Philippines on 16 February 1942, were circulated throughout the region:… if you fail to understand the true and lofty purpose of Japan, and instead obstruct the successful prosecution of the military activities and tactics of the Imperial Japanese Forces, whoever you are, we shall come and crush you with our might and power, and thus compel you to realize by means of force the true significance and meaning of our mission in the Far East. 17
Japanese forces ‘impelled to take extreme measures with those who did not understand [their] real motive and prevented the peace’ utilised those practices developed through numerous encounters with resisting Asian populations since 1895. 18 Throughout the occupied areas, populations were warned of the perils of opposing Japanese rule and terror tactics including; on-the-spot executions, public displays of violence, reprisal killings, destruction of property and collective punishments were used to reinforce these warnings. The kempeitai as the primary agents responsible for the maintenance of peace and order were given considerable discretionary powers to raid, arrest and execute on the slightest suspicion and used torture as a primary means of ‘investigation’. 19
The military’s hardened and uncompromising attitudes to resistance at this time were partly influenced by prior experiences in Taiwan, Korea and particularly China , where troops had so recently engaged in gruelling anti-guerrilla campaigns. To a large degree, however, they were shaped by the belief that Japan faced an existential crisis in the turbulent and uncertain context of the 1930s and 1940s. The Japanese leadership, having depicted Japan as a fellow victim of Western oppression, had framed war in grandiose, existential terms which placed the nation’s prestige at stake as they claimed to fight, not only for the independence of Asia, but for its continued existence in a racial struggle for survival. 20 This was more than a convenient rhetoric designed to win over other Asians. The military’s pursuit of an autarkic regional bloc was part of a strategy for mitigating long-standing trepidations about Japan’s security in an international world viewed as divided between the ‘strong’ (the colonisers) and the ‘weak’ (the colonised). Having been forced into the imperial world of the nineteenth century as an unequal member of the treaty system in Asia, the Japanese leadership’s pursuit of empire, notwithstanding the nation’s later rise to ‘great power’ status, was partially driven by concerns about Japan’s ability to compete with other empires in a cut-throat and perilous imperial world system. 21 Such views continued to shape Japanese thinking and contributed to the rationalisation of Japan’s advance into Southeast Asia in the 1940s as self-defence. Indeed, according to the Imperial Rescript declaring war in December 1941, Japan ‘for its existence and self-defense [had] no other recourse but to appeal to arms and to crush every obstacle in its path’. 22
This ostensible exi
stential crisis was rooted in the economic depression of the 1930s which saw the Japanese economy suffer as the internationalism of previous years receded in favour of protectionist trade policies. International condemnation at the military’s attempts to secure economic self-sufficiency through outright aggression first in Manchuria, and later in China , soured foreign relations, particularly with Britain and the United States. 23 As a result, by the 1940s, a growing number of prominent Japanese figures, such as Foreign Minister Arita Hachirō, had become resentful of an international system which, as they saw it, threatened vulnerable ‘have not’ nations like Japan who did not have access to abundant resources and vast markets. 24
The strain placed on the nation by the continue failure to resolve conflict in China , in addition to a series of economic sanctions which culminated in a full trade embargo imposed by the USA and its allies in July 1941, led to a growing panic at the perceived economic crisis that confronted Japan. 25 Southeast Asia’s rich resources, market potential and strategic location came to be perceived as vitally important for Japan’s continued survival as an independent nation. More importantly, the notion of creating a Co-Prosperity Sphere, as an evolution of earlier anti-Western and pan-Asian ideas for an Asian Monroe Doctrine and later a New Order in East Asia, gained traction as a means by which Japan could alleviate its apparent existential crisis and ensure its future national security. 26 In short, there was much at stake for Japan in the successful occupation of Southeast Asia .
As a consequence, the welfare of Southeast Asian peoples was not an immediate priority and with Japanese interests paramount, they would be required to completely submit to the demands of occupation, regardless of how exploitative or oppressive they might be. 27 Military strategists were aware that there would be hardships but insisted that ‘[n]atives [would] have to reconcile themselves to such pressure as is unavoidably involved for them in acquisition of resources vital for our national defences and the local self-sufficiency of our occupation forces’. 28 It was also noted that pacification efforts must not interfere with wartime goals and that ‘no measures shall be taken for the sole purpose of placating the natives’. 29 Aside from encouraging exploitative and oppressive polices, as Japanese forces set about the swift acquisition of resources, the perception of war as a zero-sum game, Japan’s success in which hung on the successful mobilisation of the resources of Southeast Asia , made resistance at this time an intolerable threat to the leadership’s solutions to maintaining the nation’s independence in an ostensible struggle for survival. In this context, violence became permissible in response to local opposition. As the Filipino population discovered, as the wartime situation in the region deteriorated, a heightened sense of insecurity and threat caused the Japanese military to employ progressively more radical solutions to the problem of resistance.
A Reign of Terror in Japan’s ‘Philippines for the Filipinos’
When Japanese forces entered Manila in January 1942, they hoped for, perhaps even anticipated, a warm welcome as benevolent liberators of the Islands. The Philippines had a long history of opposition to Western imperialism and Filipino revolutionaries had, in the past, appealed to Japan for assistance in their fight for independence. 30 As such, in spite of concerns that the Filipino people were pro-American, highly Westernised and lacking an ‘Oriental character’, Japanese strategists expected to create a nominally independent, self-governing and most importantly, pro-Japanese ‘Philippines for the Filipinos’ at the heart of the Co-Prosperity Sphere. 31 The reality in the Philippines was very different, however. While the rhetoric of liberation and an ‘Asia for the Asiatics’ had won support for Japanese forces in Indonesia and Burma (Myanmar), such overtures had been less attractive to the Filipino people who had secured promises of independence from the USA and were already governed as a commonwealth. 32 Aware of atrocities perpetrated in China , and having heard rumours of soldiers’ brutality in the provinces, the people of Manila were apprehensive of, if not outwardly hostile, to Japanese troops who entered the capital in January 1942. 33 The lacklustre welcome, the obvious ambivalence of the populace and the continued resistance of thousands of Filipino soldiers, who fought alongside the Americans as they carried on their defence in Bataan, heightened Japanese trepidations about the potential for opposition in the Islands. A short bout of unrest and looting preceding their entry into Manila, though swiftly suppressed, did little to assuage concerns. For the most part, it was still generally believed that Japan could win support through pacification efforts and policies designed to ‘revive’ Filipino culture through the propagation of ‘Asian’ values and customs. However, occupation forces sought to decisively establish Japanese rule, thereby pre-empting further disturbances, by using violence to terrorise the people into submission. 34
Thus, at the same time as appealing for cooperation in his address on 2 January, Honma warned that ‘offering resistance or committing a hostile act against the Japanese Armed Forces in any manner, leads the whole native land to ashes’. 35 Filipino civilians were soon to discover that this was not an empty threat. Justifying their behaviour under a broad rubric allowing for punishment of acts that went ‘against the interests of the Japanese forces’, soldiers followed through with fervour and brutality. 36 The ‘severe punishments’ meted out in the first weeks of occupation were often arbitrary and excessive. One man, for example, was shot in the back in the first few days of occupation simply for refusing to bow to a Japanese sentry. Indeed, Filipinos were summarily executed for acts that ranged from attacks on Japanese installations, the distribution of pro-American flyers or, as two civilians discovered in February 1942, failing to walk around sandbags. In some cases, Filipinos were impelled to watch the torture, beating or execution of their fellow countrymen. 37 When the perpetrators of seditious acts could not be identified, Japanese troops took hostages and imposed collective punishments. 38 As in other areas, the kempeitai utilised a ruthless and pre-emptive policing strategy that involved establishing coercive spy-networks through the ‘neighbourhood associations’ system, which monitored the activities of the local populace and held them collectively accountable for disturbances in their areas. 39 As a consequence, José Reyes observed, Filipinos ‘lived in constant dread, fear, and anguish brought about by a reign of terror’. 40 This reign of terror, however, far from acting to deter opposition, contributed to the growth of a nascent resistance movement which became the most sustained and fierce of efforts to oppose Japanese forces in Southeast Asia.
‘Unruly Elements’: The Development of Armed Resistance
During the first few months of occupation, the sentiments of the Filipino populace shifted decisively against Japan, especially as the hypocrisy of Japanese pan-Asianism became more and more apparent. 41 The Japanese Military Administration, though somewhat successful in co-opting the political elite (more a reflection of an alignment of interests than enthusiasm for Japan’s ‘Philippines for the Filipinos ’), had only minimal success in winning over the populace. 42 The limited pacification efforts employed were unable to offset the harsh realities of wartime occupation. As heavy-handed economic initiatives began to severely impact standards of living and intrusive cultural policies began to impinge on day-to-day life in the Islands, Filipinos grew ever more resentful of Japanese occupation. 43 People sought an outlet for their frustration through resistance activities. For many this involved small, passive acts of defiance such as hiding products the military wanted to procure, secretly listening to American broadcasts, and not accepting military notes as currency. In some respects, continuing on as normal in spite of the Administration’s efforts to reorient Philippine society represented a tacit rejection of Japanese rule. Some, however, offered more direct assistance to a burgeoning guerrilla movement in the Islands by providing supplies, shelter and intelligence, along with some minor engagement in seditious activity. 44 The increased support offered by the populace would prove pivotal in transforming what originally were small, straggler units operating indep
endently into a more developed resistance movement.
Early opposition to Japanese rule had emerged in the form of scattered American and Filipino soldiers who, having successfully evaded capture, formed small guerrilla bands that operated in the mountainous and remote provincial regions. Limited in numbers, ill-equipped and lacking experience in guerrilla tactics , these units were largely ineffective and were generally ignored by the Japanese who were focused on fighting the bulk of American and Philippine forces until their surrender in May 1942. For much of that year their effectiveness continued to be undermined by deficiencies in organisation, experience and equipment, as well as the communication and logistical difficulties associated with the geography of the archipelago. Prone to infighting and factionalism, they were also impeded by a lack of unity and some groups also had an uneasy relationship with local communities as they plundered supplies and enacted violent reprisals to prevent collaboration with the Japanese. 45 The growing antipathy of the populace towards Japanese forces, however, reinforced and facilitated resistance activities in the Islands gradually improving the effectiveness of guerrilla units who grew to rely on support from local communities to sustain them. Though the importance of the guerrillas has been exaggerated—they were, after all, never a threat in a military sense—the pervasiveness of guerrilla activity in the Islands hindered Japanese efforts to consolidate their control outside of the main cities. 46 More importantly, it forced the military, in spite of plans for a more collaborative, hands-off approach, to devote more and more resources to the occupation than they had initially planned. 47 After riots on Negros Island in August 1942 sparked a succession of serious uprisings in the Visayas, Japanese forces found peace and order increasingly difficult to maintain in the Islands. 48 By the end of 1942, war in the Pacific had begun to turn against Japan placing a greater strain on the nation’s economy and adding to the importance of successfully consolidating the resources of Southeast Asia. Commanders, therefore, came under greater pressure to resolve the situation in the Philippines, particularly since they now faced small-scale guerrilla warfare, sustained and supported by an increasingly hostile populace.
