It put the Kanto area into a horrible chaos all of a sudden. Strong quake, storm and fire in succession destroyed hundreds of thousands of houses and buildings, leaving nearly 166 000 people buried and burnt to death.

More than 690 000 families reported homeless in a moment were busy taking shelters in fear and uneasiness due to a series of aftershocks.

In order to calm down social confusion and people's complaint the Japanese government invented "emergency step" for "keeping security". Its keynote was to spread the rumor about "arson" and "riot" by Koreans in Japan and declare a "wartime martial law" for suppressing them.

According to "Royal Ordinance" of Japan on September 2 and 3 a martial law was declared in vast areas including Tokyo Metropolis and Kanagawa Prefecture and the Kanto Marshal Law Command inaugurated.

The "wartime martial law" which allowed indiscriminate killings of Koreans was put in force in utter disregard of even the legal procedures of Japan.

According to the "martial law", the Kanto Martial Law Command branded Koreans in Japan as "enemies" and "mobs" and ordered the troops, police, "ultra-right organizations," etc. to start "battles" for "exterminating Koreans".

Killings of Koreans by law-enforcement agents baffled human imagination.

More than 23 000 Koreans in Japan were killed by the Japanese imperialists, even according to what was made public by the "government-general in Korea".

The mass killings of Koreans were organized operations for massacring Koreans out of national chauvinism and state-sponsored terrorism spearheaded by the Japanese government from A to Z.

Nevertheless, the Japanese government claimed that the massacre of Koreans was committed by some "ultra-right organizations" and the "violence" by Koreans in Japan was wire-pulled by communists behind the scene.

The orientation and methods of false propaganda were specified in the "agreement on the issue of Koreans", top-secret document dated Sept. 5 of the general command for public security under the "interim secretariat for recovering from quake damage" organized by the Japanese imperialists.

The mass killings of Koreans by the Japanese imperialists were committed before the Hitler clique's massacre to exterminate Jews, an indication that the Japanese imperialist nature of national chauvinism and brutality put fascist Germany into the shade.

Japan is still resorting to hostile acts against Koreans by gravely encroaching upon the democratic national rights and interests of Koreans in Japan.

Ishihara, co-head of the Japanese Restoration Party, spread in July an absurd story that "stupid north Koreans set fire to Yasukuni Shrine. It cannot be construed as mere hysteric rhetoric of an ultra-right element.

The history which was not redeemed is bound to repeat itself.

Outpourings revealing Samurai-style outlook on history that "one can know the truth of history after the lapse of about 100 years" and sophism that the military occupation of Korea was "legitimate" are heard from shameless Japanese politicians. But the long pent-up grudge of the Koreans remains evermore fresh in the memory of Koreans as the days go by.

The Korean nation will certainly force Japan to pay for its crimes in the 20th century which remain unsettled and those perpetrated by it in the 21st century.