EDITOR'S Note:
On December 9, 1996, a Japanese lawyers' group headed by Oyama Hiroshi delivered witness statements and exhibits, collected by their Chinese counterparts from Jinwang Law Office in Harbin, Northeast China, to Tokyo district court.
Six cases involving Japanese chemical and bacteriological weapons are to be heard in Tokyo. Two of the cases are directly linked to the use of mustard bombs, a type of chemical weapon widely used by the Japanese troops in Asia during World War II.
Though the events took place more than 50 years ago, Xiao Ping, now 15, had an early introduction to the cruelty of war.
On June 10, 1991, her grandfather, Xiao Qingwu, finally ended the groaning caused by years of unbearable pain. When he died, the 58-year-old man had suffered from blindness for two years, and had been confined to bed since 1988 because of the erosion of the flesh on his feet.
Xiao Qingwu, a worker with Heilongjiang Navigation Bureau, was badly injured by chemical bombs in 1974 while he was clearing silt from the Songhua River.
The bombs were believed to have been some of the thousands of chemical weapons dumped in the river by Japanese troops after their defeat in 1945.
It was a day that Liu Zhenqi and Li Chen, Xiao Qingwu's co-workers, will never forget.
On October 20, 1974, Xiao and his colleagues were working on a tugboat, pumping silt from the river around a port.
"At about 2 o'clock in the morning, the pump became blocked," recalled Liu Zhenqi, who was working with Xiao in the engine room under the deck. When they inspected the suction pipe, they felt several metal bottles clustered in the mouth.
"A strong garlic smell was in the air," Liu said. "We felt dizzy, but shrugged it off and carried on," he said. Liu, Xiao and Li Chen took turns to unblock the pipe.
A few hours later, they laid out the "bottles," 10-15 centimetres in diameter, on the floor of the engine room.
The characters on the side confirmed the blockage had been caused by Japanese chemical weapons.
The discovery of bombs is no surprise in Heilongjiang Province, as it was among the first provinces invaded by the Japanese. But the three failed to realize they were dealing with deadly mustard-lewisite bombs.
The Japanese troops used such deadly agents as mustard gas, an acidic gas which causes severe skin erosion and can lead to suffocation.
Some of the bombshells on the engine-room floor were cracked, and the nose cones of others had twisted loose. Yellow gas seeped out and a sticky liquid oozed onto the floor, Liu said.
As the liquid mixed with water in the engine room, 37 workers became affected. Xiao, Liu and Li were the most severely affected.
An hour later, the three found their eyes swollen and hands blistered. They were already experiencing deep pain. After another hour, their hands had swelled up and they were unable to see.
Xiao was wearing a pair of cloth shoes. The liquid had soaked into his shoes but he didn't realize this until the evening, leaving his feet even worse affected.
As the local hospital could not provide proper treatment, Xiao and others were taken to the hospital affiliated with the Harbin Medical University. Doctors there still lacked efficient ways to treat the skin erosion on their hands and feet. They suggested amputation.
Xiao was the oldest among the three. But he was only 41 then. Li was 30 and Liu 18. "They were too young and energetic to accept such a suggestion," said Sun Jinxia, Xiao's wife.
They were later transferred to a military hospital in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning Province, where they spent about three months. In 1975, they went to the No 307 Hospital in Beijing for further treatment.
Xiao's eyes watered whenever they were exposed to the light and wind. His left eye became completely blind in 1989 and his right eye the following year. His left hand and his feet blistered and swelled four or five times a year. The swelling usually lasted for months.
The damage to his left foot was so bad that by 1978 Xiao had to support himself with a stick. In 1988, he was forced to accept the amputation of both feet, as the wounds were spreading upwards.
"To hear a man moan in pain was beyond me," Sun said, "and that man was my husband." Sun left her job to look after Xiao and their four children.
Although the majority of the medical costs was paid by Xiao's work unit, Sun had to sell their private house to support the family. They moved to an apartment rented from the work unit.
"I thought I would have led a peaceful life, as the war had ended when I was a little girl," 60-year-old Sun said.
The blisters on Liu's hands took two months to heal. But his fingers were stuck together by web-like skin, as the scars between the fingers became joined. He has suffered regular bouts of pain ever since.
Li's eyes and hands suffered the same symptoms as Xiao's and Liu's. His eyesight has worsened drastically since the accident. There are web-like scars on both hands. He was unable to have sex with his wife, Wu Fengqing, for several years, as the skin on his penis was affected.
People in their home town of Harbin would shrink away from them. "No one dared to talk to us, out of fear the 'Japanese poison' might bite," Wu said.
Huang Shaoqing is a doctor from the Beijing No 307 Hospital. He treated Xiao, Liu and Li for six months in 1975. The three were not Huang's first patients contaminated by Japanese chemical weapons. He has treated several other patients from Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces.
"Incidents like this happening in peacetime are more horrible than those during war," Huang said.
Su Xiangxiang, a lawyer with Jinwang Law Office, is trying to help Li, Liu and Xiao's relatives to gain compensation.
"Some party is responsible for the casualties. My sense of justice tells me it's the Japanese Government," Su said.
In September 1995, Su gave notice to the Japanese Embassy in Beijing that his law office would represent the Chinese victims in their lawsuit against Japanese Government.
Su received a message from Oyama Hiroshi, saying a Japanese lawyers' group would co-operate with him. The group has already succeeded in the case of Liu Lianhong, a Chinese civilian who was taken to Japan during World War II to work as a slave labourer in a coal mine.
In May 1996, Oyama led his lawyers' group to Heilongjiang to meet victims and witnesses and to collect evidence.
On August 14, 1996, the Japanese lawyers' group delivered part of the evidence to the Japanese Government, and began the process of suing the Japanese Government on behalf of the Chinese victims.
"Old Xiao has already died. Money cannot bring him back to me. Nor could money make me forget the pain my family has endured. If they do have sincerity, they should be quick to take those chemical bombs away. Our Chinese people have suffered too much," Xiao's wife Sun said.
According to China's official documents lodged with the Geneva Disarmament Conference in 1992, Japan has left around 2 million chemical weapons in China, most of which are scattered in northern provinces.
"Even half a century later, these poisonous shells are still active," said Ji Xueren, a researcher with the China Anti-Chemical Research Institute. "If anything, the passage of time has only made them more precarious and life-threatening," Ji said.
In 1995, Ji published a book, "The Chemical War in the Japanese Invasion of China (1937-45)."
Since the end of the war, the bombs have claimed the lives of more than 2,000 Chinese civilians.
"It's both miserable and horrible to see my beloved grandpa die that way," Xiao Ping said. She said her mother had comforted her by saying "Grandpa might get his final relief at last. He will not feel the pain any more."