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Malaysia, as Chairman of Non-Aligned Movement, should call on Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi to sincerely and wholeheartedly express remorse for Japan’s  war crimes and atrocities by unreservedly apologizing  for the  “white-washing” Japanese  history textbooks at the 50th Anniversary Asian-African Summit in Jakarta this weekend Media Statement by Lim Kit Siang (Petaling Jaya, Thursday):   Malaysia, as Chairman of Non-Aligned Movement, should call on Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi  to sincerely and wholeheartedly express remorse for Japan’s war crimes and atrocities by unreservedly apologizing  for the  “white-washing” Japanese history textbooks at the Bandung 50th Anniversary Asian-African Summit in Jakarta this weekend.  Koizumi’s  government must bear full responsibility for sparking the protests in China, South Korea and South-east Asia for its historic insensitivity and latent militarism in approving  new Japanese schoolbooks which whitewashed  Japan's war crimes and atrocities, viz:   Distort the Japanese aggression, invasion and occupation  of  China since  the 1930s and the Southeast Asian nations from 1941-45 as the  “War for Asian Liberation” to liberate Asia from Western colonialism; Refer to the Nanjing Massacre 1937-38, in which Japanese troops killed some 300,000 civilians and non-combatants, with   30,000 to 60,000 women raped, as an “Incident”; Gloss over mass sex slavery of Asian women by Japanese troops, with an estimated 100,000-200,000 “comfort women” rounded up in Korea, China, Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia and forced into prostitution to “comfort” Japanese troops. Koizumi has been described as the most “nationalistic” Japanese Prime Minister since the end of the Second World War playing to the militarist Japanese right-wing gallery, utterly insensitive to  offending  millions of Asians by trying to whitewash Japanese war crimes and atrocities, whether  in the Japanese history textbooks or  in his annual pilgrimages to the war-tainted Yasukuni Shrine, honouring 14 Class A war criminals, including their leader General Hideki Tojo. Although Japan had previously  made apologies for its World War II conduct, Koizumi’s annual pilgrimages to the Yasukuni Shrine, which has been likened to a German leader apologizing for World War II and then going to a Nazi memorial, has undermined credibility about the Japanese expression of contrition.  This has also raised serious questions about the suitability, acceptability and legitimacy  for  Japan’s bid for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council.  (21/4/2005) *  Lim Kit Siang, Parliamentary Opposition Leader, MP for Ipoh Timur & DAP Central Policy and Strategic Planning Commission Chairman