Filipino tribes claim remains as WWII dead

Grave robbers have dug up the remains of Filipino tribesmen and passed them off as the bodies of Japanese soldiers killed in World War II, tribal leaders said Wednesday.

The skeletons of hundreds of Mangyan and Ifugao tribesmen have been shipped to Japan since 2008 after being unearthed by looters paid by a Japanese group, they claimed.

Aniw Lubag, a Mangyan leader, said at a news conference that his tribe briefly detained three people in 2008 as they stole bones from a burial cave on the central island of Mindoro.

"They said they were hired by non-Mangyans. We heard other Filipinos ordered (the digging up of bones) and then gave them to Kuentai," Lubag said, referring to a Japanese group established to find and repatriate the bodies of fallen soldiers.

Caesar Dulnuan, a head of the Ifugao tribal group, said skeletons had vanished from their northern mountain community after the Japanese group began searching for the remains of their war dead in the area.

The looters said they were paid to bring bones to Kuentai, whose website says it is a "non-profit organization" seeking to repatriate the remains of half a million Japanese soldiers killed during the occupation of the country.

Koji Nakamura, a spokesman for a group of Japanese war veterans and relatives, urged the Philippine government to investigate.

"If this is true, it is unscrupulous and profane," Nakamura said at the news conference.

AFP