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The French Prosecution at the IMTFE: Robert Oneto, Indochina and the Rehabilitation of French Prestige

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War Crimes Trials in the Wake of Decolonization and Cold War in Asia, 1945-1956

Part of the book series: World Histories of Crime, Culture and Violence ((WHCCV))

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Abstract

The French participation in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) is best known for the dissenting opinion of Justice Henri Bernard, who questioned some of the basic legal assumptions underpinning the trials when they came to an end. This chapter claims that the French case for the prosecution, led by Robert Oneto, also deserves some attention, and argues that the French case, described by legal scholar Yves Beigbeder as flimsy at best, aimed to justify the French recovery of colonial control in Indochina, and to remove once and for all the stain of collaboration of the representatives of the Vichy government in Indochina between September 1940 and March 1945. Using archival sources, the chapter traces how Oneto prepared his case, placing it in the context of French attempts to recover international prestige as a colonial power in the wake of the Second World War. It argues that the audience for Oneto’s case was the Allies and the world at large, not just the Japanese accused in the dock. Minimal and short-lived as it was, the French participation in the punishment of defeated Japan was a crucial moment in the attempt to recover postwar France’s image in the Far East.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Richard Minear, Victors’ Justice: The Trials at Tokyo (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971); Tim Maga, Judgment at Tokyo (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2001); Yuma Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trials: the pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 1; Neil Boister, ‘The Tokyo Military Tribunal: A show trial?,’ in Historical Origins of International Criminal Law: Volume 2, eds. Morten Bergsmo et al. (Brussels: Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublishers, 2014), 3–29.

  2. 2.

    Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trials, 12.

  3. 3.

    Hitoshi Nagai, ‘The Tokyo War Crimes Trial,’ in Philippines-Japan Relations, ed. Ikehata Setsuho and Lydia N. Yu Jose (Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2003), 261–298.

  4. 4.

    Beatrice Trefalt, ‘Hostages to international relations? The repatriation of Japanese war criminals from the Philippines,’ Japanese Studies, vol. 31 no. 2 (2011): 193.

  5. 5.

    Mickaël Ho Foui Sang, ‘Justice Bernard (France),’ in Beyond Victor’s Justice? The Tokyo War Crimes Trials revisited, eds. Toshiyuki Tanaka et al. (Leiden: Martinus Nijjhof Publishers, 2011), 93–102.

  6. 6.

    Yves Beigbeder, Judging War Crimes and Torture: French Justice and International Criminal Tribunals and Commissions (1940–2005), (Leiden: Martinus Nijjhof, 2006), 265.

  7. 7.

    Jean Esmein, ‘Le Juge Bernard au procès de Tokyo,’ Vingtième Siècle: revue d’histoire (Summer 1998) no. 59: 3–14.

  8. 8.

    Sébastien Verney, L’Indochine sous Vichy : Entre Révolution nationale, collaboration et identités nationales, 1940–1945 (Paris: Riveneuve, 2013), 20–21.

  9. 9.

    Neil Boister and Robert Cryer, The Tokyo International Military Tribunal: a reappraisal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 49–50, 77.

  10. 10.

    Boister and Cryer, The Tokyo International Military Tribunal, 69.

  11. 11.

    Archives Diplomatiques (La Courneuve) (henceforth AD), Asie-Océanie. Japon.130: Criminels de Guerre , Author unclear, ‘Pour Monsieur Gaucheron’, Secrétariat des Conférences, 15 November 1945.; Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer (Aix-en-Provence) (henceforth ANOM), INF1364.G407.4 , ‘Télégramme de Washington,’ 21 December 1945.

  12. 12.

    Esmein, ‘Le Juge Bernard,’ 4–5.

  13. 13.

    AD, Asie-Océanie. Japon.130: Criminels de Guerre, ‘Note pour la direction du personnel et de la comptabilité,’ 1 March 1946. See also Esmein, ‘Le Juge Bernard,’ 4–5; Sang, ‘Justice Bernard (France),’ 95–96.

  14. 14.

    Boister and Cryer, The Tokyo International Military Tribunal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 77; Ann-Sophie Schoepfel, ‘The War Court as a form of State building: The French Prosecution of Japanese War crimes at the Saigon and Tokyo trials,’ in Historical Origins of International Criminal Law: Volume 2, eds. Morten Bergsmo et al. (Brussels: Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublishers, 2014), 137.

  15. 15.

    See records of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 30 September 1946, The Records of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, ed. John Pritchard (Lewiston, Edwin Mellen, 1998), vol. 15, 6695–6708; Kayoko Takeda, Interpreting the War Crimes Trials: a socio-political analysis (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2010), 22–26.

  16. 16.

    See for example ANOM, INF 159/1364 G.407.4, Direction de l’Indochine, Direction des Affaires Politiques to the Secrétaire Général du Comité de l’Indochine, 30 October 1945.

  17. 17.

    David Marr, Vietnam 1945: the Quest for Power (Berkeley, 1995), 476.

  18. 18.

    Marr, Vietnam 1945, 310. See also Fréderic Turpin, De Gaulle, Les Gaullistes et l’Indochine (Paris: Les Indes Savantes, 2005), quoted in Yuichirō Miyashita, ‘La France face au retour du Japon sur la scène internationale’ (PhD diss., Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, 2012).

  19. 19.

    Eric Jennings, Vichy in the Tropics: Pétain’s National Revolution in Madagascar, Guadeloupe, and Indochina, 1940–1944 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 130–41. See also Verney, L’Indochine sous Vichy.

  20. 20.

    Marr, Vietnam 1945, 312–314.

  21. 21.

    Marr, Vietnam 1945, 472–543; Jean Sainteny, Histoire d’une Paix Manquée (Paris: Amiot-Dumond, 1954); Paul Mus, ‘L’Indochine en 1945 : Quelques Souvenirs et une opinion’, Politique Etrangère, no. 4 (1946): 349–374.

  22. 22.

    Esmein, ‘Le Juge Bernard’, 3.

  23. 23.

    ‘Fiche Magistrat : Robert Lucien Oneto,’ Annuaire Rétrospectif de la Magistrature, http://tristan.u-bourgogne.fr:8080/4DCGI/Fiche/56382 (accessed 10 February 2015).

  24. 24.

    AD, Secrétariat des Conférences, Nations Unies et Organisations Internationales (hencefort NUOI) 372QO99, Le Procureur Français près le Tribunal Militaire des Crimes de Guerre en Extrême Orient à Monsieur le Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, 7 May 1946.

  25. 25.

    My translation. AD (NUOI) 372QO99, Le Procureur Français près le Tribunal Militaire des Crimes de Guerre en Extrême Orient à Monsieur le Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, 22 October 1946.

  26. 26.

    My translation. AD (NUOI) 372QO99, Le Procureur Français près le Tribunal Militaire des Crimes de Guerre en Extrême Orient à Monsieur le Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, 22 October 1946.

  27. 27.

    ANOM HCI124.382 Tokio, 1946–1951, Pechkoff to Président Gouin, 21 Mai 1946, reported in Président Gouin to Haut Commissaire D’Indochine, 29 Mai 1946.

  28. 28.

    Mus, ‘L’Indochine en 1945,’ 358.

  29. 29.

    AD Asie-Océanie. Japon.130: Criminels de Guerre, Oneto, ‘Télégramme à l’arrivée,’ 16 May 1946.

  30. 30.

    Esmein, ‘Le juge Bernard,’ 6.

  31. 31.

    Verney, L’Indochine sous Vichy, 453–454; Esmein, ‘Le juge Bernard,’ 8. See also Schoepfel, ‘The War Court,’ 129.

  32. 32.

    AD (NUOI) 372QO99, Oneto to Minister of Foreign Affairs, 22 October 1946, 2.

  33. 33.

    Robert Oneto, International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 30 September 1946, in The Records of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, vol. 15, 6708–6710.

  34. 34.

    Robert Oneto, IMTFE, 30 September 1946, in The Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial, vol. 15, 6716–6717. See also AD (NUOI) 372QO100, Oneto, ‘Relation du Japon avec la France et le Siam, aggression contre l’Indochine: exposé préliminaire,’ 9–10.

  35. 35.

    Robert Oneto, IMTFE, 30 September 1946, in The Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial, vol. 15, 6717; see also AD (NUOI) 372QO100, Oneto, ‘Relation du Japon,’ 10.

  36. 36.

    Robert Oneto, IMTFE, 30 September 1946, in The Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial, vol. 15, 6717.

  37. 37.

    AD Asie-Océanie. Japon.130: Criminels de Guerre, Pechkoff, to Minister of Foreign Affairs, 17 October 1946 ; Pechkoff to Minister of Foreign Affairs, 9 October 1946.

  38. 38.

    AD (NUOI) 372QO99, Joseph Keenan to Robert Oneto, 8 October 1946.

  39. 39.

    AD (NUOI) 372QO99, Oneto to Minister of Foreign Affairs, 22 October 1946, 8.

  40. 40.

    AD (NUOI) 372QO99, Justice Henri Bernard to Minister of Foreign Affairs. 11 October 1946, 3.

  41. 41.

    Esmein, ‘Le Juge Bernard,’ 6. See also the testimony of accused Tōjō Hideki, IMTFE, 29 December 1947, in The Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial, vol. 76, 36198–36199.

  42. 42.

    AD(NUOI) 372QO 100, Oneto to Minister of Foreign Affairs, 19 September 1947, 1.

  43. 43.

    Testimony of Sawada Shigeru, IMTFE, 26 August 1947, The Records of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, vol. 56, 26851–26852; see also AD(NUOI) 372QO 100, Oneto to Minister of Foreign Affairs, 19 September 1947, 3.

  44. 44.

    Testimony of accused Tōjō Hideki, IMTFE, 29 December 1947, in The Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial, vol. 76, 36198–36199; see also AD (NUOI) 372QO 100, ‘Affidavit of Tōjō Hideki,’ paragraphs 13–16, attached to Oneto to Minister of Foreign Affairs, 29 December 1947.

  45. 45.

    AD (NUOI) 372QO 100, Oneto to Minister of Foreign Affairs, 19 September 1947, 7–8, 7–8.

  46. 46.

    John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Aftermath of World War II (London: Penguin, 1999), 463; Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trial, 90.

  47. 47.

    Radhabinod Pal, ‘Dissenting Opinion of the Member from India (Justice Pal)’ in Documents on the Tokyo International Military Tribunal: Charter, Indictment and Judgments, ed. Neil Boister and Robert Cryer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 1239.

  48. 48.

    Franck Michelin, ‘Décider et Agir: l’intrusion Japonaise en Indochine française, Juin 1940,’ Vingtième Siècle: Revue D’Histoire, no. 83 (2004): 75–93.

  49. 49.

    Boister and Cryer (eds), Documents, 478.

  50. 50.

    Totani, Tokyo War Crimes Trials, 94–95.

  51. 51.

    ANOM. INDO HCI ConsPol 153, Conseiller Juridique Torel, pour le Conseiller Politique, 24 December 1945.

  52. 52.

    Beatrice Trefalt, ‘Japanese war criminals in Indochina and the French pursuit of justice: Local and International Constraints,’ Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 49 no. 4 (October 2014): 727–742.

  53. 53.

    AD (NUOI) 372QO99, Oneto to Foreign Minister, 22 October 1946, 2.

  54. 54.

    AD (NUOI) 372QO100, Foreign Minister to Mr. Naggiar, 29 Mai 1946.

  55. 55.

    AD (NUOI) 372QO99, Oneto to Foreign Minister, 22 October 1946, 2.

  56. 56.

    AD (NUOI) 372QO100, Oneto, ‘Le Tribunal Militaire international de Tokyo: Développement du procès du 24 Février au 20 Mars 1947,’ no other date, 5.

  57. 57.

    AD (NUOI) 372QO100, Oneto to Minister of Foreign Affairs, 14 June 1947, 6.

  58. 58.

    See AD, Asie-Océanie. Japon. 130:Criminels de Guerre, Pechkoff, ‘Télégramme,’ 9 October 1946.

  59. 59.

    Boister, ‘The Tokyo Military Tribunal,’ 3–29.

  60. 60.

    Alejandro Chehtman, The Philosophical Foundations of Extraterritorial Punishment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 160, quoted in Boister, ‘The Tokyo Military Tribunal,’ 11.

  61. 61.

    My translation. AD (NUOI) 372QO100, Pechkoff to Foreign Minister, 7 January 1948, 2.

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  1. Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    Beatrice Trefalt

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  1. Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Kerstin von Lingen

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Trefalt, B. (2016). The French Prosecution at the IMTFE: Robert Oneto, Indochina and the Rehabilitation of French Prestige. In: von Lingen, K. (eds) War Crimes Trials in the Wake of Decolonization and Cold War in Asia, 1945-1956. World Histories of Crime, Culture and Violence. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42987-8_3

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