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チ​ビ​チ​リ​ガ​マ​　​​​{​Chibi​-​Chiri​-​Cave}

by Global Nomads

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1945年4月1日、米軍は読谷村の西海岸から沖縄本島へ上陸した。それは、住民を巻き込んだ悲惨な沖縄戦・地上戦であった。その日のうちに、米軍はチビチリガマ一帯に迫っていた。翌2日、チビチリガマへ避難していた住民約140名中、83名が「集団自決」をした。 その結果、83名のうち約6割が18歳以下の子供達であった。その他、2名が米兵の手によって犠牲になった。

「集団自決」とは「国家のために命をささげよ」「生きて虜囚の辱めを受けず、死して罪過の汚名を残すことなかれ」といった皇民化教育、軍国主義による強制された死のことである。

1983年以降、児童文学者の下嶋哲朗氏の呼びかけで調査が行われ、実態が明らかとなった。

洞窟の内部には眼鏡、、子供の骨、入れ歯、ボタン、こげたかんざしなどの遺品も残るが、遺族の要望により、現在立ち入りは禁止されている。

Chibichiri Gama (Southern Okinawa) is a 100-foot-deep limestone cave, where 87 people died included 47 children on April 2, 1945, after American soldiers approaching the cave and shot and killed two boys who charged them with bamboo spears. American soldiers pleaded with the civilians to come out and dropped leaflets in Japanese that said they wouldn't be harmed. The people didn't believe them. Japanese propaganda had led these people to believe that suicide was better than capture and torture by American “devils.”

The slaughter begin when an 18-year-old girl shouted, "Mommy, kill me! Don't let them rape me" and her mother obliged, triggering a mass killing in which parents slaughtered their children with knives, sickles, flaming oil from the oil lamps and then killed themselves.

The cave was opened to the public in the mid-1990s. There is a stairway that leads to passages where the 140 civilians hid. Most of the remains of the dead were taken away by relatives, but a few bones were left behind as a reminder of the tragedy. There are large bones near the mouth of the cave. The interior—which is said to contain the small bones of children— is closed off to let their spirits rest in peace.

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released July 5, 2011
Okinawa, you sing a beautiful song
But your story brings tears to my eyes...

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Global Nomads General Trias, Philippines

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