Thursday, 3 December 1998 -- HONG KONG -- So you have a grievance against someone. They are reluctant to admit their wrongdoing, but you force them to say sorry. Y'know, hard as it may be, sometimes it is better to just let things go. No apology at all is better than an insincere one.

While I have the utmost sympathy for hardship endured by former Prisoners of War and civilian internees who suffered terribly during the Japanese occupation of Asia, I think it is time they "packed up their troubles in their old kit-bag, and smiled." At least they are alive.

I found it profoundly disagreeable when a British WW2 vet addressed the Japanese media and said: "You Japanese, I can't understand how you can live in a country that has no justice. Disgusting." I would like to ask the 'vet' about the thousands of Eastern European POWs that the British government handed over to Russia's Stalin at the end of the war -- knowing that they were being sent to certain death. Apology from the British for participating in murder? Not yet. Not ever. I'd like to ask the 'vet' if he would prefer to be a surviving prisoner of the Japanese or one sent to die by the British?

I have done many stories for the British press on the 'Death Railway' in Thailand -- visited the cemetaries several times -- listened to old soldiers relate their memories of brutality and cruelty. I admit to being moved to tears as I walked through the headstones reading the rank, names and the ages of the Commonwealth soldiers who died. Private, age 19, L/Cpl, age 20, Corporal, age 21.

I count my blessings that I never had to suffer the way they did. During my military service we experienced what I would describe as skirmishes, but nothing even remotely close to the scale of the Second World War. I didn't have to suffer the brutality and hardship these men endured and who are now demanding an apology and 22-thousand bucks in compensation.

Back before WW2 many of the folks who are now demanding compensation couldn't have cared less about what it was like to be worked to death as a coolie on the docks in Hong Kong or Singapore. It wasn't that they were particularly insensitive -- but by the standards of the day it was quite normal. Unremarkable.

But whether you want to admit it or not, you veterans were adults who could have changed history if you hadn't been so full of your own superiority. I don't blame you, those were the days in which you lived. But don't impose a penalty on today's generation for the price you paid for your arrogance from 1941 to 1945.

We have a saying in Britain; 'You pays your money, you takes your chance." When it comes to the civilian internees -- they took their chance -- and lost. The gin-swilling plantation owners who exploited the local population while getting blind drunk at Raffles Hotel, they took their chance. If you have ever visited the Occupation and Surrender Museum on Sentosa Island -- and if you look closely -- you might come away with a slightly different 'take' on the events of 1941-1945.

I will always remember the reproduction of news reports of the time telling the expat population about how ridiculous it was that a bunch of short-sighted yellow dwarfs, pushing bicycles and carrying rifles that were almost as long as they were tall could possibly threaten British Singapore. What a joke, imagine, an ignorant Asian coolie thinking he could stand up to a white-skinned master race like the British. Really, they use their fingers to eat and don't even dress for dinner for crying out loud!!

Imagine you are one of those 'coolies' and you are suddenly in a position where you are pointing your bayonet-tipped rifle at a colonial who still sneers at you while he has his hands in the air. Imagine you are an Imperial soldier who has barely survived on almost starvation rations on your trek through the jungle and these fat, insolent Britishers still have the gall to demand they be treated like Lords. Frankly, were I in their position, I would feel inclined to bayonet the racist sons-of-bitches and have done with it. And in the 1940s the Brits were as racist as their white-American counterparts who were still reluctant to give rifles to their African-American citizens who joined the army. Today we say African-American, in those days it was quite acceptable in polite society to refer to them as 'niggers'. Use that expression today and it is likely the speaker would face a law-suit -- use anything other than that expression in the 1930s and early 40s, and the speaker would likely be refused service at the best clubs for gentlemen.

It is a case of time-related perspective. Accept that it was a different world 50-years ago. But the compensation seeking vets are trying to apply today's values. It doesn't -- and shouldn't -- work that way. The governments and people of the day made their mistakes just as we are doing now.

In those far flung days of the 'Empire' the soldiers and internees who are now demanding compensation lived in a world where they could get their 'dhobi' -- laundry -- done by Chinese and other insignificant races for a salary that would be less than what they paid for peanuts at their favourite watering hole. And if the crease wasn't ironed in the right place? Well, forget getting paid. The 'dhobi merchant' would be lucky to escape a thrashing. Who cared that they were hungry, lived in slums and their children died of preventable disease? They were just 'Chinky Chinamen' after all. They weren't white.

What about the way the Imperial Army treated other Asians? Well, you just have to look at Europe half a century ago and the way white-skinned Jews, gypsies and anyone who wasn't 'pure' were treated -- before and after Hitler -- to see where the Japanese learned the tricks of the trade.

Think about it. Was the Kuomintang government of China treating the general population with thoughtfulness and consideration? And what about now? Are Tibetan peasants treated any worse today than they were under the Dalai Lama? Jiang Zemin had no more right to demand an apology from the Japanese government during his recent visit to Japan than relatives of the millions who died under Mao can expect an apology from Beijing.

As an afterthought. It is a cultural thing and many of the vets know this but stubbornly refuse to acknowledge it. Imperial Army soldiers were fed little better than their white prisoners. They were also often treated with brutality by their officers. The same officers who had nothing but contempt for their white counterparts who surrendered rather than die fighting for their freedom. I wonder if the vets ever consider for a moment just how many thousands of Japanese died by their own hands rather than surrender -- not because they were afraid of the consequences of defeat -- but the concept of defeat was below their dignity. A dignity obviously not shared by the British Officer Corps who gave up Singapore and Hong Kong.

Give it up. Get on with your lives and treat others as you would like them to treat you. You still have my sympathy. It was a terrible experience and one that you wouldn't wish on another civilised human being. And I mean the broader definition of the expression 'civilised human' that many of us employ today -- rather than the rather narrow one that was prevalent when you found yourselves clutching the short end of the stick.

--Chris Gelken