“Coming to terms with its militarist past has never been easy for Japan, which tried to set aside the issues raised by the war as it rebuilt itself into the peaceful, prosperous nation it is today. But pressure to erase the darker episodes of its wartime history has intensified recently with the rise of a small, aggressive online movement seeking to intimidate those like Mr. Mizuguchi who believe the country must never forget,” Martin Fackler by a far right nationalist group of “cyberactivists” known as Net Right to halt the erection of a memorial in the tiny village of Sarufutsu, where “[a]t least 80 Korean laborers died of abuse and malnutrition here as they built an airfield at the behest of the Japanese military during World War II.” This group is using intimidation to stop what it sees as blights on the image of the nation. Unfortunately, in this case they succeeded and work on the memorial came to a halt.
These nationalists believe that they are restoring honor to the Japanese nation but what is more honorable: Admitting your sins and trying to make amends or covering them up?
Pressure in Japan to Forget Sins of War – NYTimes.com.
History Chick in AZ 
As a student of history, can you say if Fackler actually established the facts he claims in his article? As there was no forced draft of Korean-Japanese until 1944 it seems unlikely.
What evidence is there of who they were or how they died?
As Fackler omits to mention that the construction was stopped as no planning permission had been sought, and that is is against Japanese law to erect any monuments with political motives in public spaces, it seems like that much of the rest of the article is on shaky grounds.
It merely follows the well worn anti-Japan propaganda spin common throughout American media.
How wonderful … Fackler accuses a crime, provides no evidence and then accuses the Japanese of destroying all the evidence … without any evidence of that either.
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