CONCURRENT RESOLUTIONS—DEC. 15, 2000 114 STAT. 3217 (1) each year should begin with a day of peace and sharing during which— (A) people around the world should gather with family, friends, neighbors, their faith community, or people of another culture to pledge nonviolence in the new year and to share in a celebratory new year meal; and (B) Americans who are able should match or multiply the cost of their new year meal with a timely gift to the hungry at home or abroad in a tangible demonstration of a desire for increased friendship and sharing among people around the world; and (2) the President should issue a proclamation each year calling on the people of the United States and interested organizations to observe such a day with appropriate programs and activities. Agreed to December 15, 2000. WORLD WAR II AMERICAN POW Dec. i5, 2000 COMPENSATION—CLAIMS SETTLEMENT fs. Con. Res. iss] Whereas from December 1941 to April 1942, members of the United States Armed Forces fought valiantly against overwhelming Japanese military forces on the Bataan peninsula of the Island of Luzon in the Philippines, thereby preventing Japan from accomplishing strategic objectives necessary for achieving early military victory in the Pacific during World War II; Whereas after receiving orders to surrender on April 9, 1942, many of those valiant combatants were taken prisoner of war by Japan and forced to march 85 miles from the Bataan peninsula to a prisoner-of-war camp at former Camp O'Donnell; Whereas of the members of the United States Armed Forces captured by Imperial Japanese forces during the entirety of World War II, a total of 36,260 of them survived their capture and transit to Japanese prisoner-of-war camps to be interned in those camps, and 37.3 percent of those prisoners of war died during their imprisonment in those camps; Whereas that march resulted in more than 10,000 deaths by reason of starvation, disease, and executions; Whereas many of those prisoners of war were transported to Japan where they were forced to perform slave labor for the benefit of private Japanese companies under barbaric conditions that included torture and inhumane treatment as to such basic human needs as shelter, feeding, sanitation, and health care; Whereas the private Japanese companies unjustly profited from the uncompensated labor cruelly exacted from the American personnel in violation of basic human rights; Whereas these Americans do not make any claims against the Japanese Government or the people of Japan, but, rather, seek some measure of justice from the Japanese companies that prof- ited from their slave labor; Whereas they have asserted claims for compensation against the private Japanese companies in various courts in the United States; 79-194O-00 -6:QL3Part6
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