Leftists claim textbook arson attack

Author Kanji Nishio has been inundated with faxes protesting against his book

A radical left-wing group says it carried out an arson attack on the office of the authors of a controversial Japanese history textbook.

The group calling itself a "revolutionary army" said Wednesday's attack was in retaliation to a decision by Tokyo's education board to use the book in schools for disabled pupils.

The book has led to a diplomatic row with China and South Korea who object to what they regard as a glossing over Japanese wartime atrocities.

There have been almost daily protests in Seoul

Japan has rejected calls to amend the book, which does not mention Japanese germ-warfare experiments in China and the forced prostitution of hundreds of thousands of women for Japanese soldiers during World War II.

The fire at the offices of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform caused minor damage to an outside wall and first floor window.

It came one day after Tokyo's board of education voted to use the textbook to teach about 70 children with physical and mental disabilities in three of the city's 45 schools for disabled students.

Several private schools have already approved the book, written by nationalist historians for schoolchildren aged 13 to 15.Some local education boards elsewhere in Japan have rejected the book.

'Comfort women'

South Korea has demanded 35 revisions to the book but Japan has agreed to make only two changes.

In retaliation, South Korea has dramatically scaled back cultural and military contacts and threatened to boycott educational exchanges with Japan.

South Korea is particularly angry at the failure of the book to mention more than 100,000 so-called "comfort women", forced to have sex with Japanese troops during the war.

It also objects to Japan's claim that its 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean peninsula was necessary for stability.

Japan has said the textbook, approved by the Education Ministry in April, does not represent the government's official view of history.