Yang Baoshan, the Pingdingshan Massacre survivor representing the Pingdingshan Massacre suit group, returned to Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, from Japan to enthusiastic welcome of local citizens Thursday.

Though the Tokyo High Court rejected the compensation claims, the 84-year-old Yang said he will continue with the appeal for justice. "Even after I pass away, my children will continue with my work," he said.

The Tokyo High Court on May 13 rejected compensation claims from three Chinese plaintiffs over a massacre in 1932, although the court recognized the bloodshed did exist.

The two male plaintiffs in their eighties, Mo Desheng and Yang Baoshan, and the 76-year-old female plaintiff Fang Surong, charged that Japanese troops slayed their families along with some 3,000 people in Pingdingshan Village in northeastern Liaoning Province. They were seeking 20 million yen (about 188,700 US dollars) each in compensation from the Japanese government.

Upholding a verdict made by a subordinate court in 2002, the High Court ruled the Japanese government is immune from taking responsibility for damage inflicted before the enactment of the state compensation law. The ruling also said that international laws do not recognize the seeking of damage compensation by individuals.

Though he ultimately failed, Yang was supported and welcomed by many people in Shenyang, and Yamamoto Toshihiro from Japan, 70, was one of them.

He said the Japanese government dared not face up to its historical errors, humiliating him. He showed reporters a notebook with the words "Japan made another error again."

"The Fushun people have been backing the suit group, and we will go on standing by them in the future," said Fu Bo, leader of the Supporting Association for the Pingdingshan Massacre Survivors in Fushun, the city where the massacre occurred.

On September 16 in 1932, the intruding Japanese troops rounded up about 3,000 people, including the elderly, women and children, in Pingdingshan Village in Fushun and fired at them, claiming they had cooperated with Chinese guerrillas in fighting against Japanese aggression.

Following the mass execution, Japanese soldiers burned the bodies and buried them by triggering a landslide with a dynamite explosion. Few escaped.

The survivors lodged a lawsuit in 1996, demanding the Japanese government admit the crimes Japanese troops had committed in Pingdingshan, and apologize and compensate for the crimes. The Japanese courts admitted the facts, but rejected the apology and compensation claims.

Yang lost his parents in the massacre and was shot with two bullets. Though only eleven years old then, Yang still remembers that there were six machine guns firing at the bare-handed villagers.

"After this, the Japanese soldiers stabbed the bodies with bayonets to see whether there were survivors. I will go on appealing for the 3,000-plus lives, and let people know more about the historical facts so that such atrocities do not happen again," Yang said.