Asia-Pacific, Gender, Headlines, Human Rights

JAPAN: In Denial Mode on ‘Comfort Women’ Issue

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Mar 12 2007 (IPS) - For more than 50 years after her return home to South Korea from Taiwan, where she spent three years as a sex slave for Japanese soldiers, Lee Yong Soo, 78, has waited for a sincere apology from the government of Japan. She may never live to see that day.

”Nothing has changed except the wrinkles on my face today. Day after day I am haunted by my tortured life at the hands of Japanese soldiers who continuously kicked me, gave me electric shocks and forced me to provide sex for them. All I want is a true apology,” she told the press this week.

Lee, a tender 16-year-old when she was forcibly taken away from her home by Japanese soldiers, is one of three women who testified in Washington on Feb. 13 at the House of Representatives.

The decision to go to Washington, she says, wiping away her tears, was a last ditch attempt to finally gain an official apology not only for her but many other aging former comfort women or sex slaves, most of whom now live on state subsidies in their countries.

Comfort women is a term referring to the estimated 200,000 girls imprisoned to provide sexual services for the military from 1932 until Japan’s defeat that ended World War II in 1945.

‘’I want to keep telling the world what the Japanese army did to young, helpless Asian women when they colonised our countries. My wish is that this terrible abuse of our lives must never be forgotten or repeated ever,” she explained.

But testimonies like that of Lee are coming up against denial by the Japanese government. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a conservative, stirred up a storm of protests last week when he stated in the Japanese Diet (parliament) that there is no evidence to show there was official coercion in recruiting comfort women.

On Thursday, former comfort women and their supporters were hit by a new move – a plan by a group of 120 lawmakers from the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, headed by Abe, to submit a proposal to dilute a landmark official apology.

Referred to as the Kono statement, Japan issued the document in 1993 that admitted coercion tactics employed by the Japanese army and apologised for creating the frontline brothel system. Abe said he stood by the 1993 apology which was based on accepted documentation.

But, on Wednesday, the right-leaning ‘Yomiuri’ newspaper, the largest in the country, noted in an editorial: ‘’It is a natural course of action to revise the inaccurate Kono statement.”

The daily went on to say that what was behind the issuance of the statement was ‘’the government’s misjudgement – made under pressure from South Korea àthe government should not make the same diplomatic mistake in its response to the U.S. House resolution.”

According to experts the government is now determined to stop the passing of a resolution submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives by Democrat Michael Honda who, following Lee’s evidence, wants Japan to accept a non-binding resolution “to formally acknowledge, apologise and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces’ coercion of young women and girls into sexual slavery starting in the 1930s during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands.”

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki told the Japanese press, last week, that the country is considering appropriate responses including publishing rebuttals against American media that have made reports not based on ‘’appropriate interpretation.”

At the heart of the latest uproar is Abe’s interpretation of “coercion”, which he has taken pains to define. In a “narrow sense” he is quoted in the Japanese media as saying, it means “bursting into women’s homes to abduct them” while in a broader context it could mean that women “did not want to go but were (forced) under the circumstances.”

Such complex statements, according to Setsuo Naganuma, a former journalist and expert on the issue, reveals a Japan refusing to come to terms with its dark war past. ‘’There is ample evidence to support the existence of the comfort woman system that forcibly kept women against their will to be sex slaves. Why must there be so many twists to this blatant abuse of human rights?” he asked.

Such manoeuvring has indeed, turned the comfort women issue into one of the bitterest disputes of Japan’s past war history.

In 1995, the semi-government Asian Women’s Fund was set up through private donations to support former sex slaves in South Korea, the Philippines and Taiwan and obtain for them personal letters of apology form Japanese prime ministers. The has paid out 1.7 billion yen ($14.6 million) to about 360 victims, but its term expires at the end of March.

‘’The Asian Women’s Fund expresses a sincere apology by the Japanese government to the former comfort women. By providing compensation and an official letter, Japan has done its best to take responsibility for the past,” said former prime minister, Tomichi Murayama, a socialist.

But critics say that Japan’s attempts at reconciliation have not been successful.

Lee, for example, is one former comfort woman who has refused funds, but rather wants a sincere apology from the government. Activists also say there are several more comfort women who follow Lee but the government has not released any names.

Abe has not gained much popularity through the latest uproar. ‘’Japan has already acknowledged its responsibility for establishing the comfort women system. Trying to meddle again with the explosive issue is not to Japan’s advantage today,” said Kanako Nakayama, 57, a librarian.

The ‘Asahi’ newspaper commented on Monday that ” the prime minister ignores free-falling approval ratings to pursue conservative reforms”. It added that Abe has ‘’cast off his pretence of moderation”.

A confused business manager Seishi Yoda, 65, said: ‘’ Japan has worked hard to build a strong economy and has shared its wealth to the benefit of other Asian countries. Comments denying its war responsibilities only negate the good will between Japan and Asia.”