Yomiuri on the Comfort Women
Get facts straight on ‘comfort women’
The Yomiuri Shimbun
The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee has adopted a resolution demanding an apology from Japan over the so-called comfort women. But the resolution was produced based on an erroneous perception of the facts.
The Japanese government should try to correct the United States’ misinterpretation of history in order to remove a source of future trouble, while at the same time working to block passage of the resolution by the House of Representatives plenary session.
The resolution calls for the government to accept historical responsibility and apologize for “its Imperial Armed Forces’ coercion of young women into sexual slavery.” It describes “the comfort women system” as “one of the largest cases of human trafficking in the 20th century.”
The resolution was made without verifying the facts and smacks of cheap rhetoric. It makes us doubt the wisdom of U.S. lawmakers.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed “sympathy from the bottom of my heart” and said he “felt sorry” during his meetings with U.S. President George W. Bush and congressional leaders during his visit to Washington in April. The prime minister also said that the 20th century was a century of human rights violations and Japan was not totally blameless.
Abe’s remarks did not stop adoption of the resolution by the lower house committee.
The resolution is merely one of many adopted at the U.S. Congress. It is not legally binding. Some observers say Japan does not have to take it seriously.
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Govt must dispute false charges
However, this is the wrong conclusion to draw. If Japan does not counter these arguments, this erroneous historical view will become accepted as established fact.
Before World War II, many women were put to work as comfort women against their will by parents and brokers. But this does not mean the Japanese military coerced the women.
In past studies, no evidence has been found showing “coercive recruitment of comfort women by the military or authorities.” The government explicitly presented this observation in March in response to a question by an opposition lawmaker.
On what is the resolution based? Reportedly, the 1993 statement by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono played a significant part.
The statement said that Japanese military and authorities were “directly or indirectly involved in…the transfer of comfort women.” Such wording apparently led to the misapprehension that there was coercive recruitment.
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Kono apology politically driven
The 1993 statement was motivated by a political desire to deflect pressure from South Korea on the comfort women issue. But it has helped broaden the misunderstanding.
Apparently out of diplomatic consideration, Abe has said he stands by the Kono statement. But as long as the prime minister takes this position, the misunderstanding about coercive recruitment will remain. If the statement is found to be erroneous, it should be modified without hesitation.
In March, Foreign Minister Taro Aso referred to the lobbying in support of the resolution as an “operation to estrange Japan and the United States.” Anti-Japan forces in the United States linked with Chinese and South Koreans have exercised their influence behind the scenes on behalf of the resolution.
If the matter is left unaddressed, further demands for apologies will be repeated. The government must methodically elucidate the historical truths involved in the issue.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, June 28, 2007)
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 at
Hmmmm.
Really? The Japanese military didn’t force young women into military prostitution?
Next you’ll be trying to sell the idea that Unit 731 never existed.
Frankly the Japanese have spent the past 50+ years trying to whitewash their conduct during WWII, and have largely succeeded only within their own population.
But just because you’ve been brainwashed into believing this nonsense, doesn’t mean that the rest of the world does too.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 at
Memomachine:
“Next you’ll be trying to sell the idea that Unit 731 never existed.”
Take it easy.No one is selling that idea and we ain’t buying it.
“Frankly the Japanese have spent the past 50+ years trying to whitewash their conduct during WWII, and have largely succeeded only within their own population.”
That’s not true,Negative historical past has been and is being taught in historical class at school and covered frequently in every major media in the country.What you are saying is grossly exaggerated media coverage,which unfortunately ranging world wide.
“But just because you’ve been brainwashed into believing this nonsense, doesn’t mean that the rest of the world does too.”
The guy writing this blog is an American.Perhaps you might want check your fact again before dispatch adhominem rant on others.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 at
The point is not what individual Japanese units did on the battlefield (for which atonement has been made). The point is that there is no specific proof it was the policy of the government at the time to force women into prostitution.
Hire them, yes, but prostitution was legal in this part of the world in those days.
If you want to upload some specific proof that it was the government’s policy to force women to become prostitutes, everybody here will be glad to read it.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 at
How’s this?
Frankly the Koreans have spent the past 60+ years trying to whitewash Japanese influence during the colonial period, and have largely succeeded only within their own population. Like how they claim Taekwondo is purely Korean while there’s no denying it derives from Japanese Karate. Or the “theory” Japanese norimaki is a copy of Korean kimbap.
But just because you’ve been brainwashed into believing these nonsense, doesn’t mean that the rest of the world does too.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 at
I think the big hole in the Korean argument is that I have never once read a populist book or article that said, “yes, prostitution was common in Korean; yes, Koreans made money out of selling and prostituting other Koreans (just as, say, blacks did to Blacks in Africa); and, yes, this proportion of Comfort Women WERE actually well paid, well treated and “voluntary”, … or at least sold off my their parents.
Let’s remember that this type of prostitution was not unique to Korea either. It was common all across Japan up until are after WWII and it is still common all across Asia even today. I do not mean specifically “comfort women”, I mean;
Bad rice harvest = daughters get sold … Go to Laos, Cambodia, China, India, North Korea today and it is still going on today.
All we get is a screaming hysterical “200,000″ which are *ALL* the Japanese’s fault. Well, life is never that straightfoward. The bottomline is “if you are poor and female, you are going to get screwed and violated the world over”.
Putting aside that; a) “The Japanese” do not exist any more, b) that the average Japanese person, had no real democratic or representation rights, nor the responsibilities, for the events that went with such in the 30s and 40s, c) just over 50% of the population of the 1940s had nothing to do with the events (because they were female) d) at least another 45% had nothing to do with it because they were children, old folk, monks, workers etc, e) the apologies and the pay offs … what do “The Koreans” actually want.
My feeling is that, like Iris Chang, they “collectively” have just taken a leaf out of the Holocaust Industry book. Its a hot potato. But that it is not so much about money but having an acceptable political enemy, the political enemy without and the political profit within where, like China, they are not allowed to have one within.
Now, I can understand why individual, and genuine, victims are hurt. But I can also see how it is largely impossible to address which individuals are victims and which are not in the current environment and given the national tendencies … Its deeply tragic and distasteful, and the words ’statute of limitation’ is not nice, but it is part of the real world.
What I can never understand is how all those folks, whether the *uninvolved* Koreans over Comfort Women, the Chinese over Nanjing, the Holocaust Industry appear to invest themselves in the perceived crimes of the past, and the profits it can bring (either financial, political or egotistic) but yet be utterly disinterested in the equivalent crimes of here and now.
I also do not understand “The Magic Cut Off Number” … why a crime of 50 years ago is exploitable but one of 300 years ago is not. Again, if we look back in history, the poor in general everywhere, and women in particular, were always getting screwed, raped, murdered, exploited and neglected by the rich and males one way or another.
Are we not looking for the crime and the criminal in the wrong place? That is, the same crime is still alive today and being performed by the same individuals; males in power, males with money. Therefore, as such, these were not “Japanese” crimes, they were actually male crimes; and crimes of capital as well.
Its a more sure conclusion that the one we are being given.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 at
Oh … add Israel and Eastern Europe to the list of countries still trading sex slaves …http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7070929.stm.
Which is the most important?
To save those that are in slavery now, especially the young girls, or attempt to save those that have already (mostly) died?
You know, if only Korea and China said, “let us learn from the past and save the future … support us to fight sex slavery and child sex abuse now
Where are the voices condemning the sex slavery in Korea that is going on to this day, and the men that drive and profit from it?
http://www.vvawai.org/general/sex-slaves.html
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 at
Sex slavery in Korea today … where are the voices to condemn it?
http://www.vvawai.org/general/sex-slaves.html
If only Korea and China said, “let us learn from the past but protect the future … and stop sex slavery and child abuse today.” The whole world would support them.
There would still be a problem with corruption and bureaucracy but at least it would be one step forward.
I am afraid I have to add Israel and Eastern Europe to the list;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7070929.stm