14) JAPAN REMAINS UNREPENTANT FOR PAST CRIMES

By Sean Burton

     On Dec. 14, the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery held its 1000th protest outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul. During its wartime occupation of Korea and other parts of east Asia, the Japanese military forced hundreds of thousands of so-called "comfort women" to provide sexual services to its soldiers. At protests held every Wednesday since January 1992, the women have presented demands to Japan: to recognize the drafting of the women as a criminal act, to conduct an investigation, to issue a parliamentary resolution for an apology, to provide legal remedies, to list in history textbooks, to construct a memorial and archive, and punish those responsible.

Japan's war crimes are widely known, but there has been a concentrated effort to sweep them under the rug as the country became a key U.S. ally. True, some war criminals were punished, and limited apologies were made. But Japan has had great difficulty being up front with its past actions, and many right‑wing activists refuse to even acknowledge that crimes were committed.

     Today, there are only 63 former comfort women still living, and the frequency of the protests has wavered. Tokyo undoubtedly desires the issue to die out along with these women. At the 1000th protest, a special monument funded by private donations was unveiled on the sidewalk across from the Japanese embassy. The statue depicts a young Korean girl staring at the building with the shadow of an old women beneath her. Shockingly, Hankyoreh newspaper quoted Japan's State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Osamu Fujimura as saying it was "truly dismaying" that the statue was set up and that calls would be made to have it removed via diplomatic channels. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda conveyed the same demands directly to south Korean president Lee Myung Bak at a summit in Kyoto on December 18.

     It does not help that the position of the south Korean government is not clear. On the surface, Seoul insists that Japan make amends for drafting the comfort women. President Lee purportedly informed Noda that the monument would not be removed "unless sincere measures were taken". Nonetheless, Japan and south Korea have long had a cozy business relationship. New Korean history textbooks have evidently purged the comfort women from their pages. Earlier standards required textbooks to describe how Japan mobilized the Korean people via military and labour conscription, including the comfort women. Since 2009, standards for high school texts have omitted comfort women, nor have they been mentioned in any supplemental manuals. Given that high school texts require more in‑depth study, the absence is conspicuous. Yet the territorial dispute over Dokdo island is mentioned a number of times. As one professor remarked, human rights and peace concerns were being superseded by blind patriotism.

Japan must not be allowed to get away with this heinous wrong. The thousands around the world who come out in support of the surviving comfort women will continue their struggle one way or another. But there will be no true reconciliation until the full weight of Korean society is mobilized, and that will never happen so long as south Korea remains a client state of larger powers.

(The above article is from the January 1-31, 2012, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)