Yi Whan-woo is a Korea Times journalist primarily covering finance. He writes in-depth articles on macroeconomy and financial markets and previously covered sports, politics, diplomacy and inter-Korean affairs, among others. Feel free to contact him at yistory@koreatimes.co.kr.
Honda calls Abe tactics 'nonsense'
By Yi Whan-woo
Rep. Mike Honda
By Yi Whan-woo
U.S. Rep. Mike Honda called Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s attempt to whitewash Japan’s wartime atrocities as “nonsense,” Thursday.
“Coercion was there. That’s why girls and women were kidnapped,” said Honda, a crusader for justice against Japanese misdeeds, referring to Japanese assertions that “comfort women” volunteered to work at brothels run by the Japanese imperial army during World War II.
Tokyo in June tried to lay the groundwork for the retraction of the 1993 Kono Statement, which contains an official apology for sexual slavery enforced committed on Korean and Chinese women and those of other nationalities, by calling it the result of a political bargain.
Honda is on a five-day visit here.
He wrote House Resolution 121 (H.R. 121) and helped it pass through the House unanimously in 2007. The resolution is often seen as a starting point for the U.S. effort to gain a correct understanding of Japan’s acts of barbarism against its neighbors.
In January, he succeeded in having that resolution become law as he secured language in another bill, H.R. 3547, where the Appropriations Committee urges the secretary of state to encourage Japan to address the issues raised in H.R. 121.
“The world community has become more aware of issue of sexual slavery of Japan in WWII and I think that brings more peer pressure to the government of Japan,” he said. “As it becomes more and more discussed through the media, the Japanese people will over time start to get information themselves.”
Historians estimate as many as 200,000 women were forced to provide sex to the Japanese soldiers before and during WWII. Nearly 80 percent of those women were Koreans.
Only 55 Korean survivors are alive today with their average age at 88, according to the Seoul government’s latest data in September.
Referring to the elderly victims as “halmoni,” a Korean word for grandmother, he added the U.S. government will continue to communicate with the Japanese leadership and urge them to “move forward on the issue.”
He pointed out he coordinated a meeting between two of them _ Lee Ock-sun, 87, and Kang Il-chul, 86 _ and officials at the White House as well as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during their visit to Washington D.C. in August.
“Kerry and the State Department take this very seriously. The White House is taking it seriously.”
He also said, “It would be nice to have a meeting for the halmonis with U.S. President Barack Obama.”