'Japan tries to justify colonial-era forced labor'

By Yi Whan-woo

Criticism of the Japanese government continues to grow here after it tried to justify the use of forced labor during Tokyo’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the peninsula by watering down a statement on some of its newly-registered UNESCO world heritage sites.

The island nation’s administration claims complete post-war reparations were made to Korea through the bilateral normalization treaty agreed in June 1965.

It then downplayed its statement in English that acknowledged the coercion of Koreans into forced labor at seven of the 23 Meiji Industrial Revolution sites because it is concerned that Seoul may demand further compensation, according to analysts.

All 23 sites won world heritage recognition during UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee (WHC) session in Bonn, Germany, Saturday.

“Conservative Japanese politicians and bureaucrats have claimed Japan, as a colonialist back then, had a legal right to bring Koreans to work at those sites,” Kwak Jin-o, a researcher at Northeast Asia History Foundation, said Tuesday.

“The Japanese government also remained firm that it’s no longer responsible for making reparations to Korea for its wartime misdeeds. It clearly showed this will be the case.”

He cited Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, who shrugged off the statement delivered by Japan’s UNESCO ambassador Kuni Sato during the WHC session.

The statement outlined that a large number of Koreans were brought “against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions” at those sites in the 1940s.

Some 57,900 Koreans were forced into slave labor at seven sites in Japan, including coalmines, shipyards and steelworks, while building warships, weapons and providing war supplies under harsh conditions for the Japanese military during World War II.

The statement added that Japan is “prepared to take measures” to help people understand the historical wounds of Korea.

A researcher at Korean National Diplomatic Academy agreed with Kwak.

“The statement seemingly hinted that Japan may cooperate with Korea in resolving historical disputes, such as the sexual enslavement of the women during the Pacific War. And I’d say we still have a long way to go to settle these disputes,” he said on condition of anonymity.

He also raised doubts over whether Japan will faithfully carry out its agreement with the WHC to admit its wartime brutality at the seven sites.

During the WHC session, it agreed to establish an information center to remember the victims and help visitors understand the historical background of the facilities.

“The agreement is not legally binding and the conservative Japanese government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could change its policy abruptly,” he said.