Korea seeks adding forced labor archives to UNESCO
Koreans forced to labor at a mine in Hokkaido, Japan, during World War II / Yonhap
By Kim Hyo-jin
The government is seeking to add its archives on forced labor during the 1910-1945 Japanese colonial rule to the UNESCO heritage list, sources said Sunday.
A collection of 336,797 documents, photos and other materials on Japan’s wartime forced labor is one of 12 items submitted to the Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA), they said.
The agency plans to pick two items by October and apply to list them as UNESCO Memory of the World before March.
“There has been a growing consensus among officials and scholars that the documentary heritage should be recognized by UNESCO since the listing of Japan’s industrial sites as world heritage in July,” a source said.
The new world heritage sites include seven coal mines and shipyards where nearly 60,000 Koreans were forced to work in the 1940s.
The move is to counter Japan’s claims that there was no “forced labor” of Koreans at those sites.
“The UNESCO listing of Japan’s wartime industrial sites and Japan’s subsequent move to distort history raised concerns here,” a government official said, asking not to be named.
“There will be international awareness campaigns about Japan’s distorted perception of wartime atrocities in which the private sector will also participate.”
Korea dropped its opposition after Japan agreed to make it clear of the historical fact in the registration and promised follow-up measures including the establishment of an information center to honor the victims.
Seoul and Tokyo, however, have been at odds over Japan’s listing since Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida denied that there was “forced labor.”
The archives of Japan’s forced labor, if listed in the UNESCO Memory of the World, would put the brakes on its move to distort history, the official said.
The government set up a panel to support victims of wartime forced labor under the Prime Minister’s Office in 2004, and has compiled the archives over the past 11 years.
Included are 227,141 investigation reports on damage to workers, 105,431 evaluation reports for victims’ reparations, 2,525 oral statements, and 1,226 photos depicting forced labor.
The government views the archives as credible enough to meet the UNESCO criteria of uniqueness and significance in human history, the sources said.
The final items selected by the CHA will be submitted to the UNESCO Secretariat by March 31 next year.
Following the UNESCO International Advisory Committee’s review of applicants, the final listing of world heritage will be decided with the endorsement by the director general around June or July, 2017.
If selected, the archives will be the South Korea’s third documentary heritage to win UNESCO recognition in connection with its modern history.
In 2011, materials on the May 18th democratic uprising against military rule in 1980 were listed. Documents on Saemaul Undong, a government-initiated campaign that changed the country in the 1970s, were listed in 2013.
Various civic groups are set to mount a campaign to back the government’s bid. The Korean association for the bereaved of forced laborers in Sakhalin has already gained 100,000 signatures.