Think-tank head slams Abe's attempt to dilute war crimes
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Kim Hak-joon, president of the Northeast Asian History Foundation / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
History foundation chief calls on Japan to apologize for sex slavery
By Kim Hyo-jin
The head of a history think-tank has criticized Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for referring to women forced by his nation’s military into sexual slavery before and during World War II as victims of “human trafficking.”
He said that the comment, made last month during an interview with the Washington Post, was an attempt to dilute the country’s wartime atrocities.
“It is absolutely unacceptable because he used terms that go against historical facts,” Kim Hak-joon, president of the state-funded Northeast Asian History Foundation (NAHF), said in a recent interview with The Korea Times.
The remark stirred controversy because it failed to distinguish between commercial prostitution and the system of sexual slavery run by the Japanese Imperial Army.
In response to the controversy, the U.S. State Department reaffirmed its stance on the issue, referring to Japan’s wartime enslavement as the “trafficking of women for sexual purposes.”
The Korean government also took issue with Abe’s expression, saying that it does not identify the Japanese government as the perpetrator.
The NAHF president, 72, also believes that Abe sidestepped the Japanese military’s crimes by choosing terms that whitewash the atrocities.
“It was undoubtedly state-sponsored enslavement of women for the army, and this is based on evidence that a Japanese historian found in Japanese government archives,” he said.
Yoshimi Yoshiaki, a professor at Chuo University in Japan and author of “Comfort Women,” began researching the military’s role in setting up the brothels in 1992, with a number of rare documents found in the Defense Ministry’s library.
Kim mentioned that Yoshiaki proved that the Japanese military created, maintained, and expanded a system of sexual slavery.
“Abe’s attempt to distort history will only infuriate neighboring nations that suffered under Japanese imperialism,” Kim said.
The cover of the booklet, “Comfort Women” published by the Northeast Asian History Foundation in 2014 / Courtesy of NAHF
Abe's revisionist move
Since taking office again in 2012, Abe has continued to deny the Japanese military’s involvement in sexual slavery.
In June, he ordered a review of the 1993 Kono Statement that acknowledged the Japanese military’s coercion of women into sexual slavery and offered an official apology to the victims.
But a subsequent report on the review stated that diplomatic negotiations between Korea and Japan influenced some parts of the statement regarding sexual slavery, diminishing the meaning of the Kono Statement.
Moreover, the Japanese Foreign Ministry demanded in December that U.S. textbook publisher McGraw-Hill correct what it claimed was an erroneous description of sexual slavery in a college textbook.
It took issue with a reference that says the Imperial Japanese Army forcibly recruited as many as 200,000 women to serve in military brothels, a fact that Abe and right-wingers have long rejected.
Amid intensifying criticism against Tokyo’s move, U.S. historians published a statement in March, expressing their “dismay at recent attempts by the Japanese government to suppress statements in history textbooks both in Japan and elsewhere.”
They criticized Tokyo's move, saying it was “part of its efforts to promote patriotic education.”
Kim interpreted Abe’s revisionist moves as an attempt to militarize Japan again.
“Painful memories of Japan’s imperialist past have been the key issue in preventing Japan from re-militarization. But by denying military’s coercion involved in the enslavement of women, the Japanese government is trying to deny its wartime atrocities. And by whitewashing the established history, Japan is trying to reduce concern over the country's military rebuilding, paving the way to have self-defense forces,” he said.
Abe has continued his push to revise the country’s pacifist constitution. Article 9 of this commits Japan to renouncing war as a sovereign right.
The move to break Japan’s postwar commitment to the world has triggered opposition both at home and abroad.
Now all eyes are on Abe’s scheduled address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress later this month when he will set the tone for Japan’s relations with its neighbors regarding historical issues.
The NAHF chief advised Abe to officially acknowledge and apologize for Japan’s wartime atrocities.
“He needs to take it as an opportunity to face history squarely. Otherwise, he will deepen the anger of neighboring counties, having a destructive impact on Japan's future development,” he said.
NAHF’s responses to Japan’s distortion of history
The NAHF was established in 2006 and has spearheaded campaigns to oppose Japan’s apparent attempts to water down history.
The think-tank has made booklets that clarify the fact that victims of sexual slavery were forcibly recruited, distributing the texts to schools and Korean diplomatic missions around the world.
Also, it has held annual exhibitions on the subject of sexual slavery in collaboration with museums in Germany, The Netherlands and the United States. These are aimed at raising awareness that sexual slavery isn’t just limited to Korea, but happened in many parts of the world that came under imperialist rule.
The foundation is scheduled to hold an international conference on Japan’s sexual slavery in Washington D.C on July 30. Attendees will include Japanese-American U.S. Congressman Mike Honda.
Kim explained that the date is meaningful because it is when the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a landmark 2007 resolution that called on Japan to officially acknowledge its coercion of hundreds of thousands of young women into sexual slavery and to apologize to them.
“We will raise awareness once again among academics and politicians that sexual slavery is not a mere Korea-Japan related issue but a human rights-related matter,” he said.
Nanci Pelosi, then House Speaker and the incumbent U.S. House minority leader, called on Abe Thursday to apologize for coercing Korean and other Asian women into sexual slavery before and during World War II.
Asked about her view on Abe’s planned congressional speech, she said, “We have been clear about what we'd like to hear about comfort women. I hope that a statement will be made to free Japanese people from this burden of the issue of comfort women.”
Kim also stressed the importance and the meaning of his address.
“For Koreans, the sexual slavery issue is a symbol of Japan’s wartime crimes against them. Japan should step up to solve the issue it has aggravated,” he said.
“In the year marking the 70th anniversary of the anti-fascist war victory, and the 50th anniversary of the Korea-Japan diplomatic ties, I highly expect Abe’s bold gesture.”