Japanese professor calls for Abe's apology for sex slavery

Wada Haruki, center, professor emeritus of Tokyo University, with Chung Kyu-sang, right, president of Sungkyunkwan University, after giving a lecture at the school’s campus in Seoul, Thursday. / Courtesy of Sungkyunkwan University

By Chung Hyun-chae

Wada Haruki, a historian and professor emeritus of Tokyo University, has urged Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to apologize for Japan’s forcing of Korean women to become sex slaves for its troops during World War II.

“Abe should uphold the 1993 Kono and 1995 Murayama statements and confess to wrongdoings such as the sexual enslavement of Korean women during its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula,” Haruki said during a lecture at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, Thursday.

In the Kono Statement, the Japanese government acknowledged the Japanese military’s coercion of women into military brothels. In the Murayama Statement, it offered apologies and expressed regrets over its past misdeeds, including the sexual enslavement.

Abe has come under intense international criticism since his announcement last year that his government would not uphold both statements.

The noted Japanese activist scholar called the wartime sexual slavery a violation of human rights. Yet he stopped short of calling the atrocity a war crime.

“Japan should also offer financial compensation to the victims, after acknowledging the misdeeds,” he said.

He called for Japan’s “sincere” apologies to the victims.

“We don’t have enough time in that only some 50 former Korean sex slaves are alive as of now, and they are getting older,” he said.

In his lecture, Haruki touched on modern history, including the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), and went into detail about the pending issues between Korea and Japan.

Haruki stressed that Japan’s apology should be a prerequisite for any summit between Seoul and Tokyo, saying, “The two countries cannot improving their relations without solving the slavery issue.”

Haruki referenced the strong will of Korean President Park Geun-hye, the first female head-of-state in Northeast Asia, and said he hoped the diplomatic standoff between Seoul and Tokyo would be resolved as early as possible.

He is the author of “Kin Nissei to Manshu Konichi Senso” (Kim Il-sung and the Manchurian Anti-Japanese War).