As they were doing so, Japanese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Shinsuke Sugiyama was in Geneva addressing a meeting of the UN committee which oversees the implementation of one of the world’s key human rights accords: the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). On the agenda was the Japanese government’s treatment of the problems of memory, justice and redress arising from the imperial military’s mass recruitment of women (the so-called ‘comfort women’) to military brothels during the Pacific War.
It was a great opportunity for the Abe administration to follow up its 28 December 2015 joint statement with South Korea on ‘comfort women’. In the December statement Foreign Minister Kishida acknowledged ‘an involvement of the Japanese military authorities at that time’ and passed on Prime Minister Abe’s ‘sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women’.
The December statement committed the Japanese government to contributing to a fund to assist surviving South Korean former ‘comfort women’, but its rather curious wording left some observers unsure just what Japan had apologised for.
Since coming to power the Abe administration has told the world that it is continuing to uphold — or (in the Japanese version) to ‘inherit’ (keisho suru) — the 1993 Kono Declaration. In that declaration, issued after an extensive study by the Japanese government, Japan acknowledged that ‘in many cases [‘comfort women’] were recruited against their own will, through coaxing, coercion, etc., and that, at times, administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitments’. The Japanese government also promised to ‘face squarely the historical facts as described above instead of evading them, and take them to heart as lessons of history’.
If the Abe administration has indeed ‘inherited’ the Kono Declaration, one would assume that Abe’s December ‘sincere apologies and remorse’ were apologising for the historical fact that many ‘comfort women’ were recruited and held against their will, and a reaffirmation of Japan’s determination to take the lessons of history to heart.
But oddly, neither Abe nor any of his ministers or spokespeople has ever been heard to echo the key words of the Kono Declaration. Instead, when challenged on the question of state responsibility for the ‘comfort women’ issue, they repeatedly respond with a formula developed during the first Abe administration of 2006–2007: ‘in the documents discovered by the Japanese government, none confirmed the forcible taking away of comfort women’.
This statement is extremely significant. It treats official Japanese government and military documents (the most incriminating of which were deliberately burnt in the closing days of the war) as the only reliable source of information on the topic. It entirely discounts the testimony of surviving former ‘comfort women’. This includes testimony collected and taken into account by the Japanese government at the time of the Kono Declaration. By implication, this formula says to the survivors that their testimony is at best unreliable evidence and at worst lies.
So the key question about the 28 December deal was this: when Foreign Minister Kishida referred to ‘an involvement of the Japanese military authorities at that time’, was he speaking about the involvement of the military in recruiting, transporting and holding women against their will? Was he upholding the promises of the Kono Declaration? If so, then the December accord was indeed a major step forward in Japan–South Korea relations. If not, it starts to look uncomfortably like a move that was motivated less by a desire to bring justice and redress to the victims than to buy their silence.
Foreign Ministry official Sugiyama’s response to the CEDAW committee on 16 February made the answer to these questions disturbingly plain. Pressed on the comfort women issue, he replied ‘in the documents discovered by the Japanese government, none confirmed the forcible taking away of comfort women’. He added that the notion that comfort women had been forcibly recruited was a misconception based on fabricated testimony by a former Japanese labour recruiter named Yoshida Seiji, and that this misinformation had been disseminated by the liberal newspaper Asahi Shimbun, which later retracted the claims.
This statement by Sugiyama is entirely misleading. The Yoshida testimony (which was reported in the early 1990s by almost all the Japanese mainstream media, not just Asahi Shimbun) has been known to be unreliable for more than a decade. And it has had no significant influence on the ‘comfort women’ debate in recent years. More importantly, it is far from the only evidence. The evidence that women were recruited against their will comes from a mass of testimonies from survivors and other eyewitnesses as well as evidence given to war crimes trials and court cases, alongside other historical material.
Australian survivor Jan Ruff-O’Herne, who was marched out of an internment camp and into a military brothel at gunpoint during the war, has never received an apology. Nor have many others forcibly recruited in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
It is time for Japan’s friends and allies, particularly those like Australia who plan to cooperate with Japan in protecting human rights around the region, to ask the hard questions. Will Prime Minister Abe and his cabinet repeat the words of the Kono Declaration loud and clear? Or will they admit that they have abandoned the declaration? They cannot have it both ways. Sugiyama insisted to the CEDAW committee that the Japanese government is not ‘denying history’. Now we need an answer to the follow-up question: which history are they not denying?
Professor Tessa Morris-Suzuki is an ARC Laureate Fellow based at the School of Culture, History and Language, at the College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University.
Abe and his ilk can prevaricate all they want but they cannot hide the truth about the horrible and unconscionable war crimes against women in China, Korea and Western women in ww2.
This is a report from China’s State Archives Administration, quote:
“China’s State Archives Administration (SAA) has released a series of videos documenting the experiences of sex slaves at the hands of the Japanese military over 70 years ago.
The eight-part collection was uploaded to the administration’s website over several days starting on Aug. 15, the anniversary of Japan’s surrender in 1945.
Japan made an incursion into northeastern China in September 1931 and launched a full-scale invasion on July 7, 1937. About 35 million Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed or injured in the war that followed.
In addition, an estimated 200,000 women were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops. These victims were known as “comfort women.”
Only a handful remain alive, and few have ever publicly talked about having been enslaved. Thousands took their secret to the grave without receiving an apology or compensation from Japan.
“These horrific, institutionalized acts of violence committed by Japanese invaders, rarely seen in the history of human civilization, constitute state crimes and a gross violation of the human rights of the victimized women,” the SAA said on its website.
“They are some of the most painful chapters in the annals of history.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s statement on Aug. 14 to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II made no direct reference to the sex slaves.” Unquote.
More here:
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-09/06/content_21793469.htm
It is a paradox that Australia would want to be an ally of Japan. Is Australia suffering from selective-amnesia? Does democracy over-ride all other evil considerations?
The ‘Comfort Women’ war crime and the Unit 713 experiments of contagious diseases on humans by Japanese bio-warfare scientists, were not only blatant violations of human rights but Japan also violated the Geneva Conventions, and the Rule of Law in Nanjing, where Japanese troops looted, raped and killed over 350,000 civilians.
Prof Kazuhiko Togo, the Director of the Institute of World Affairs and Professor of international politics at Kyoto Sangyo University and the former Japanese Ambassador to the Netherlands, nailed it when he wrote here:
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/01/03/whats-behind-abes-new-position-on-comfort-women/
“It is more difficult to understand why the South Korean government consented to the (28 December 2015) agreement. The agreement does not include an acknowledgement by Japan of its criminal and legal responsibility, which had previously been a prerequisite for the South Korean civic movement.”
The blame should be squarely on Abe’s and the nationalists’ shoulders in Japan for first, vehemently denying such an egregious ‘Comfort Women’ incident ever happened and then taking 70 years to come to an agreement with South Korea but not with China, an agreement which may not be even worth the paper it is written on.
According to George Santayana, the Spanish philosopher: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
The fact that one of Abe’s lieutenants made these statements disavowing the involvement of the Japanese military in the recruitment, etc of the Comfort Women is troubling indeed. Did this man ‘not get the message’ from the December agreement with S Korea? Or did he voice Abe’s real feelings about all of this? Ie, that the December agreement was only done out of expediency rather than as a reflection of a genuine change of heart and a ‘sincere apology’ on Abe’s part?
This most recent episode only further underscores what I have noted before: Abe needs to make genuine, heartfelt acts of contrition with these Comfort Women. He should meet with and apologize to them personally. He should offer to build a memorial in their honor. He and President Park should orgainze and attend memorial services which commemorate those Comfort Women whom have died.
Also, he should, at the very least, publicly refute the statements made by this man to the UN.
Another contributor to EAF suggested that the Emperor make a visit to S Korea in order to apologize to the Comfort Women. I woukd endorse this.
Reconciliation requires more than words of apology. It requires DEEDS which demonstrate genuine contrition and remorse for one’s past deeds. The fact that this has gone on for 70+ years now only underscores how essential it is for Abe to do these kinds of things. He has an opportunity to ‘finally resolve’ this issue. Will he show the courage to do so?
The writer of this article and two commentators above misunderstand the issue.
Japan has never denied that lower ranked soldiers coerced a small number of Dutch women in Indonesia and Filipino women in the Philippines. Since those acts were against the Japanese military rules, the soldiers were court martialed and some executed. Japan has apologized and compensated, and the governments of the Netherlands and the Philippines accepted Japan’s apology and reconciled with Japan. The Dutch woman Jan Ruff-O’Herne (now a naturalized Australian citizen) and a couple of Filipino women are the only ones still claiming for more apologies.
http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.jp/
Foreign Ministry official Sugiyama’s statement only refers to Korean comfort women.
The primary sources such as Korean newspaper articles from 1930’s
http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.jp/2014/10/korean-newspaper-articles-from-1930s.html
and a diary written by a former Korean comfort station worker
http://book.daum.net/detail/book.do?bookid=KOR9788994228761
clearly show that Korean women were not coerced by the Japanese military. I don’t exonerate the Japanese military because its invasion into China and Southeast Asia did create the demand for comfort women. But the Korean narrative “The Japanese military showed up at the doors and abducted young Korean women” just didn’t happen. The Korean businessmen (comfort station owners) capitalized on the demand, recruited Korean women, operated comfort stations and made lots of money.
In the Kono Statement and in the recent agreement between South Korea and Japan, Japan never admitted that the Japanese military coerced Korean women. What Japan admitted was ‘involvement’ such as conducting sexually transmitted disease checkups & providing transportation so that Korean comfort station owners & comfort women could move safely. Involvement & coersion are to different things. That’s why the Japanese government specifically used the word ‘involvement’ in the agreement and Kono statement.
Therefore the title of this article ‘The ever-shifting sands of Japanese apologies’ is inaccurate, and the statement by Sugiyama is not misleading at all if you really understand this issue.
The writer of this article, Tessa Morris-Suzuki, was witnessed at a recent Wednesday protest in front of Japanese Embassy in Seoul. In other words, she is an activist in favor of South Korea and is not in a position to write an objective article.
Dear Mr. Kim,
Thank you for your comments, but please allow me to correct some inaccuracies:
1. You write, “in the Kono Statement and in the recent agreement between South Korea and Japan, Japan never admitted that the Japanese military coerced Korean women. What Japan admitted was ‘involvement’ such as conducting sexually transmitted disease checkups & providing transportation so that Korean comfort station owners & comfort women could move safely.” This is incorrect. As I quote in my article, the Kono Statement specifically acknowledged that the Japanese military at times took direct part in recruiting women against their will “through coaxing, coercion etc.”. For confirmation please see the text of the statement on the website of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
2. It is incorrect to say that “Japan has never denied that lower ranked soldiers coerced a small number of Dutch women in Indonesia and Filipino women in the Philippines”. This has been denied by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, specifically referring to the Semarang case in which Ms. Ruff-O’Herne was taken by the military (see Suga’s press conference of 5 September 2014). The Japanese soldiers responsible for these actions were not punished by the Japanese military (though some were later punished by allied war crimes tribunals). Though the Semarang “comfort station” was closed after some months, forced recruitment of Dutch women continued thereafter (see the 1994 Poelgeest report commissioned by the second chamber of the Dutch parliament).
3. It is not correct to say that Jan Ruff-O’Herne and “a couple of Philippino women” are the only non-Koreans seeking apologies. A considerable number of former “comfort women” in countries including China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and East Timor are still calling for apologies.
4. The documents that you cite do not “clearly show that Korean women were not coerced by the Japanese military”. They show a fact that is not in dispute: that some women were recruited by civilian brokers (who included both Koreans and Japanese) and that the authorities occasionally published recruitment advertisements, probably aimed at the brokers rather than women themselves.
5. Yes, I was in Seoul last week and participated in the Wednesday “comfort women” demonstration, as I have sometimes participated in demonstrations on other human rights issues in Australia and elsewhere. I did so because my independent research has led me to the conclusion that the protestors have good reason to express their concerns in public. The participation is a result of the research, not the other way round.
2. I checked Suga’s press conference of 5 September 2014, and he didn’t deny the Semarang case. If you feel he did, please point out where he did so. I can read Japanese.
4. You haven’t provided any primary sources that indicate otherwise. The only sources you rely on are testimonies by Korean women that have changed drastically.
http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.jp/2014/10/the-comfort-women-by-chunghee-sarah-soh.html
In the early 1990’s they used to testify that they were either sold by their families to settle family debts or deceived by Korean comfort station owners’ agents. Then Chong Dae Hyup and other groups put them on generous payroll, and they completely changed their testimonies.
If you argue that Korean women were coerced by the Japanese military, provide primary sources that are objective.
By the way I interviewed dozens of Koreans who were born and raised in the Korean Peninsula in the 1920’s and 1930’s including my grandparents about comfort women. What they witnessed was Korean fathers selling their daughters and Korean comfort station owners’ agents deceiving Korean women. They never witnessed Japanese military coercing any Korean women. And what they witnessed coincides with the primary sources I provided such as the Korean newspaper reports from 1930’s and a diary written by a Korean comfort station worker.
Many of the Korean comfort women’s fathers had debts and sold their daughters. The comfort station owners paid off their debts in advance, and depending on the amount of the debt, the woman’s contract length was determined. Korean women were not allowed to leave until their debts were paid off. Any coercion, violence or confinement was exercised by the Korean owners. So if one wants to use the term “sex slaves” to describe former Korean comfort women, they were the sex slaves of Korean comfort station owners. They were not the sex slaves of the Japanese military.
I also met a Korean man who was a comfort station owner. He made a fortune by enslaving Korean women during the war, and after the war he and others blamed the Japanese in order to cover up their crimes.
For the information of any readers interested in the Suga press conference, 5 September 2014: a video-recording of the conference is available on the website of the Prime Minister of Japan and his Cabinet
http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/tyoukanpress/201409/5_p.html
Please refer particularly to the section starting approximately 19 mins into the interview.
It is Mr Kim who misunderstands the tragic and inhuman episode of the ‘Comfort Women’ and the Japanese Government and military’s involvement as “They are some of the most painful chapters in the annals of (human) history.”
“China’s State Archives Administration (SAA) has released a series of videos documenting the experiences of sex slaves at the hands of the Japanese military over 70 years ago.”
To imply there is no truth in these video documentaries shows bias. The burden of proof is on Mr Kim to show otherwise.
Another source shows that “This military Sex Slaves is definitely the worst and only known war crime case of systematic mass violation of women rights against Humanity committed by a country in our modern History. Assuming 5 years of program, then there were at least 125 Million Rapes arranged by the Japanese Government.
http://www2.smc.edu/voices/forerunner/Spring03/philosophy/Comfortper cent20Women.htm
“Conclusive evidence had confirmed that Japan and military authorities at the highest levels were extensively involved in the Sex Slavery policy making, establishment, and maintenance of the system, and in recruiting and transporting women across international borders.”
“Japanese historians, using the diaries and testimony of military officials as well as official documents from the US and other countries, have been able to show that the military was directly or indirectly involved in coercing, deceiving, luring and kidnapping young women throughout Japan’s Asian colonies and occupied territories.”
“The establishment of Sex Slaves involved NOT only every section of the Japanese military, but also the Government of Japan at every level, even the private Japanese companies were accomplices in the running of the Sex Stations.”
In 2007 “nationalist Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied that the Japanese Imperialist Army ever owned and operated military brothels, or “comfort stations,” during World War II and questioned the nation’s public apology made 14 years ago for its involvement in sex slavery.”
But Grant Goodman, a retired Kansas University history professor, who uncovered documentation that proved the brothels indeed existed, was shocked.
Prof Goodman discovered the documents when he was serving as a second lieutenant for the US Army’s Military Intelligence Service during World War II.
Goodman said it’s going to be an unpleasant issue among Japan, Korea and China because so many Koreans and Chinese were enslaved.
“According to editors of the book “Legacies of the Comfort Women of World War II,” to which Goodman contributed a chapter, 200,000 Asian women were enslaved during the war.
Goodman said he has documentary films of Korean women who were sex slaves.”
“I break up every time I see it,” he said. “It’s terrible how they were treated.”
KTTAN, how did you come up with “there were at least 125 Million Rapes arranged by the Japanese Government?”
The Japanese soldiers would have had no energy left to fight if they had that much sex.
I think you’ve been watching too many propaganda films.
Hyung-Sung Kim, I did not come up with the 125 million rapes figure. It was an estimate made by a UN Special Rapporteur, Karen Parker, who disclosed the figure in 1996 at the UN. More here:
“U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Karen Parker, confirmed victims’ testimonies, and added her findings during the fifty-first session of the United Nations Commission of Human Rights (1996). Parker states, “Our research shows that more than ½ of the girls and women died as a direct result of the treatment they received. Many survivors were detained in the program for 3 to 5 years… Taking the lowest figure, at any given time, there were about 20,000 jugun ianfu. Each of them was raped at least 5 times per day. That means that there was at least 100,000 rapes per day arranged by the Japanese authorities and carried out by its soldiers – 100,000 rapists per day… Even assuming only 5 years of program, there were at least 125 million rapes – 125 million rapes against the women of Korea, Philippines, Burma, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Netherlands.”
Do the maths. 125 million rapes divided by 1825 days (5 years)= 68,493 rapes a day.
Divide 68,483 by 8 countries = 8562 rapes a day by Japanese troops in the 8 countries.
Since there were millions of Japanese troops in these 8 occupied nations and colonies, I would venture to guess that a total of 125 million rapes in 5 years, across 8 countries and colonies is on the very low side.
United Nations Human Rights Commission is notorious for inaccuracy in its findings because it doesn’t hear from both sides. None of its findings are based on primary sources, instead they are based on whatever NGO’s claim.
You have yet to provide any primary sources to back up any of your claims. Look in the dictionary to find out the definition of ‘primary source.’
By the way, you are sidetracking from what this article is about.
Tessa Morris-Suzuki argued in this article that Sugiyama’s statement shifted Japan’s position from the recent agreement between South Korea and Japan.
I argued it didn’t.
For some reason you refer to the Japanese evils in 8 countries. Read the article carefully. This is a Japan-Korea issue.
Arthur Schopenhauer was right when he said that “All Truth passes thru three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”
“Special Rapporteurs are appointed by and act on behalf of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations. They often conduct fact-finding missions to countries to investigate allegations of human rights violations. They can only visit countries that have agreed to invite them.”
The burden of proof is not only on Mr Kim for the serious allegation that the UN Human Rights Commission is “notorious for inaccuracy in its findings because it doesn’t hear from both sides” but such a serious allegation also contradicts his own request for a primary source, when he has not cited any here himself.
The Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yohei Kono’s statement of 4 August 1993 clearly stated that “Undeniably, this was an act, with the involvement of the military authorities of the day, that severely injured the honor and dignity of many women.”
In 2007 “nationalist Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied that the Japanese Imperialist Army ever owned and operated military brothels, or “comfort stations,” during World War II and questioned the nation’s public apology made 14 years ago for its involvement in sex slavery.”
On 16 Feb 2016, Japanese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Shinsuke Sugiyama, “was in Geneva addressing a meeting of the UN committee which oversees the implementation of one of the world’s key human rights accords (CEDAW).
Sugiyama said “in the documents discovered by the Japanese government, none confirmed the forcible taking away of comfort women”.
“He added that the notion that comfort women had been forcibly recruited was a misconception based on fabricated testimony by a former Japanese labour recruiter named Yoshida Seiji,”
Mr Kim’s claim that I “have yet to provide any primary sources to back up any of ” my claims, conveniently ignored the primary source I cited that “Grant Goodman, a retired Kansas University history professor, who uncovered documentation that proved the brothels indeed existed, was shocked” at Abe’s denials in 2007.
If Mr Kim still has any doubt, “Prof Goodman discovered the documents when he was serving as a second lieutenant for the US Army’s Military Intelligence Service during World War II” and “he (still) has documentary films of Korean women who were sex slaves.”
Also China’s State Archives Administration has released a 8-part series of videos documenting the experiences of sex slaves at the hands of the Japanese military over 70 years ago.
If Mr Kim implies there is no truth in these video documentaries, then again the burden of proof is on him to show otherwise.
If Mr Kim needs more primary sources they are archived here:
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/special/chinesearchives/index.htm
Lastly, this is not allegedly, about a “Japan-Korea issue”.
In case the nuance escapes Mr Kim, it is about “some of the most painful chapters in the annals of (human) history.”
KTTAN,
You apparently haven’t read the documents discovered by Grant Goodman. It revealed that the brothels indeed existed and the brothels where Korean comfort women worked were owned by Korean operators, not by the Japanese military. Therefore, Korean women were the sex slaves of Korean comfort station owners. Here is the excerpt from the US Miltary Report.
http://www.fastpic.jp/images.php?file=7665011466.jpg
PM Abe has never denied that the brothels existed and he has never denied the Japanese military’s involvement such as conducting sexually transmitted disease checkups & providing transportation so that Korean comfort station owners & comfort women could move safely. I have researched this issue for over 20 years and have gone through every primary source in English, Korean and Japanese. The reason why your knowledge on this issue is so shallow is because it is based on a quick google search. First read all primary sources in three languages, and then get back to me. The most credible primary source is a diary written by a Korean comfort station worker. It detail how Korean owners beat and sometimes raped Korean women when they didn’t obey the orders. What source is better than the man who witnessed the whole operation, right?
http://book.daum.net/detail/book.do?bookid=KOR9788994228761
As I stated before, any information provided by Chinese Communist Party is a false propaganda, thus not a credible source.
Yes, this article is about Japan-Korea. Read the article again.
Hyung-Sung Kim should, by now, know the ancient saying that “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”
1 Kim’s claim that “in the Kono Statement and in the recent agreement between South Korea and Japan, Japan never admitted that the Japanese military coerced Korean women” is seriously flawed.
The 4 August 1993 Kono Statement categorically said “The Government study has revealed that in many cases they were recruited against their own will, through coaxing, coercion, etc., and that, at times, administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitments. They lived in misery at comfort stations under a coercive atmosphere.”
http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/women/fund/state9308.html
2 Kim’s claim that “the Korean narrative “The Japanese military showed up at the doors and abducted young Korean women” just didn’t happen.” contradicts the 2007 testimony of Madam Lee Yong-soo, when she was 78 and a South Korean, who was interviewed during a trip to Tokyo. She said that “she was 14 when Japanese soldiers took her from her home in 1944 to work as a sex slave in Taiwan.”
She said “The Japanese government must not run from its responsibilities, I want them to apologize. To admit that they took me away, when I was a little girl, to be a sex slave. To admit that history.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/01/AR2007030100578_2.html
3 Kim’s claim that “PM Abe has never denied that the brothels existed “ contradicts Hiroko Tabuchi, an Associated Press reporter, who wrote on 1 March 2007 that “Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday denied women were forced into military brothels across Asia, boosting renewed efforts by right-wing politicians to push for an official revision of the apology.” (See the same Washington Post report above)
4 Abe’s claim that “The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion,” also contradicted the Kono Statement.
Prof Goodman, who uncovered documentation when he was serving as a second lieutenant for the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Service during World War II that proved the brothels indeed existed, was shocked at Abe’s denials.
He “shared an account of a visit in August of 1993 with a former Japanese consul general in Kansas City, Mo. He told me thanks to my documents, the Japanese government had been forced to admit that they were responsible for the comfort women”.
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/mar/05/japanese_denial_wwii_military_brothels_shocks_form/
5 Kim prides himself for researching on the topic for 20 years and have gone through every primary source in English, Korean and Japanese but how was the latter research in Japanese possible, when in a speech in 2003 at the Women’s College in Santa Monica, Huun Jin Kim said that “This historical distortion that the Japanese government exhibited was largely due to the lack of primary documents referring to the incident, most of which were systematically destroyed along with other sensitive documents during the finals days of the Pacific War.”
6 Kim’s persistent denial of Japan’s Comfort Women crime against humanity is also flawed because Huun Jin Kim added “However, on 16 January 1992, just before Japan’s former Prime Minister Miyazawa visited South Korea, Yoshimi Yoshiaki, a professor of Japanese history at Chuo University, discovered six historical documents proving the Japanese military’s involvement with comfort women, in the Self Defense Force Library in Tokyo. The emergence of forgotten documents forced the Prime Minister to make a public apology to Koreans during his state visit to South Korea”.
7 If Kim indeed “have gone through EVERY primary source in English, Korean and Japanese” how could he have possibly missed the “six historical (smoking gun) documents proving the Japanese military’s involvement with comfort women” which were discovered by Prof Yoshiaki? (emphasis and brackets mine).
8 Kim’s dismissal of evidence from China as propaganda is also flawed because “A total of 89 wartime documents made public on Friday show details of atrocities Japanese troops committed in China during World War Two (WWII). The documents represent only a small portion of the nearly 100,000 wartime Japanese files retrieved underground during construction work in the early 1950s, said Yin Huai, president of the Jilin Provincial Archives in Changchun, capital of Jilin Province. Ninety percent of the files are in Japanese.”
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/photo/2014-04/26/c_133291144.htm
9 Kim’s claim that “Korean women were the sex slaves of Korean comfort station owners” ignored the fact that “officially annexed in the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, Japan brought to a close the Joseon period and Korea officially became an integral part of Imperial Japan” until US atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
10 No, this article is not only about the Japan-Korea Comfort Women’s crime against humanity, otherwise the author would not have mentioned that “Australian survivor Jan Ruff-O’Herne, who was marched out of an internment camp and into a military brothel at gunpoint during the war, has never received an apology. Nor have many others forcibly recruited in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.”
KTTAN,
>1. “At times, administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitments” in Kono Statement applies to a small number of Dutch women, etc. and Korean women were “recruited against their own will, through coaxing, coercion, etc.” by the Korean comfort station owners. I’ve spoken to both South Korean and Japanese officials, and they confirmed this fact. Please note that Kono Statement does not say, “military personnel directly took part in the recruitments of Korean women.”
>2. In an interview with Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University in the early 1990’s, Lee Yong-soo said that she and her friend Kim Pun-sun were recruited by a Korean comfort station owner’s agent.
Source: http://book.daum.net/detail/book.do?bookid=BOK00018469480BA
In an interview with Professor Chunghee Sarah Soh of San Francisco State University, Lee Yong-soo said, “At the time I was shabbily dressed and wretched. On the day I left home with my friend Pun-sun without telling my mother, I was wearing a black skirt, a cotton shirt and wooden clogs on my feet. You don’t know how pleased I was when I received a red dress and a pair of leather shoes from a Korean recruiter.”
Source: http://www.amazon.com/The-Comfort-Women-Postcolonial-Sexuality/dp/0226767779
http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.jp/2014/10/the-comfort-women-by-chunghee-sarah-soh.html
Since then she has changed her testimony. Therefore, she is not a reliable source to prove that the Japanese military coerced Korean women.
>3. “PM Abe has never denied that the brothels existed” doesn’t contradict “PM Abe denied Korean women were forced into military brothels.” No one has denied the existence of brothels. Whether Korean women were coerced by the Japanese military is what is under debate.
>4. I have explained this in my comment above.
>5. Not based on facts.
>6. 7. In January, 1992 Yoshiaki Yoshimi announced that he discovered documents proving Japanese military coerced Korean women. Several years later other scholars checked the documents and realized Yoshimi misinterpreted them. The following is one of the documents. It says, “An order to police in Korea: Crack down on Korean agents who engage in illegal recruiting.” Confronted by other scholars, Yoshimi admitted that the documents did not say the Japanese military coerced Korean women.
http://www.fastpic.jp/images.php?file=8155355946.jpg
>8. I have explained this in my comment above.
>9. This is true. http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.jp/2014/10/i-am-91-years-old-and-i-want-to-tell.html
>10. Please read the article again.
There are many South Korean scholars who confirm that Korean women were not coerced by the Japanese military. Let me mention some of them.
Professor Ahn Byong-jik of Seoul National University
http://archive.is/1jcC4
Professor Chunghee Sarah Soh of San Francisco State University
http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.jp/2014/10/the-comfort-women-by-chunghee-sarah-soh.html
Professor Park Yuha of Sejong University
http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.jp/2014/10/summary-of-professor-park-yuhas-book.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/world/asia/south-korea-comfort-women-park-yu-ha.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=1
Professor Jun Bong-gwan of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.jp/2014/10/comfort-women-of-empire-reviewed-by.html
Professor Lee Yong-hoon of Seoul National University
http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.jp/2014/10/blog-post_8.html
Professor Choi Ki-ho of Kaya University
http://yeoksa.blog.fc2.com/
What is common among these scholars is that they all checked primary sources in Korean such as the Korean newspaper reports from 1930’s and a diary written by a Korean comfort station worker. Most of the primary sources concerning Korean comfort women were written in Korean, thus scholars who can’t read Korean shouldn’t be regarded as experts on this issue.
Another informative source is a memoir written by a former Korean comfort woman, Mun Ok-chu.
http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.jp/2014/10/former-korean-comfort-woman-mun-oku.html
Koreans for over a millennium have had the tradition of enslaving women for sex. Even today, they are doing this worldwide.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2005/07/03/2005070361020.html
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/online-site-where-men-rated-prostitutes-is-shut-down-charges-to-be-filed/
http://www.macaunews.com.mo/content/view/3342/3/lang,english/
I quote from the Seattle Times: “prostituted women from South Korea were forced to work often for 12 hours a day, seven days a week, to pay off debts, according to Bellevue Police Chief Steve Mylett.”
This is exactly the same business model Koreans employed in the 1930’s& 1940’s.
They did the same in Vietnam in the 1960’s
http://www.examiner.com/article/why-has-south-korea-still-not-apologized-to-the-vietnam-comfort-women-2
and in South Korea in the 1970’s.
http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2014/07/15/claims-south-korea-provided-sex-slaves-for-u-s-troops-go-to-court/
Koreans have sent sex slaves to China for hundreds of years before WW2. But for some reason in the 1930’s and 1940’s, you claim they didn’t do this and it was all Japan’s fault.
The “summaries” of the works posted in the links given above are massive distortions of the works supposedly “summarised”. Anyone with a serious interest in this debate should refer to the original texts, not to these purported “summaries”.
Professor Morris-Suzuki,
In the links in my comment above, the only one summarized is:
http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.jp/2014/10/summary-of-professor-park-yuhas-book.html
I also linked the New York Times article to describe Professor Park Yuha. So perhaps the readers can refer to that instead if they doubt the summary of Professor Park’s book is distorted. (I read the book, and I don’t think it is distorted though.)
Since you used the plural “summaries” could you point out what other links are the summaries of the works?
Readers interested in the document partially cited in the above post (at http://www.fastpic.jp/images.php?file=7665011466.jpg) can find the full document at http://www.awf.or.jp/pdf/0051_5.pdf (pp. 203-209, please note that on this website the pages have been uploaded in reverse order, starting from the end).
A second document about the same group of 20 Korean women can be found at pp. 151-153 on the same website. The women were held in a brothel in Myitkyna, Burma run by a Japanese couple named Kitamura (pp. 209). Mr. Kitamura stated that he had recruited the women in response to a “suggestion” which “originated from Army headquarters and was passed to a number of similar Japanese ‘business men’ in Korea” (p. 151).
Thank you for linking the entire document, Professor Morris-Suzuki. I was hoping you’d do that because I wanted to add some insight to it.
The following is the list of comfort stations in Burma and Singapore mentioned in a diary written by a Korean comfort station worker.
http://www.fastpic.jp/images.php?file=7809353068.jpg
The following is the English translation of most of it.
http://www.fastpic.jp/images.php?file=8820037763.jpg
Most if not all comfort station owners where Korean women worked were Korean. The only one whose origin is not specified in the English list is Kinoshita, but Kinoshita is a very common Japanese name that Koreans with the last name Park assumed because kanji character of Park consists of Kinoshita. So I’m pretty sure he was Korean. Also I didn’t include Kyoei comfort station and its owner Kimura in the English list because Kimura’s origin is not specified, but it was very typical for Koreans with the last name Kim to assume Kimura. By the way Kyoei is mentioned in the US military report page 152. Kinsui is also on the Korean list, but its owner’s name is unknown.
If you look at the Korean list, there are several comfort stations whose owners’ names are not mentioned.
The diary has a reference that a couple of Korean owners and about 20 Korean women were interrogated by the US military. So I would assume Kitamura was the owner of one of the comfort stations whose owners’ name wasn’t mentioned in the diary.
So although the comfort station owners where Korean women worked had Japanese last names, they were most likely all Koreans. The owners of comfort stations where Japanese women worked were Japanese. Based on my research, the general rule is Korean owners recruited Korean women and Japanese owners recruited Japanese women. This makes perfect sense because most of the Korean women were from farming villages and couldn’t speak Japanese, thus Korean owners had to recruit them. The US interrogator thought Kitamuras were Japanese because their last names were Japanese. (I can’t say it with 100% certainty but if Kitamura was the owner where Korean women worked, then most likely)