hankyoreh

Japanese prime minister Yoshihiko Noda made another statement that raises serious questions about his historical views. While attending a meeting of the House of Councilors budget committee on March 26, he remarked on the use of the term “sexual slaves to the Japanese military” on the peace monument in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul by saying, “If the question is whether it’s an accurate description, there is a large gap.” His remarks indicated that Japan refuses to acknowledge the widely held view that Japanese military comfort women were sexual slaves. This is truly dismaying and outrageous.
Ever since the 1996 report Radhika Kumaraswami, UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, the description of comfort women as sexual slaves has been universally accepted, not just in South Korea but also internationally. A US House of Representatives resolution on the issue in 2008, which the Japanese government worked strenuously to block, unambiguously used the term “sex slaves” not once but twice. This reflects an understanding that sexual abuse of women during wartime is a matter that requires rigorous controls. Noda’s recent statement can only be described as a deliberate rejection of this consensus.
On Sept. 15 of last year, the South Korean government requested the reopening of discussions with Tokyo on Article 3 of the Treaty on Basic Relations between South Korea and Japan in 1965 (on conflict resolution procedures) after the Constitutional Court ruled earlier in the year that it was unconstitutional due to the lack of government resolution efforts on the comfort women issue. Japan has refused to agree to the request, repeatedly arguing that all legal issues were resolved fully with the agreement on claims. A summit meeting in Kyoto last December ended on a chilly note after differences surfaced over this issue, and there have been no signs of things warming since then. Noda did not even have a bilateral meeting with President Lee Myung-bak at the Nuclear Security Summit, despite the pressing situation on the peninsula with North Korea indicating plans for a rocket launch next month.
Responsibility for this lies entirely with the insincere tack taken by Tokyo in the hopes of extracting a “judgment in humanitarian terms.” Noda’s remarks also suggest that no amount of waiting is likely produce any satisfactory wisdom. There are 61 comfort women survivors still alive today, averaging 87 years in age. Fifteen died last year, another two this year.
We cannot afford to wait any longer. Since Japan won’t agree to discussions, we hope they will start now with the next step in the process, a proposal to form an arbitration committee. Even if Japan won’t agree to this, it is the path toward realizing the survivors’ wish for not just a Constitutional Court decision, but a legal apology from Japan. More importantly, we need to alert the world to Japan’s immoral actions and shameless interpretation of history.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]