Japan PM’s comments on ‘comfort women’ raise hackles in U.S.

Posted on : 2007-03-10 14:13 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
U.S. resolution demanding Tokyo’s apology now seen as likely to pass
 named ”Day I Was Abducted”
named ”Day I Was Abducted”

Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s recent denial that the Japanese military forcibly rounded up women into sexual slavery and that there is any need to apologize is having ripple effects. Among other things, a resolution calling for Japan to apologize will pass in the United States House of Representatives is more likely to pass as a result of Abe’s words.

Backlash in the U.S.

The Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun on Friday quoted Eni Faleomavaega, chairman of the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment as saying the resolution bill is likely to pass in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs later this month, and that 36 of 50 committee members support it.

"This is going to continue to be an issue until the Japanese Diet issues an official apology that is signed by a prime minister," Faleomavaega said.

Republican Party member Dana Rohrabacher, the only member of the Foreign Affairs Committee to openly declare he would oppose the resolution, reportedly changed his mind after Abe’s public denial.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported that, as recently as a February 15 committee hearing on the so-called comfort women issue that included testimony from former comfort women, it seemed unlikely that the bill would pass, according to sources in Washington. However, there are signs that criticism of Tokyo’s stance on the matter is spreading, as Abe’s comments were reported in the New York Times and the Washington Post.

The paper reported that after Abe said there is "no evidence of coercion in the narrow sense" on March 2, the Japanese embassy in Washington was flooded with calls from members of Congress asking for confirmation of what was said.

‘Reinvestigation’ of the comfort women issue

A group of right-wing members of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have formally called on Abe to order a government reinvestigation into the comfort women issue. In response, Abe has rejected a government inquiry but pledged government cooperation if the LDP goes ahead with an investigation of its own. On the one hand, he says he "basically accepts the Kono Statement," which was the first formal Japanese acknowledgement of coercion in the recruitment of comfort women by a member of Japanese parliament, but at the same time he is saying he will help an inquiry whose goal is to deny the claims of the same statement.

The ultra-right Sankei Shimbun reported that athough Abe continues to want to "revise the Kono Statement," since "at the moment" there is a "move in Korea, the United States, and China to surround Japan," it "appears Abe has decided that it would not be good timing to hold the government reinvestigation."

Back to the Kono Statement

The Kono Statement the Japanese right is attempting to render insignificant is itself seen as significant progress in resolving the question of the Japanese military’s role in the comfort women issue. Issued by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono on August 4, 1993, it clearly recognizes that the Japanese military and government forced foreign females into being comfort women. It includes an apology on the part of the Japanese government after admitting 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." The four prime ministers who have served since, from Ryutaro Hashimoto to Junichiro Koizumi, have all sent letters of apology to former comfort women based on the Kono Statement.

The statement was issued by Kono after a relatively detailed 20-month inquiry that began in December 1991 and involved interviews with comfort women and analysis of Japanese government documents. The Action Network on Japanese Military Comfort Women, an organization behind an international petition drive in support of the statement, says it is "the starting point and standard for the Japanese government when it comes to resolving the comfort women issue."

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

Related stories

Most viewed articles