hankyoreh

Mayor of Osaka

By Jeong Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent and Park Byong-su, staff reporter

The Mayor of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto, whose popularity within Japanese politics is on the rise, made a statement that denies the official position of the Japanese government on comfort women. “There is no evidence that the comfort women were taken by force or coerced by the Japanese military,” the Osaka Mayor said in an August 21 press conference. In the midst of growing antagonism between Korea and Japan over the Dokdo islets, right-wing Japanese politicians like Hashimoto are making provocative remarks on sensitive issues like the comfort women, as if scheming to escalate bilateral tensions.

At the press conference, Mayor Hashimoto replied to a question concerning President Lee Myung-bak’s August 10 visit to Dokdo by saying that a solution can be found only once the other side’s position is clearly known, and suddenly adding the above comment on comfort women. He went on to say, “In retrospect, the comfort women system may have been a system with ethical problems. I am not completely denying the Korean position on this.” Statements like this have become characteristic of Japanese right-wingers trying to undermine the official statement made by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono in August of 1993.

Secretary Kono at the time declared in an official statement that comfort women facilities known as comfort stations “were operated in response to the request of the military authorities” and that “the Japanese military was, directly or indirectly, involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women.” Furthermore, the statement pronounced that comfort women were transferred forcibly - “in many cases they were recruited against their will, through coercion, etc., and that, at times, administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitments. They lived in misery at comfort stations.”

Mayor Hashimoto’s regional party, the Osaka Renewal Party or Osaka Ishin no Kai could receive a large number of seats in the next general election, which is expected to be called soon by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.

In the Japanese Diet, no party is currently able to form a majority, meaning the Osaka Renewal Party could vote to determine the composition of the cabinet and bring its far right mandate to the national level.

In reaction to Hashimoto’s comments, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Cho Tae- young said “Japan has already admitted to the forcibility in an official statement by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono.” The spokesperson added that the Korean government would not express a direct position on remarks made by politicians who are not members of the Japanese cabinet or national government. Cho said, “The Japanese government and people need to be modest and respectful, reflecting on the indescribable pain inflicted on the victims of the comfort women system.”

The Korean government believes that Japan’s continuous effort to refer the Dokdo issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), knowing well that this is not feasible, is part of its intentional “noise marketing.” The intention is to draw attention and project Dokdo as a territorial dispute.

The Foreign Ministry experienced a round of tensions with the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. “Apparently, the Embassy purposely leaked to the media the time a verbal note would be delivered to the Ministry,” it said. For this, the Ministry held up setting an appointment for the Japanese Embassy Counselor for a while.

Meantime, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda opened a cabinet meeting of the pertinent ministers to discuss measures to deal with President Lee’s visit to Dokdo. For one, the cabinet decided to take action to refer the Dokdo issue to the ICJ. In addition, it decided to propose to have the Korea-Japan Treaty readjusted by the two countries. The Japanese government delivered a verbal note to the Korean government with the above contents. Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan, reconfirmed the Korean position before the National Assembly saying that “it is not even worth” reacting to Japan’s ICJ referral movement.

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