hankyoreh

With the likelihood increasing that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will make a speech before a joint session of Congress during his visit to the US at the end of April, Korean-American organizations are mobilizing a campaign to stop the speech. This would be the first time that a Japanese prime minister has spoken before Congress.

Since the middle of February, Korean American Civic Empowerment (KACE), an organization that advocates the rights of Korean-Americans, has been working with similar groups in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta to collect petitions opposing the idea of Abe speaking before Congress.

The groups are urging Korean-Americans and other US citizens to send a letter to their congressperson urging that Abe should not be allowed to speak to Congress until he promises not to visit the Yasukuni Shrine.

By visiting the petition site (kafus.org) and inputting their name and address, individuals can have a copy of the petition faxed to their congressperson.

“In New York alone, around 800 people have sent the petition to their member of Congress. We are asking members of Congress to communicate the views of their constituency to John Boehner, who as speaker of the House of Representatives has the authority to invite Abe to make a speech before Congress,” said Kim Dong-suk, executive director of KACE.

“We are also considering the option of taking out an advertisement in a congressional trade journal often read by members of congress and their aides,” Kim added.

On Feb. 22, the Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues announced that it had also begun a petition opposing plans for Abe to speak to Congress. The coalition is asking Korean-Americans to send a letter expressing their opposition to Abe’s speech to the office of Ed Royce, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

“Abe denies the war crimes that Japan has committed, and he continues to pay respects at the Yasukuni Shrine, where 14 Class A war criminals are worshipped as gods. This is an insult to the Americans who lost their loved ones during the Second World War, to the comfort women who suffered so much during the war, both the victims of the war and those who survived it, and indeed to Asians in general,” a letter prepared by the coalition says.

For his part, Abe fervently hopes to make a speech before a joint session of Congress this year, which marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the World War II, and he is reportedly completing the final stages of negotiations with Congress about such a speech.

A speech to a joint session of Congress - including the House of Representatives and the Senate - is regarded as the highest honor that Congress can bestow on a foreign leader. But while South Korean presidents have made six such speeches, no Japanese prime minister has ever done so. One reason is that Japan initiated a war of aggression against the US during the Second World War; another is that it has not shown adequate remorse for its past deeds.

“Considering that John Boehner has not shown any interest in the historical issues dividing South Korea and Japan, he might invite Abe to make the speech,” said a diplomatic source in Washington, D.C.

If Japan makes concessions in its negotiations about the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP), which are now in their final stages, there is a greater chance that Abe will receive an invitation.

Nevertheless, there is still strong opposition to Abe’s historical revisionism inside Congress. In 2006, then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi lobbied for an opportunity to address a joint session of Congress. He almost received an invitation to do so, but his plans were thwarted when Henry Hyde, then chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, expressed his opposition to the idea.

At the time, Hyde argued that Koizumi should not be allowed to make such a speech until he promised not to pay his respects at the Yasukuni Shrine.

By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent

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