[Interview] Japan’s leading researcher on comfort women on Dec. 28 settlement: “Tear it up”

Posted on : 2016-01-10 11:33 KST Modified on : 2016-01-10 11:33 KST
Yoshiaki Yoshimi argues the recent agreement between South Korea and Japan is a step back from 1993’s Kono Statement and should be scrapped
Yoshiaki Yoshimi
Yoshiaki Yoshimi

“Our only option with this agreement is to tear it up and start from scratch. When you run into difficulties, you have to go back to the basics.”

Yoshiaki Yoshimi, 69, a history professor at Chuo University who is considered Japan’s leading authority on the issue of the comfort women, said that the Dec. 28 agreement between the governments of South Korea and Japan – in which they announced the “final and irreversible settlement” of the comfort women issue – should be scrapped and that the negotiations should be reset.

“The settlement is something that the former comfort women will never accept,” Yoshimi said to explain why he holds this opinion. “Even if the settlement moves into the implementation phase, they won’t accept it. This means that the issue can’t be resolved through this agreement.”

Yoshimi does not buy Seoul’s argument that the Japanese government has shown improvement in its attitude toward the comfort women issue. “They’re still ambiguous about who is responsible for setting up the comfort women system, and they haven’t promised to do anything about preventing it from happening again the way they did during the Kono Statement in 1993. If anything, their attitude is more backward than before,” he said.

Yoshimi is regarded as a pioneer of research into the comfort women. In Jan. 1992, he became the first to find official Japanese documents – located in the library of Japan’s National Institute for Defense Studies – indicating that the Imperial Japanese Army was deeply involved in creating the comfort women system. His discovery of these documents led Tokyo to issue the Kono Statement, which acknowledged the compulsory nature of the comfort women’s recruitment and the army’s involvement in it.

At the moment, Yoshimi is waiting for a district court to give a verdict (to be announced on Jan. 20) in a defamation lawsuit against Fumiki Sakurauchi, a lawmaker with the Japan Innovation Party in Japan’s House of Representatives. Yoshimi sued Sakurauchi for disparaging Yoshimi’s book in May 2013 as a “fabrication.”

The lawsuit is of considerable interest in Japanese society, since it constitutes a request for the Japanese judiciary to determine the nature of the comfort women system.

Hankyoreh (Hani): To start off, we’d like to hear your assessment of the Dec. 28 settlement.

Yoshimi : Simply put, my view is that this settlement will not resolve the comfort women issue. The settlement appears to be an attempt by Tokyo to corner Seoul into accepting something that will frustrate the desire of the former comfort women to reach a proper resolution on this issue.

While there are several problems [with the settlement], the biggest one, of course, is the question of who was guilty of setting up the comfort women system, which constituted a grave violation of the rights of women. The identity of the guilty party is left ambiguous.

[The announcement about the comfort women made by Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida this past Dec. 28] says that the army was involved in inflicting harm on the reputation and dignity of numerous women. But the subject should clearly be stated as “the army,” instead of talking about the army being “involved.”

Even when brokers were involved, they were clients of the army who played a subordinate role. If the army was responsible, the government has to pay reparations to the comfort women. But Kishida said that the 1 billion yen (US$8.3 million) grant is not reparations.

Some people are glad that the word “moral” was removed from in front of “responsibility” in the phrase “the government keenly feels its responsibility.” But ultimately, these are not reparations, and the government has not acknowledged its legal responsibility.

In the end, you can’t help but wondering what exactly this responsibility is that Japan says it feels so keenly. It boils down to an admission that brokers were committing crimes and an apology for not supervising them properly.

Hani: Seoul claims that this is progress compared with the Kono Statement from 1993.

Yoshimi : In contrast with the Kono Statement, Japan didn’t make any promises about preventing these things from happening again. The Kono Statement included a phrase about “forever engraving such issues in our memories through the study and teaching of history.”

But the implication of this settlement is that paying 1 billion yen excuses Japan from doing anything else. This is a retreat from the Kono Statement. In contrast, the South Korean government is tasked with trying to remove the statue of the young girl [symbolizing the comfort women from in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul], and it also promises not to bring up this issue again in the international community.

Kishida says that Seoul will not add the testimony and records related to the comfort women to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register. Seeing this, I can’t help but feel that Seoul made a diplomatic blunder. This is something that the former comfort women could never agree to.

Hani: Given the research that has been done so far into the comfort women system, it seems obvious that Japan bears legal responsibility. Why is it so hard for Japan to acknowledge this?

Yoshimi : Even though 70 years have passed since the war, Japan is still unable to squarely face its responsibility for its colonial rule or its responsibility for the war. I feel bad for Koreans, but it looks like it’ll take longer to get over this.

Just as the US hasn’t properly apologized for its occupation of the Philippines or for the Vietnam War, this isn’t at all easy for Japan. But I think that if this situation continues, Japan won’t be able to stand tall in East Asia or the international community. Until the Japanese come to terms with this, we’ll have no choice but to keep saying that the comfort women issue has not been resolved.

Hani: Japan’s progressives have been divided several times on the comfort women issue.

Yoshimi : The Asian Women’s Fund ultimately failed because Japan didn’t pay enough attention to the opinions of the former comfort women. They’ve done the same thing again this time. The people who promoted the fund back then strongly felt that they shouldn’t try to do anything more than they thought the Japanese bureaucrats would accept. Until that mindset changes, the problem won’t be resolved.

Hani: Since the settlement was reached, the question of removing the statue of the young girl in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul has come under debate.

Yoshimi :Normally, it would be inconceivable for an aggressor country to ask the country it caused to suffer to take down a memorial. The same applies to the issue of having the comfort women records added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World.

With the Kono Statement, the Japanese government pledged to the international community that it would “forever engrave such issues in our memory.” For this reason, it should work with China and other countries to have the testimony and records of the comfort women designated as a UNESCO documentary heritage. This is particularly the case since most of the actual records related to the comfort women are in Japan.

Hani: Some people are pointing to the practical difficulties on a diplomatic level of immediately reversing a pledge made to another country.

Yoshimi :Suppose that this settlement enters the implementation phase. What are they going to do if the former comfort women refuse to accept it? That would make it impossible to implement the settlement. That’s why I’m saying that this can’t be the final settlement for this issue.

In Japan, they’re already acting as if the issue has been resolved. They think that, once they put 1 billion won in the fund, they can hand over all the work to the South Korean government and be done with the whole thing. They’re saying that everything ends there. They’re saying these really awful things.

Hani: What should the goal of the comfort women movement be in the future?

Yoshimi : What it comes down to is that the South Korean and Japanese governments have conspired to force the comfort women to stop talking about this issue. There are some unbelievable provisions in this agreement, and common sense says we should tear it up and start from scratch. When you run into difficulties, you have to go back to the basics, even if that takes time.

It would be more problematic if the former comfort women were on their own in South Korean society, but based on the mood in South Korea right now, that fortunately doesn’t seem to be the case. This settlement will not lead to a mutually trusting relationship between South Korea and Japan.

By Gil Yun-hyung, Tokyo correspondent

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

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