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A Blue House petition calling for a proposal by National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang for resolving the forced labor issue

A petition posted to the Blue House website calls for National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang to rescind a proposal that seeks to resolve the issue of Koreans conscripted for forced labor during Japan’s colonial occupation. Following repeated opposition from victims who have filed lawsuits over the issue and NGOs that have been working on their own solution, this online petition appears to be part of an intensifying backlash to Moon’s proposal.

The petition, which argues that Moon’s proposal should be scrapped because it ignores the victims of forced labor, was posted to the Blue House website on Nov. 28. As of the afternoon of Dec. 1, the petition had collected more than 10,000 signatures in just four days.

The core of the “Moon proposal” involves paying “compensation” to forced labor conscription survivors out of voluntary contributions by South Korean and Japanese businesses and individuals, as well as the 6 billion won (US$5.07 million) balance of a fund paid by Japan to the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation, which was established according to a 2015 agreement between the two sides’ governments before being ultimately disbanded.

Arguing that the “biggest problem with the Moon proposal is that it lets Japan off the hook as perpetrators,” the petitioners stressed, “The most important thing to the victims is a sincere apology from Japan.”

“To see the Moon proposal, [it is unclear] how it’s different from a victimized country [South Korea] declaring that it is going to put the matter to rest on its own,” the petitioners said, adding that historical issues such as forced labor “will end up repeating themselves forever as long as the perpetrator does not resolve them.”

On Nov. 27, representatives of the groups Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan and Joint Action for Resolution of the Forced Labor Mobilization Issue and Past Issues with Japan paid a protest visit to Moon to demand that he “not insult the victims.” The group MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society issued a statement on Nov. 28 voicing its “opposition to Speaker Moon’s principle-renouncing proposal for resolving the forced labor mobilization issue.”

Moon is going ahead with legislative efforts in spite of the opposition. His office has recently been examining proposals that exclude Japanese military comfort women survivors as recipients of compensation. The proposals also exclude the balance of the 6 billion won Reconciliation and Healing Foundation. While Moon had originally envisioned including the comfort women survivors as beneficiaries of compensation, growing opposition reportedly led him to change tracks and limit the scope to forced labor mobilization survivors for now.

But even with the comfort women issue excluded, the proposal appears unlikely to win support from the survivors without requiring that Japan assume direct responsibility and apologize.

“The Moon proposal is intended to avert what has become a cause of conflict between South Korea and Japan after the provisional attachment issue rose in the trial process,” said a representative of the forced labor mobilization survivors taking part in the lawsuit.

“The victims are unlikely to accept it.”

By Kim So-youn, staff reporter

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