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Former comfort women Kim Bok-dong (second from the right) and Gil Won-ok (far right) clasp hands with university students after a press conference in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul

As the South Korean and Japanese governments try to push ahead with implementing the Dec. 28 agreement about the comfort women, they are facing increasing resistance from South Korean civic groups who want to stop the agreement and find a just solution to the issue.

On Aug. 31, the Japanese government made a payment of 1 billion yen (US$9.68 million) to the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation, which was established by the South Korean government in accordance with the Dec. 28 agreement.

On the same day, the Justice and Memory Foundation for Resolving the Issue of Sex Slaves for the Japanese Army, which was established by former comfort woman Kim Bok-dong and by advocacy groups like the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (Jeongdaehyeop), held a press conference at which they called for the dissolution of the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation and promised to keep fighting to restore the rights and reputations of the former comfort women and to prevent wartime sexual violence from happening again.

This effectively marks the beginning of the second act in a battle over history that pits the South Korean and Japanese governments, which hope to declare that the comfort women issue has been “finally and irreversibly resolved” by implementing the Dec. 28 agreement, against South Korean civic society, which intends to stop them.

A senior official with South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on the afternoon of Aug. 31 that the Japanese government had remitted 1 billion yen to the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation. The payment came one week after the Japanese cabinet decided on Aug. 24 to make the payment to the foundation.

The Japanese government allocated the money from its emergency fund under the name, “donations to international organizations.” In line items in the Japanese budget, “donation” has different legal connotations than compensation and reparations. The term usually applies to humanitarian projects, including official development aid.

Now that the Japanese government has paid the 1 billion yen, Seoul is planning to have the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation undertake aid projects after determining the needs of the former comfort women.

Seoul and Tokyo have agreed to a cash payment program in which the 46 surviving comfort women will each receive 100 million won and the families of the 199 deceased comfort women will each receive 20 million won.

On the morning of the same day, the Justice and Memory Foundation held a press conference in front of the Japanese Embassy, in the Jongno District of Seoul. During the press conference, the foundation denounced Seoul and Tokyo for pushing ahead with the Dec. 28 agreement and called for a just solution to the comfort women issue. In a statement, the foundation described the Dec. 28 agreement as “a plot to erase history.”

“Until the day when we see a just solution – by which we mean the Japanese government completely fulfilling its legal responsibilities by plainly acknowledging the crimes it committed, offering an official apology, making legal reparations, conducting an investigation, incorporating these facts into its history education, commemorating the departed and punishing the guilty parties – we will continue doing what we have to do,” the foundation said.

“The National Human Rights Commission approved the establishment of the foundation on Aug. 21. Now we can really look after the former comfort women and fight alongside them,” said Ji Eun-hee, chairwoman of the Justice and Memory Foundation.

“Kim Tae-hyeon, the chairman of the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation, is someone who has not once taken an interest in this issue over the past 25 years,” Ji said.

“They could pay 100 billion won, but it still wouldn’t change history. Behind us, we have the Korean public and the next generation. We believe in them, and we’ll never give up the fight,” said Kim Bok-dong, who is 90 years old.

In its statement, the Justice and Memory Foundation called on the South Korean government to immediately repeal the Dec. 28 agreement and dissolve the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation, that the Japanese government acknowledge its legal responsibility and that both governments cease any efforts to tamper with the comfort women statue located in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.

By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter

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