Washington enters 'comfort women'
debate By Eli Clifton
WASHINGTON - Pressure has been growing in
Washington in support of a bipartisan resolution
calling on the government of Japan to acknowledge
its role in forcing some 200,000 so-called
"comfort women" into forced prostitution during
World War II.
In a change from his
previous stance, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe made a public apology on Monday, saying that
he stood by the 1993 statement issued by then
chief cabinet secretary Yohei Kono acknowledging
that "in many cases [the
women] were recruited against
their own will, through coaxing, coercion, etc,
and that, at times, administrative/military
personnel directly took part in the recruitments".
"I am apologizing here and now as the
prime minister, and it is as stated in the Kono
Statement," said Abe when questioned by an
opposition lawmaker.
Earlier this month,
however, Abe had denied there were written records
to confirm the sexual slavery of women during
World War II.
Abe's political career was
largely built on his promises to discover the
whereabouts and seek the return of Japanese
nationals kidnapped by North Korea, more than two
decades ago, to teach Japanese to North Korean
spies. Criticism has been aimed at Abe for his
failure to address Japan's own human-rights
violations while demanding that North Korea
acknowledge its injustices to Japan.
When
asked about inconsistencies in Japan's willingness
to admit its own human-rights failures, Abe told
reporters, "That is a completely different matter.
The issue of the abductees is an ongoing violation
of human rights.
"The 'comfort women'
issue is not ongoing. As for the abductees issue,
the situation is that Japanese people who were
kidnapped by North Korea have not been released,"
he said.
But Chejin Park, director of
constituency services at the Korean-American
Voters Council, said, "Look how many people were
kidnapped [by North Korea] - only 17. But the
Japanese kidnapped 200,000 women and mistreated
them far worse.
"Of course the North
Korean and comfort-women [issues are] related," he
said. "They are both human-rights issues."
Groups calling for an official Japanese
apology for human-rights violations against
comfort women during the war have not been
satisfied by Abe's apologetic statement, made in a
parliamentary subcommittee rather than the full
House of Representatives.
On January 31,
Congressman Michael M Honda, a California
Democrat, introduced legislation before the US
House of Representatives calling on the Japanese
government to apologize unambiguously and
acknowledge the tragedy that more than 200,000
comfort women experienced at the hands of the
Imperial Japanese Army during the occupation of
various Asian countries and Pacific islands.
On Tuesday, more than 100 organizations,
led by Korean-American groups, called on the US
Congress to support Honda's initiative, saying,
"We call upon US citizens and the members of
Congress to support House Resolution 121. The
resolution is a matter of human rights, women's
rights, truth and reconciliation."
Japan
surprised some analysts at six-party talks on
North Korea's nuclear-weapons program when it
refused to discuss any improvements in relations
until information about 17 kidnapped Japanese
citizens is provided.
Abe has used the
demand for the return of abducted Japanese
citizens by North Korea as a rallying cry to prop
up his weakening domestic support. Critics have
called his stance hypocritical given that he has
simultaneously, over the past month, issued
statements pointing to the lack of written
evidence that Japanese engaged in forced
prostitution while demanding the return of
Japanese citizens from North Korea.
The
Honda legislation is attempting to leverage the
close ties between the US and Japan to bring
pressure on the US government to address this
issue.
"The House resolution is
non-binding, but it will have meaning, since the
US is the country most closely aligned to Japan,"
said Park.
Abe is scheduled to visit the
United States next month, but it is highly
unlikely Honda's legislation will come up for vote
before that visit.
Last June, Republican
Congressman Henry Hyde, a World War II veteran,
blocked any plan former Japanese prime minister
Junichiro Koizumi might have had to address a
joint session of the US Congress because of his
visits to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which is
dedicated to the spirits of soldiers and others
who died fighting on behalf of the emperor of
Japan.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
