Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is courting the conservative vote in July elections.
Some former comfort women got together on March 16 in the Central Government Complex to celebrate the opening of a government-sponsored cyber museum that demonstrates the history of imperial Japan. [NEWSIS]
One issue, recently, again brought historical grievances to the surface ― the so-called “comfort women.” These women from Korea and other neighboring countries were rounded up to provide sex for Japanese imperial troops during the Second World War.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe rekindled the dispute over comfort women when he said on March 1 ― as Korea celebrated the anniversary of its independence movement against Japanese rule ― that there is “no evidence in a strict sense” that the women were coerced to serve in brothels for the Japanese army.
Mr. Abe added fuel to the controversy when on March 5 he said he “will not apologize” even if the United States House of Representatives passes a resolution urging Japan to do so. Mr. Abe’s comments provoked anger across neighboring countries occupied by Japan during the war, particularly the two Koreas, China and the Philippines, where many of the women came from.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry protested in a statement that Mr. Abe’s comments contradicted the 1993 Kono Statement about the comfort women issue. Mr. Abe said that he and his cabinet “basically inherited” the Kono Statement.
What is the Kono Statement?
It is a statement issued on Aug. 4, 1993 by Yohei Kono, then Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, that officially acknowledged and apologized for the involvement of the Japanese military in the comfort women issue.
Mr. Kono, 68, is a seasoned politician who is currently the speaker of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the Japanese parliament.
Mr. Kono is known for taking a different line from Japan’s conservative-wing politicians in his country’s relations with Korea and China.
Mr. Kono’s 1993 statement came at the conclusion of a Japanese government study on comfort women, begun in December 1991. The term comfort women came from “comfort stations,” the name the Japanese euphemistically used for the brothels operated for its soldiers in the different countries it occupied during the war.
Survivors who finally spoke out about their wartime experience say they were forced to be sexual slaves by the Japanese army. Last January, two survivors from Korea and one from the Netherlands testified at a committee hearing at the U.S. House of Representatives that they were coerced to serve as comfort women.
Mr. Kono’s statement acknowledged that the women were “in many cases recruited against their own will, through coaxing, coercion, etc...,” according to an English translation of the statement offered by the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Web site.
The statement continues to note that “at times, administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitment.” The statement clearly said that the Japanese military was “directly or indirectly involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations” and the transfer of the comfort women to the war areas.
Mr. Kono also noted that women from the Korean Peninsula “accounted for a large number” of the comfort women, since Korea was at the time a colony of Japan. The statement said further: “Undeniably, this was an act, with the involvement of the military authorities of the day, that severely injured the honor and dignity of many women.
The Government of Japan would like to take this opportunity once again to extend its sincere apologies and remorse.” The comfort women, the statement continued, suffered “immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds.” Mr. Kono then declared that Japan would “face squarely the historical facts” and the Japanese government would “continue to pay full attention to this matter.”
The Korean government and the few former comfort women still alive (and waging an international campaign for acknowledgement of Japanese responsibility and compensation) would love to hear the Kono Statement reaffirmed. However, on March, 16, the Japanese cabinet council sent a written response to an opposition legislator’s question asking for the government’s official stance on the Kono Statement.
The response said, “We could not find a description that showed coerced transfer by the military or government authorities in the data examined by the government.” It was endorsing, in effect, Prime Minister Abe’s recent comments that ignited the current controversy.
The written response also noted that the Kono Statement was not officially endorsed by the cabinet, but that it had been “inherited.” The cabinet clearly stated in the written response that it had “no immediate plans to endorse the contents [of the Kono Statement].”
This written response from the cabinet council represents the official stance of the Japanese government.
Yohei Kono
Cho Jin-goo, who teaches political science at Korea University, argued that Prime Minister Abe’s cabinet is contradicting itself in its recent moves regarding the Kono Statement. Mr. Cho, who is well versed on the issue, told the JoongAng Daily that Mr. Kono was neither the first nor the last leading Japanese politician who has acknowledged Japanese military involvement in the comfort women system and issued apologies. The Kono Statement led to the establishment of the Asian Women’s Fund, as a “project to learn from history.” “Considering the statement,” Mr. Cho said, “The Japanese cabinet now is negating the very results of [past] Japanese government studies.”
Mr. Cho continued to note that even before the Kono Statement in 1993, there was another statement made by then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato Koichi on Jan. 13, 1992, which also acknowledged and apologized for the Japanese military role in the use of comfort women.
The same year, in July, the Japanese government officially acknowledged the involvement of the Japanese military authorities in the comfort women operation, Mr. Cho added. Shortly before Mr. Kono’s statement, Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa apologized and expressed remorse for the war. Still, Mr. Cho noted, there continued to be a group of Japanese politicians who opposed these statements and denied Japan’s war atrocities.
“The Japanese [government] came to think that it has made enough expressions of apology and remorse after those statements, but the Koreans are still not convinced, as they keep hearing the Japanese radical conservatives’ remarks,” Mr. Cho noted.
In 1995, the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama issued a statement apologizing for Japan’s military actions in the war. Months before that, the House of Representatives, Japan’s lower house, passed a resolution that “expressed deep remorse” for the country’s past colonial rule and invasions. Mr. Cho in particular noted a part of Mr. Murayama’s 1995 statement: “To make no more errors in the future, I humbly accept the historical facts that cannot be denied and express my feelings of heartfelt remorse.”
Still, the Murayama Statement reflected only one of two lines of political sentiment in Japan at the time of the 50th anniversary of World War II.
“There were two currents of the times back then,” Mr. Cho explained, “One was [represented by] the Kono and Murayama Statements, and the other was a movement of right-wing politicians that was against the two statements.”
Mr. Cho noted that Mr. Abe then was one of the key figures in the conservative group.
When Mr. Abe took the premiership last October, he said he would inherit the Murayama and Kono statements. South Korea and China, which had been put off by Mr. Abe’s predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, welcomed Mr. Abe in this context. However, lately, Mr. Abe has been deviating from such perspective.
By Chun Su jin [sujiney@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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