Stiffmuscle@ianhu

■ Hicks, pp.232-235

The North Korean report

On 1 September 1992, North Korea issued a report along lines similar to South Korea's. It clearly attempted, however, to outdo the South Koreans in vehemence. It succeeded, in a style appropriate enough to what is virtually the world's last surviving pure Stalinist state. The report is entitled 'An Indictment: The Japanese Government Must Fully Establish the Truth on the "Military Comfort Women" Question and Sincerely Apologise'. The report was prepared by the Committee for Measures on Compensation to Military Comfort Women and Pacific War Victims and headed by O Mun Hana, vice-chairman of the Committee for International Cultural Relations. It began:

Recently in Japan there have been exposed the atrocious criminal acts whereby, in the past, the Japanese Armed Forces forcibly drafted the women of Asian countries, particularly Korea, as sex slaves for the 'Imperial Forces', so arousing the anger of the people of the world.

The 'military comfort women' problem may be described as involving the most cowardly and immoral crimes, never before occurring the human history or military history. The shame and humiliation suffered by women drafted as 'military comfort women' and violated by the 'Imperial Forces' are a matter of such inhumanity that they cannot be witnessed in idleness by anyone who values humanity and morality. The Japanese government authorities nevertheless have as yet made no attempt to reflect sincerely on the past crimes recklessly perpetuated by the former Japanese Armed Forces.

To refuse to utilize the lessons of history is in fact equivalent to repeating past errors. This committee issues this indictment in the interests of joint action by all the progressive people of the world, international agencies, national governments and social organisations in order to draw attention to the Japanese government's unjust procedures in refusing to aplogise sincerely for the Japanese Froces' past crimes and to ensure that such inhuman evils as the 'military comfort women' problem are not repeated.

(snip)

The North Korean report finally attacked the recent acknowledgements of the Japanese government as 'deceitfulness, a challenge to humanity'. 'From the first round of normalisation talks', the North Koreans had demanded investigation, publication and sincere apologies from the Japanese government, but the latter had denied official involvement until the revelation of January 1992, it claimed. Rational Japanese had recognised their governments' promised investigation as an evasion. Writers in the Asahi newspaper are quoted to the effect that, 'the state and people must accept war responsibility and the case for compensation to gain acceptance in the post Cold War world, so as not to be isolated in the stream of world history'.

It was recalled that on 5 May 1992 at the seventeenth session of the Working Group on Contemporary [Forms of] Slavery under the United Nations Sub-commission on Human Rights, the representative of the International Educational Development Association had pointed out a basis for compensation under the Convention on Forced Labour, which Japan had signed in 1932. Japan had infringed almost all of its provisions, including forced labour by women, and the drafting of minors, students and men over forty-five.

Japan's report of 6 July had further aroused the anger of the people of the world, the report went on. Japan's role as the chief offender was still not clear, since its report claimed to have no evidence of recruitment by coercion. On the grounds of 'techinical difficulty and inequity', it excluded oral testimony such as Yoshida Seiji's. This amounted to an 'anti-international challenge mocking the peoples of the world'. Japanese spokesmen also distorted the facts by describing most comfort women as being of Japanese nationality. This concealed the preponderance of those of Korean origin.

The indictment closes by listing international reactions to the Japanese report. These included statements by the Indonesian government and the Philippine New Progressive Alliance, and media coverage from Nepal, the United States, Italy, Austria and Zäire:

We appeal to the sense of justice and conscience of the world to raise still louder the voices of censure of the Japanese government's insincere attitude in the matter of the military comfort women.

North Korea had become involved in the comfort women issues from the time of Miyazawa's visit to the South in January 1992. Then its Ambassador to International Agencies criticised Japan's bias towards South Korea, emphasising that the comfort women question aloes involved North Korea. It had to be settled for normalisation of relations with Japan. A Japanese official press conference the next day was made the occasion to state that Japan's apology applied to North Korea as well. At the same time the Japanese regretted the disproportionate concentration on this issue by the South Korean press.

The sixth round of normalisation talks with Japan was held in the North Korean Embassy in Peking. The Japanese ambassador formally extended his country's apology to North Korea. The North Korean Embassy representative declared support for South Korea in pursuing compensation, and South Korean journalists were admitted to the embassy for the first time ever. The issue, therefore, appeared to from part of tentative moves towards unification, then being explored. The North Korean position was the normalisation should include recognition of the evil and illegal nature of colonialism and provide for individuals to be compensated by Japan on the same principle as had applied to the atomic bomb victims.

(emphasis added)

George Hicks, "The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War", W. W. Norton & Company, 1995, pp.233-235.