H. Res. 121 Q&A Fact Sheet

Q & A on H. RES. 121

1. Who are Comfort Women?

The Government of Japan, during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II, officially commissioned the acquisition of young women for the sole purpose of sexual servitude to its Imperial Armed Forces, who became known to the world as ianfu or “comfort women.”

As many as 200,000 Asian and Western young women were abducted from their homes and forced serve Japanese soldiers. Some as young as 12, but also including mothers who ere forced to separate from their children. However, an exact number is not known because most documents detailing the number of comfort women by the Japanese Government used were destroyed during the Tokyo bombing or by design.

This government-sanctioned program created untold numbers of comfort stations or military brothels throughout Japanese-occupied territories in the Pacific Rim. Stripped of their dignity, robbed of their honor, most of these women were forced to live their lives carrying those horrific experiences with them covered under a veil of shame.

2. Why is it important for Japan now to give an unequivocal apology for one of its greatest, albeit long ago misdeeds?

Japan is a great nation and important ally to the United States. Japan’s reasons for refusing an unequivocal apology to the Comfort Women unfortunately undermine these positions. The explanations have unsettling parallels to the dismissal of the Holocaust, where the victims are recast as aggressors. More troubling, and unlike today’s Germany, most Japanese leaders and especially the current Shinzo Abe government, hold retrogressive and pseudo-notions of Japan’s wartime history.

You will be surprised to learn that over the past few months, Japan’s most respected and widest circulation daily published editorials calling the Comfort Women system a “historical fabrication” and senior advisers to the Prime Minister have publicly expressed a desire to dilute or rescind the Kono Statement, the closest declaration Japan has on record apologizing for the Comfort Women tragedy. And within this past week, prominent members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) decided to initiate Diet efforts to revise the Kono Statement and to send their colleagues to Washington to meet with U.S. congressional leaders on this matter.

3. Why is a war crime committed by the Government of Japan over 60 years ago in Asia relevant to the United States and its leadership in the world?

The United States has an interest in its ally’s political statements, especially those that have the potential to inflame emotions among our important regional allies such as South Korea, Singapore, Australia, The Philippines, and countries of great strategic importance to the United States such as China.

4. What does H. Res. 121 require the Government of Japan do?

H. Res. 121 requires that the Government of Japan—

(1) should formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Force’s coercion of young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as ‘‘comfort women’’, during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II;

(2) should have this official apology given as a public statement presented by the Prime Minister of Japan in his official capacity;

(3) should clearly and publicly refute any claims that the sexual enslavement and trafficking of the ‘‘comfort women’’ for the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces never occurred; and

(4) should educate current and future generations about this horrible crime while following the recommendations of the international community with respect to the ‘‘comfort women’’.

5. However, the Embassy of Japan argues that they already acknowledged the atrocity and officially apologized many times. Didn’t they?

No. The Government of Japan has not extended an official government apology. An apology by a Japanese Prime Minister is an individual’s opinion. For an apology to be official it would have to be a statement by a cabinet minister in a session of the Diet, a line in an official communiqué while on overseas visit, or to be definitive, a statement ratified by the Cabinet. None of these conditions have been met. The few apologies given by prime ministers on this issue can be viewed as the equivalent of the President signing a treaty, but the Senate never ratifying it.

6. Do the letters of apology by Prime Ministers constitute a government apology?

No. The letters of apology to the Comfort Women by Japanese Prime Ministers (Hashimoto, Obuchi, Mori and Koizumi) do not constitute a government apology.

The prime minister is not doing this with the approval of his Cabinet, thus these letters are only his personal views. As Article 65 of the Japanese Constitution reads, “Executive power shall be vested in the Cabinet.”

The Koizumi “apology letter” to the Comfort Women is not unique. His predecessors and he have sent exactly the same letter and none personally address the individual recipient. Most important, the first sentence of the so-called apology letter, which reads “in cooperation with the Government of Japan” skirts responsibility. An official apology should read “on behalf of,” which it clearly does not. Thus, Japanese prime ministers view these letters simply as a burden and an obligation.

The letters also only accompany the disbursement of funds to those women who are willing to accept Japan’s atonement money from the Asia Woman’s Fund. They have also not been included in the “atonement” settlement with the Dutch nor sent to any Indonesian survivors.

Moreover, like all other Japanese war crime apologies, the letters appear insincere. In 1996, then Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto said he would not sign the letters. The public disclosure of his reluctance led many to question the honesty of the process. In the end, he did sign the letters and issued the first for the Fund in August 1996.

7. What is “Kono Statement?”

The “Kono Statement” is not an apology. On August 4, 1993, then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono issued a statement reporting on the results of an investigation of the veracity of the Comfort Women’s claims. He announced that the Comfort Woman system was “Undeniably…an act, with the involvement of the military authorities of the day” and said that the “Government of Japan would like to take this opportunity once again to extend its sincere apologies and remorse to all those, irrespective of place of origin, who suffered immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women.” He, however, ends the statement with a hint that the Government will continue to study the issue (“continue to pay full attention to this matter, including private researched related thereto”).

Most important, a Chief Cabinet Secretary is an approximate equivalent of a White House Press Secretary. An important government apology does not come from a press secretary. In addition, the Kono Statement was offered shortly after the fall of the one prime minister and barely five days before the beginning of another’s government. In a word, Mr. Kono was a lame duck, responsible to no one.

Current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said he would support the Kono Statement, but only under duress. The Prime Minister, under pressure from the Opposition party, said twice in the week before his early October trip to China that his government “respects” the Kono Statement. He, however, added, “in a narrow sense, there are no facts that endorse the existence of such a system of forced labor.” His first expression of “respect” was so reluctantly made, that he was made to repeat it. Shortly after this admission, a senior member of the LDP said, “although the prime minister says he respects the Kono Statement, I don’t think that is what he means.” The Prime Minister is a member of several conservative groups, notwithstanding documentary evidence, that believe the Comfort Women were well-paid prostitutes supervised by independent operators outside military control.

On January 29, 2007, the Tokyo High Court ruled that the government-owned broadcaster, NHK had altered a program on Comfort Women after meeting with then Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe (now PM) and possibly also with the current chairman of the LDP Policy Research Council Shoichi Nakagawa. The Court ordered NHK to pay compensation to a Japanese woman’s rights group for the alteration of the program.

8. The Asian Women’s Fund: Is it a part of the Government of Japan?

The Asian Women’s Fund (AWF), designed to compensate the Comfort Women is not a government fund. Although a laudable and notable effort, AWF is not a government organization. Indeed, the Foreign Ministry worked very hard to distance itself from any institutional association. Scholars now find it strange that the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs through its Embassy of Japan in Washington now claims ownership of the Fund.

In order to side step rightwing criticism of acceptance of the Comfort Women history, some senior Foreign Ministry officials worked with prominent Japanese citizens to establish AWF in 1995. Government funds were allocated to provide the operating expenses and medical care disbursements. Funds raised from Japanese citizens were used for the “atonement” payments to the survivors. This is not the definition of “reparation,” which is a government payment. The majority of comfort women wanted the national government of Japan to take responsibility for their history– not just some well-meaning Japanese citizens.

9. What are the expected results of H. Res. 121?

(1) Effect On US Foreign Policy
The Japanese government’s unequivocal admission of past wrongdoing would demonstrate a deep commitment to historical truth and to human rights. Such a public commitment could only strengthen, not weaken the U.S.-Japan relationship that is now said to be based on “common values.”

An unequivocal admission of past wrongdoing would remove a lingering, corrosive issue weakening the ties between Japan and major U. S. allies in the region, namely ties with South Korea, the Philippines and Australia.

An unequivocal admission of past wrongdoing would highlight the differences between the murderous, kidnapping criminal regime in control of North Korea and democratic, open Japan.

(2) Benefit For Japan
An unequivocal apology for a past program of state-sponsored sexual violence against women solidifies Japan’s long support of the myriad international standards and rulings regarding war crimes, crimes against humanity, sexual violence, and human trafficking.

(3) For the International Community
Japan is the precedent for today’s understanding of humanitarian issues and sexual violence in war. The most important tool in prosecuting/stopping sexual violence in war in the future is the precedent of past recognition of sexual violence, enslavement, and exploitation. Japan’s wartime military rape camps are the modern precedent for all the issues of sexual slavery, sexual violence in war, and human trafficking that so dominate today’s discussion of war and civil conflict—Bosnia, Rwanda, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, Darfur, Burma.

The Japanese “comfort women system”—complete with doctors assigned to military units to check for STDs and condoms (with the brand name, Attack #1!) requisitioned by the thousands—consisted of the legalized military rape of subjugated women on a scale, over a period of time that was previously undocumented.

Japan is not oblivious to the sufferings of women during wartime. In 2004, the Japanese ambassador to the United Nations noted, “the manner in which women are often obliged to live during armed conflict is indeed a moral outrage. They are usually neither the initiators of conflict nor the wagers of war, and yet their gender is often specifically targeted. This situation should in no way be tolerated.”

Japanese diplomats and citizens do understand that the legal battles and emotional and physical traumas of the Comfort Women have led to justice and restored honor to many women survivors of today’s ethnic and sectarian violence.
* kavc님에 의해서 게시물 이동되었습니다 (2008-07-29 05:51)