Once again guaranteeing my popularity among East Asian and American readers alike, here’s another controversial take on wartime atrocities. I’ve heard plenty of fellow Americans denounce Japan for absolving itself for the responsibility of war crimes. The comfort women issue is one frequently invoked example: the Japanese Government has expressed regret and sorrow but has refused official compensation, saying it was conducted by private organizations. Japan’s courts have ruled against the victims compensation claims, saying that they are not entitled to monetary compensation. The victims are left with no avenue to pursue reparations for their greivances. Many say it’s a deplorable, and I wouldn’t disagree. But note this eerie moral equivalent in the US from last month when we saw a similarly nasty piece of history lose a battle for compensation in the courts while the government stays silent and the events go relatively unreported.
Vietnam fury at Agent Orange case – BBC NEWS
Vietnamese plaintiffs have condemned a US court’s decision to dismiss their legal action against manufacturers of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. “It is a wrong decision, unfair and irresponsible,” said Nguyen Trong Nhan, vice president of Vietnam’s Association of Agent Orange (VAVA).
Agent Orange Case for Millions of Vietnamese Is Dismissed – NEW YORK TIMES
By William GlabersonIn a decision that could close a controversial Vietnam-era chapter of American history, a federal judge in Brooklyn today dismissed a damage suit filed on behalf of millions of Vietnamese that claimed American chemical companies committed war crimes by supplying the military with the defoliant Agent Orange.
The civil suit, filed last year, had sought what could have been billions of dollars in damages and the environmental cleanup of Vietnam. The suit drew international attention for its claims about Agent Orange, which was widely used by the American military to clear the jungle until 1971.
Agent Orange, a chemical weapon (or, said in proper diplom-speak, a “defoliant”) was used with gusto in Vietnam with the intention to smoke out the jungle guerillas. One horrible and unintended result of this was infant deformities, the gruesome evidence which can still be seen in Ho Chi Minh City’s American War Crimes Museum. (For those of you who want to see some pictures of Agent Orange’s legacy, click here or here if you dare.) As for a legal remedy, several chemical companies paid a combined total of $180m to settle a lawsuit with American army veterans who said their health had been affected by exposure to Agent Orange in 1984. Vietnamese victims have recieved no such justice, as noted about in a case from early March 2005.
Should the US apologize to Vietnam? To the Vietnamese civilian victims? To it’s own soldiers? Few vocally demand it, partly because Vietnam recognizes that promoting good political and economic ties shouldn’t be hampered by history. American students hear a smattering about Agent Orange in school. Our courts now refuse the Vietnamese victims’ claims of compensation — actually, it’s worse than that, the judge in the above case didn’t even give the plaintiffs the chance to be heard in court (the case was dismissed). By comparison, Japan’s political leaders have apologized/aknowledged comfort women on numerous occasions, the statements of which can be read in English here, and most recently in a 2001 letter by PM Koizumi, and a private fund was set up by former political leaders to provide private compensation. Additionally, the comfort women issue is more than 60 years old, whereas Agent Orange was used as late as 33 years ago and many more of those affected are still suffering.
Don’t misunderstand the purpose of this post, I’m not bad mouthing the US or glorifying Japan. No nation is innocent in the brutal history of the human race. Years after the fact, what compensation is appropriate? In the final analysis, both the US and Japan are better at recognizing the mistakes of their past and have done more for the victims than most other countries, certainly moreso than Russia, China, and much of Europe outside Germany.
One point if I may, not a defense of either side. A noteworthy distinction between the Agent Orange and the comfort women issues is, as you alluded to, intention.
You wrote:
_Agent Orange… was used with gusto in Vietnam with the intention to smoke out the jungle guerillas.
One horrible and unintended result of this was infant deformities…_
Thus, a key question here is did the United States government know they were causing deformities? Did they willingly use Agent Orange knowing this? You suggest not. (Whether they would have used it even with such knowledge is a seperate question in my mind.) It us much more difficult to argue that the Japanese Army did not know it was causing harm to these women by forcing them into sexual service.
Except that presumes it was the Japanese army. No court has yet ruled the military was directly involved…
The two issues you consider are as different as chalk and cheese. There seems no doubt that the Comfort Women were treated appallingly badly by deliberate actions of the Japanese war machine ““ whether private contractors or government. Deliberate, appalling and humiliating actions that certainly demand apologies and the punishment of perpetrators if they can be identified at this late date. Perhaps compensation would also be appropriate, although I do not see what value can realistically be assigned at this late date.
But the Agent Orange issue is quite different. Agent Orange was a defoliant, aimed at making trees drop their leaves so that the supply lines of the Viet Cong could be revealed for aerial attack. Agent Orange was a mixture of phenoxy herbicides that kill broad-leaf plants and not grasses. They are still used worldwide as herbicides to kill weeds in lawns, perhaps the third or fourth most widely used herbicides in commerce. It appears that Agent Orange was contaminated with trace amounts of dioxins, and when this became apparent its use was suspended (early 1970′s I believe).
A lot of research has followed the health of US veterans and Vietnamese who were exposed to Agent Orange, and despite massive studies the data are pretty equivocal. Dioxins are widely touted as “incredibly toxic”, but in fact there is little clear data to back up this claim. A recent review on Agent Orange and Cancer: An Overview for Clinicians, by Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPh can be found at CA Cancer J Clin 2003; 53:245-255 http://caonline.amcancersoc.org/cgi/content/full/53/4/245 There is also a lot of information on the other “big” dioxin contamination, a 1976 explosion at a chemical plant in Seveso, Italy in 1976. Again there is little conclusive evidence for any obvious harm to those exposed.
[As an aside, it seems likely that the hapless Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's current leader, survived his attempted poisoning because the perpetrators overestimated dioxin's toxicity]
The problem here is that people are continually getting sick and being stricken by dreadful diseases. It is natural to explain this in terms of some exposure, preferably to something done by somebody else, and even better if they have deep pockets. I am deeply sympathetic to families of children with deformities and inherited diseases. But that doesn’t mean that I sympathize with the conviction that it must be due to some chemical exposure during the Vietnam War. That question is amenable to scientific and statistical analysis, and the data just don’t support the association to any significant extent.
Nevertheless, studies continue, and it is disappointing to learn that Vietnam has just pulled the plug on what was to be a major joint US”“Vietnamese research project to analyze dioxin levels in 300 mothers of babies with birth defects, along with 300 mothers of healthy children. The study was approved in May 2003 by the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. But the institute pulled the plug on the project last month because, after two years, the Vietnamese Ministry of Health had still not approved the research protocols needed to begin the work. [Nature 434, 687 :April 7, 2005] . “The NIEHS was probably insisting on protocols to ensure a real, valid study; the implications of which the Vietnamese either didn’t understand when they agreed, or else simply don’t want,” says Jeanne Mager Stellman, a scientist at Columbia University in New York, whose research has provided maps of herbicide spraying in Vietnam (see Nature 422, 649; 2003).”.
So should there be apologies? For trying to fight a war as humanely as possible? Agent Orange was only used because the Viet Cong were attacking South Vietnam…..
How about how the Japanese set up brothels for use of the American military when they occupied to Japan, as a firebreak to preserve the honor and purity of Japanese women? Or how Italian officers in WWII carried comfort women with them? Etc.
Anyway, how far does Japan have to go until the critics are satisfied?
Praktike raises an interesting point. Personally (so fire away – this isn’t an atteampt at a reasoned argument), I find it ironic that many Japanese who vehemently deny (or strongly question) the army (or government or whatever other word you want to use so we can avoid semantical games) of Japan would use foreign women in that way, yet they recognize that it was done to Japanese women by their own government for the enjoyment of American soldiers. I know, I know, all those women were volunteering to preserve the chastity and honor of Japanese women, right?
I first read about the quasi-governmental brothels for Americans in Japan from Embracing Defeat by Jown Dower. While Dower is critical of the Japanese government on several issues, he accepts that the women in the brothels were “volunteers” (that is, paid whores).
To second Praktike’s point, one of the most shocking scenes of ED is the Japanese treatment of Japanese orphans. Small children were rounded up and treated like cattle to the shock of visiting Westerners. Many Japanese inhumanities in World War II are a lot more understandible, given that they treated their fellow countrymen similarly.
I don’t really know anything about the treatment of Japanese orphans after the war. Is it possible that they were from the untouchable class of Japan, the ‘burakumin’ or ‘eta’ as they used to be called?
About prostitutio in Japan, it was fully legal throughout the entire Edo period, and still tolerated during Meiji (I forget if it was officially legal or not, but practically speaking certainly was). There’s nothing remotely shocking about Japanese women working in brothels that served American soldiers since there was a long history of regulated prostitution in Japanese cities. It’s certainly possible that there were even some Koreans or Chinese that were working as paid prostitutes as well in Japan, but it doesn’t seem to me that there’s any doubt at all that quite a number of women were taken from the colonies against their will and forced to server as prostitutes without pay.
In addition to what Mutantfrog said, there’s also a contemporary tolerance, best summed up by a leading contemporary authority on Japanese culture: “Wanna fuck Jap pussy? Go to Police box, seriously”:http://masamania.com/archives/2005/02/wanna_fuck_jap.html
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For the record, I think I overdid the sarcasm in that last comment, although I think Dan certainly got my point. I think that most of them probably were “volunteers” as well, but (and I have no proof for this, I admit – but consider Tokkotai pilots as an analogous example) it isn’t difficult to imagine that some of them were probably not there entirelybecause they wanted to be.
I agree with Saru.
Another focus of the book is the role of organized crime in creating and protecting “free markets” (semi-official black markets not subject to government rationing or controls). The brothels may have been run on the same lines — yakuza-protected freedom of contract (with very-hard-to-leave contracts).
Sex-slaves in developed countries are frequently trapped using tacticts like those that Dan described because they don’t realize that contracts are in fact void if they ask you to agree to illegal terms. They assume that the law is on the brothel owner’s side because they signed a contract before realizing how bad it would be and never even go to the police.
Mutantfrog,
Prostitution was legal in Japan in the before the end of the war. Prostitutes were required to register with the police to obtain a permit, which had to be renewed regularly. To renew, they had to submit the results of a medical check-up and information on the remaining loan, how much they earned, and which brothel they worked for. This prevented brothel owners from cheating on the girls, to some extent, at least. Statistics show that at the end of 1942, there were approximately 150,000 prostitutes registered in Japan, 10,000 in Korea (4,000 being Japanese), and 7,000 in Taiwan (Japanese: 1,300; Taiwanese: 4,000; Korean: 500). Although those doing business without permits were arrested, as were the owners of the brothel, there probably were more operating illegally. I’m sure none of the women “willingly” became a prostitute, but that they really had no choice. Many of the prostitutes in Japan came from the Tohoku region, the most impoverished region in Japan at the time. I really do not know which is better: to allow government-regulated prostitution and try to enforce better working conditions or to leave it completely up to the yakuza. It does not seem like prostitution is going to go away any time soon.
As for the comfort houses in war zones, I actually think even the local women were paid in many cases, because one of the main reasons for setting them up was to prevent rape of local women and thus prevent hostile attitudes towards the Japanese Army. (The other two were prevention of venereal diseases and prevention of spy infiltration ““ which I think were more important to the Army.) That is why Japan brought in its own women when it could. From interviews of men after the war, you see that conditions of recruiting local women on front lines depended on the commander. Some didn’t seem to care if the women were taken by force, some returned all women who were not already professionals, and some refused to allow any recruitment on grounds that such activities would be regarded as forced by the locals. Naturally, the conditions at the comfort houses must have differed just as much. The first comfort house to open was in Shanghai, 1937. Shigeru Kunii, the head of Tamanoi Liquor Union, was called by an army officer about opening a brothel. Initially, he has difficulty recruiting women to go with him to China. He finally rounds up 52 women using \50,000, and his business turns out to be a huge success. Hearing this, the owners and prostitutes in Japan flock to China to get their share of the business. Good business meant that women could expect to dramatically shorten their tenures. It’s a pitiful situation to be in, but those were the times. It seems that a majority of Korean women had been recruited by Korean brokers, but did not necessarily end up in Korean-owned brothels. One of the first Korean women to sue the Japanese government for compensation was also suing it to return the 24,000 yen saving she had in the Japanese Postal Bank. Currently, \24,000 isn’t much, but back in those days, \1,000 bought you a modest house in Tokyo. A general of the Japanese Army was annually paid \6,000. The fact that this woman managed to save that much money in less than 3 years is amazing (though heartbreaking when you consider how many strangers she slept with), and sadly, I could imagine many impoverished women would go for the chance, even today.
Praktike,
The Germans also had a system that was a near clone of the comfort houses of Japan during WWII. Their purpose was also to prevent rape (and birth of half-Germans), VD, and spy infiltration. On the western front, existing brothels were simply placed under the jurisdiction of the German forces. On the eastern front, comfort houses had to be set up since Stalin had banned prostitution and no brothels existed, and local women were recruited by force. In the Korean War, comfort houses were set up by the South Korean Army. The French, in the Vietnam War, used a system called Bordel Mobile de Campagne and brought in North African women, mainly to prevent spy infiltration. The US set up military brothels in Vietnam (this system also was a near clone of the comfort houses of the Japanese Army), employing Vietnamese women, who received 200 of the 500 piastre (2 dollars at the time) paid by the soldier. Although these brothels were owned by local bosses, they were unmistakably supervised by the commander (as in the case of Japan). I do not know how much “coaxing”Â? it required to hire the women. I think the stubbornness of the Japanese and the government to offer apologies is based on the why-only-us mentality, because we don’t hear of similar campaigns being made against any other countries. I’m sure if this comfort women issue had been a campaign against all violence and injustice to women for all wars in the 20th century, the Japanese attitude would have been quite different.
Okay, somehow I missed this post earlier, now I must respond.
Curzon said, “Except that presumes it was the Japanese army. No court has yet ruled the military was directly involved”¦”
Talk about an evasive post. So do you believe the army wasn’t involved?
Again, the Japanese government trying to avoid the issue and compensation. Another instance of so called ‘apologies’ being nothing more than lip service since no responsibility is being taken.
Let’s take a closer look at the ‘comfort women.’ Most of this from Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II. By Yuki Tanaka.
Asahi Shimbun July 1992:
In late February 1944 Japanese military forces took 35 Dutch women ages 16-26 from five women’s detention camps and put them into four brothels. In order to avoid legal problems, the military forced these women to sign an agreement. But here, too, the Japanese forces used various tactics, ranging from deception to threat, to force women into prostitution. Some of these women were told that they would work as waitresses in the coffee shop in the Officer’s Club, but when they arrived they were ordered to work as prostitutes. When they refused they were threatened with torture and death for themselves and their families. One girl tried to commit suicide but was revived….
Further on…
This court report also revealed that each woman was given a daily quota: 20 enlisted men in the morning, two NCOs in the afternoon and the senior officers at night.
Let’s look at some more.
In 1938, after the Nanjing massacre, the Japanese forces adopted the general policy of setting up military brothels in various places in occupied China and ‘recruiting’ comfort women to staff them. The word ‘recruit’ is, of course, an official euphemism; in reality many women were forcibly pressed into prostitution. One man, Yoshida Seiji, confessed that he was one of the officers responsible for this action.
Some more.
There were three different types of comfort houses: those run directly by the Japanese Army; those ostensibly privately owned and run but in reality under tight control of the Army and only for the use of military personnel; and those privately owned and frequented by civilians but operating under an agreement with the Army to provide ‘special services’ for military personnel. The second type was the most common, and these houses were usually located next to military supply bases or in the center of towns in which soldiers were stationed.
Okay, so we’ve shown that they owned and controlled the brothels. Tanaka provides good notes with this. Still, we aren’t done.
It is impossible to deny that the Japanese military was directly involved in organizing comfort houses and recruiting women to work in them. Recently discovered documents and the recent testimony of former comfort women, who only now feel able to speak freely about their ordeals, have added details about what happened. However, the Japanese government is still withholding pertinent documents that could give a clearer picture, especially about who should bear individual responsibility in the lines of command.
However, it appears from the available evidence that orders to recruit women for comfort houses directly controlled by the military army came from the headquarters of each dispatched army-that is, from the chiefs of staff of each army. Those orders would then have been conveyed to staff officers in various divisions and carried out by the Kempeitai. The Kempeitai usually operated by forcing the elders of villages in the occupied territories to round up all of the young women.
It gets even better!
In January 1942, the minister for foreign affairs, Togo Shigenori, instructed his staff that comfort women should be issued with military travel documents. After that time, comfort women did not require a passport for overseas travel. This indicates that involvement in decision making about comfort women went all the way to the top levels of government. Other documents reveal a similar picture about high-level involvement. In March 1942, the headquarters of the South Area Army made plans to set up comfort houses throughout the Asia-Pacific region. One recovered document shows that orders were issued to Taiwan headquarters to recruit 70 comfort women and send them to Borneo. The commander in Taiwan, Lieutenant General Ando Rikichi, and the chief of staff, Major General Higuchi Keishichiro, instructed the Kempeitai to select three brothel owners to assist them in the task of gathering the comfort women. Seventy women were in fact sent to Borneo from Taiwan; all carried military travel documents with the seal of the head of general affairs of the Ministry for the Army, Tanaka Ryukichi, and his junior, Kawara Naoichi. Because the minister of the army at this time was Prime Minister Tojo Hideki, he therefore bore final responsibility for the ordeals of the comfort women.
Going further on…
The available evidence thus gives a clear picture that the very top ranks of both the Army and the Navy were directly involved in decision making concerning the comfort women and that other arms of government, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, collaborated with them, also with high-level involvement. The comfort women case could well be historically unprecedented as an instance of state-controlled criminal activity involving the sexual exploitation of women. The history of ‘camp followers’ in European wars provides a strong contrast because evidence suggests that the relevant decisions were made by those on the ground and not back in the metropolitan corridors of power. We Japanese thus have a special responsibility to acknowledge the crimes of our forebears in subjecting the comfort women to their ordeals and, especially, a responsibility to demand that our government gives adequate compensation t the survivors.
I won’t go on into stories of the women and the like as the only issue that I chose to address was the Japanese military and government being involved in the comfort women issue. Outside of right-wing nut jobs in Japan and the government who just doesn’t want to pay compensation, nobody should deny that the military and government was intimately involved in the systematic rape and torture of women during WWII and before.
Quickly, for anyone wanting to learn more about the comfort women online, go here.
Also, to Curzon, your quote, “Except that presumes it was the Japanese army. No court has yet ruled the military was directly involved”¦” is wrong. It should read, “No Japanese court…” as other courts have ruled they were involved.
When the war ended, the only military tribunal concerning the sexual abuse of comfort women took place in Batavia (today’s Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia) in 1948. The Batavia trial convicted several Japanese military officers for having forced into comfort stations the 35 Dutch women mentioned in the case.
That is from the link given above.
Two Cents: Trying to say this was basic prostitution and not the systemic rape of women is akin to raping them again. There is plenty, plenty of evidence showing this was NOT a voluntary situation for the women. The contention that most of these women were paid for this is the fantasy of right-wing forces in Japan that don’t want to acknowledge the crimes. Estimates are between 80,000 and 100,000 women were forced into this system, 80% of them being Korean. Just as the men from Korea were used as slave labor, the women were used as sex slaves. As far are your contention that they were set up to prevent rape, you are right. Instead of it working though, you have the women in the brothels being raped followed by the women in the war zone. General Okamura, the initiator of the Japanese military brothel, himself said of the Japanese invasion of Wuhan in 1938 that random sexual violence occurred despite the fact that the Japanese forces had groups of comfort women attached to them, and he admittted his scheme was a failure.
Random points:
Outside of right-wing nut jobs in Japan and the government who just doesn’t want to pay compensation, nobody should deny that the military and government was intimately involved in the systematic rape and torture of women during WWII and before.
Plunge, your comments show the Japanese were involved in a system campaign of promoting prostitution, and in many cases local commanders extended this to rape and torture. That is not a systematic campaign of rape and torture.
Trying to say this was basic prostitution and not the systemic rape of women is akin to raping them again.
Trying to conflate rhetoric with rape is the same thing as rape.
Of all the aggrevations in the world, attempts to silence debate through false analogies have to be the most annoying.
As far are your contention that they were set up to prevent rape, you are right. Instead of it working though, you have the women in the brothels being raped followed by the women in the war zone. General Okamura, the initiator of the Japanese military brothel, himself said of the Japanese invasion of Wuhan in 1938 that random sexual violence occurred despite the fact that the Japanese forces had groups of comfort women attached to them, and he admittted his scheme was a failure.
Well, trying to collapse rape to 0 incidents clearly will be a failure.
It doesn’t matter whether or not there were rapes on top of prostitution. That’s an unrealistic goal. “Success” can’t be a 100% — success has to be against a reasonable standard. Whether that reasonable standard was met, I have no idea.
Plunge, your comments show the Japanese were involved in a system campaign of promoting prostitution, and in many cases local commanders extended this to rape and torture. That is not a systematic campaign of rape and torture.
You are implying that those higher up did not know of what was happening. Considering the widespread abuses and the testimony of those abused, it is foolish to think that they were blind of what was happening.
Trying to say this was basic prostitution and not the systemic rape of women is akin to raping them again.
Trying to conflate rhetoric with rape is the same thing as rape.
Of all the aggrevations in the world, attempts to silence debate through false analogies have to be the most annoying.
It was a system of rape. Government/Military run brothels were set up where young girls and women were forced to have sex with a large number of men everyday. The comfort women themselves have compared the words of those denying this or even trying to justify this as being raped again.
I find attempts to justify attrocities to be the most annoying myself.
Well, trying to collapse rape to 0 incidents clearly will be a failure.
It doesn’t matter whether or not there were rapes on top of prostitution. That’s an unrealistic goal. “Success”Â? can’t be a 100%””?success has to be against a reasonable standard. Whether that reasonable standard was met, I have no idea.
Again, it wasn’t rape on top of prostitution. It was rape on top of rape. Also, considering the General who started the whole thing considered it a failure, it is reasonable to call it such.
I’ll say it again, calling the ‘comfort women’ system ‘prostitution’ is an insult to those who were forced into it. It was a system of rape.
You are implying that those higher up did not know of what was happening. Considering the widespread abuses and the testimony of those abused, it is foolish to think that they were blind of what was happening.
Not at all. In the Second World War, American generals knew American soldiers were killing enemy soldiers who were trying to surrender. Decisions were made that attempting to stop this would harm fighting efficiency more than not trying to stop this. Yet there was no systematic American policy of killing enemy soldiers attempting to surrender.
War’s not good. It’s pretty terrible. Hellish things happen. But that doesn’t mean that those things happen systematically.
The comfort women themselves have compared the words of those denying this or even trying to justify this as being raped again.
What tyrants of the mind!
If they are that lose with the word “rape,” what other actions might some be conflating with rape?
Also, considering the General who started the whole thing considered it a failure, it is reasonable to call it such.
If we’re going by his judgement, sure. But when was that quote given? In what context? Was it part of a diplomatic effort to appease Korea, China, or other neighbors?
Not at all. In the Second World War, American generals knew American soldiers were killing enemy soldiers who were trying to surrender. Decisions were made that attempting to stop this would harm fighting efficiency more than not trying to stop this. Yet there was no systematic American policy of killing enemy soldiers attempting to surrender.
These women were obtained on the basis that one woman could service 35 men per day. Those obtaining these women were given quotas and time limits they had to meet. Monetary compensation was provided for the ‘private’ brothel owners with no system in place to pay the prostitutes, showing that they understood this was slave labor. These women were treated and accounted for as munitions when moved by the military.
That is a system. Plus, these were non-combatant civilians. Many of them just children, adding to the agregiousness of the crime.
The comfort women themselves have compared the words of those denying this or even trying to justify this as being raped again.
What tyrants of the mind!
If they are that lose with the word “rape,”Â? what other actions might some be conflating with rape?
Having dealt with rape victims in the modern day and with those who were raped as comfort women, that is an asinine statement and an insult. Rape is one of the worst crimes that can be committed or endured. It leaves scars that never leave and if the victim hasn’t dealt with it, scars and emotions that can return with ease.
Let’s look at one confrontation between a rape victim and a comfort women apologist. June 7, 1996.
Kim Sang Ki, a former comfort woman, who visited Japan from South Korea, directly met and protested against Upper House member Itagaki Tadashi of the Liberal Democratic Party. Itagaki had said that the forcible recruitment of many women by Imperial forces was “not a historical fact” on June 4.
* “We do not agree with the self-tormenting historical recognition.” — emphasized by the forming a new group of Diet members
On this day, a new group of LDP Diet members who refuse to admit that Japan waged a war of aggression (Chairman: Okuno Seisuke, former Minister of Justice) was launched. The idea for the group is: “We cannot stand for the self-humiliating historical re cognition and mean apologizing diplomacy. We have tried to regain what we have lost after World War II and raise healthy Japanese.” During the press conference, Okuno, who was asked about the issue of sexual slavery, answered, “Comfort women participated in commercial activities, and they were not forced to do so.” Itagaki, secretary general, also commented, “The situation of textbooks of implanting the image of sexual abuse was wrong.”
Upper House member Itagaki is also Advisor of the Japan War Bereaved Association which praises the spirits of Japanese who compose the war dead. During the LDP’s General Council on May 28, Itagaki criticized the contents of textbooks used in high schoo ls, saying, “The thing was not based on historical facts, such as that minor women were forcibly recruited as comfort women was described one-sidedly as a historical fact.”
For these kinds of statements, Kim Soki who visited Japan from South Korea became angry and protested by visiting Itagaki at the Members’ Office Building along with supporters of a Japanese citizens group. Kim was taken by Japanese wearing military uni forms in the city of Taegu, Korea, where there was a Japanese colony in 1937, and forced to work at a brothel in Suzhou for 8 years.
* “Do you have objective proof?” “Weren’t you paid?”
Major conversations between Kim and Lawmaker Itagaki are as follows:
Itagaki: At that time, there was the licensed prostitution system under the poverty, and there were unfortunate women. (The issue of the comfort women is not) something to be praised, and I feel sorry, but it was not a fact that the Japanese military authorities took women by binding ropes around their necks.
Kim: I moved in the front-line with the soldiers. People who took us along were all military people. When we tried to escape from the brothels, soldiers shot us. My friend committed suicide. As a result of Japanese making reckless remarks that women we re not taken forcibly, I felt like my heart was stirred. I gave my name with the feeling that otherwise you will never recognize the truth.
Itagaki: All were done by the military? I don’t believe that. The military might be involved with that but not all of this was done by the military. There must have been some dealers to play that kind of role.
Supporter: There were brothels directly managed by the military.
Itagaki: What about the compensation? Were you paid?
Kim: Not at all.
Itagaki: I don’t believe at all that there was such a case. I judge this from the situation at that time. I have a belief as a politician. I have a pride as a Japanese. Do you have any objective proof that women were taken forcibly?
Supporter: Are you saying that Kim’s testimony is a lie?
Itagaki: I don’t say that it is a lie, but I am asking whether everything is true; there is a great doubt. This is not a matter to be handled emotionally. We need proof. I am saying that there is no basis to judge for myself. Even if we issue a certifi cate for a victim of an atomic bombing, we need proof. This sounds cruel, but with compiling reference materials, you should be more objective. I think that your destiny must be miserable…
Supporter: Three years ago former Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei admitted during an informal talk that women were forcibly taken.
Itagaki: I don’t admit Kono’s statement.
Kim: You did not go to the front-line hovering between life and death. I have scars all over my body. (She showed her scars in various places.)
Itagaki: Didn’t you receive any money for 8 years?
Kim: How is it you can ask if it is true or not for a person who is lingering on the verge of death? You used to rape my body at battlefields, and now you disgrace my soul after 50 years. I strongly protest that I never received any money at all.
Again, why don’t you start at the website mentioned in a previous reply of mine and find out a bit more about what horrors these victims faced.
These women were obtained on the basis that one woman could service 35 men per day. Those obtaining these women were given quotas and time limits they had to meet.
Industrialized service is not a new concept. Showing that a job is distasteful does not at all show that it was compelled.
Now, note a contradiction
Monetary compensation was provided for the “Ëœprivate’ brothel owners with no system in place to pay the prostitutes, showing that they understood this was slave labor.
and
Itagaki: All were done by the military? I don’t believe that. The military might be involved with that but not all of this was done by the military. There must have been some dealers to play that kind of role.
Supporter: There were brothels directly managed by the military.
So what is it?
Most likely is that the brothels were run as by independent contractors in close cooperation with local military commanders — what some politicans would call “public-private partnership.”
Relatedly,
These women were treated and accounted for as munitions when moved by the military.
Well, if the brothels themselves are the contractors, of course the military would have no direct relationship with the whores. That’s what contracting means — that the contractor assumes all hr responsibilities, among other things.
To finish up that paragraph…
That is a system. Plus, these were non-combatant civilians. Many of them just children, adding to the agregiousness of the crime.
Well, yes a system of prostitution.
I would assume few prostitutes would be armed. That’s not relevant.
Children of adolescents? Any figures on that?
Having dealt with rape victims in the modern day and with those who were raped as comfort women, that ["If they are that lose with the word "rape,"Â? what other actions might some be conflating with rape?"] is an asinine statement and an insult. Rape is one of the worst crimes that can be committed or endured. It leaves scars that never leave and if the victim hasn’t dealt with it, scars and emotions that can return with ease.
Non sequitor.
Again, why don’t you start at the website mentioned in a previous reply of mine and find out a bit more about what horrors these victims faced.
You mean the part about how Japanese women were also comfort women?
I’m not denying there were horrors. I’m denying that there was “systematic rape and torture.”
Dan ~ “I’m denying that there was “systematic rape and torture.”Â?
I’m glad that you’ve stated everything crystal clear. Systematic rape and torture not commited by the IJA. Check.
Plunge,
Since Dan has said basically what I wanted to point out and more, I only have two things to points out.
You wrote about the Dutch women case. It is known as the Shirouma Incident in Japan. It’s famous because it is basically the only case of the comfort station that was tried in the war tribunal. Of the 35 Dutch women who came forth to testify for the crime committed at the Sumaran comfort house, the court determined that 25 were the victims of enforced slavery. (In all of Dutch Indonesia, there were 200-300 comfort women, and 65 of them were regarded as victims of enslavement by the Dutch government in 1994.)
However, this case is actually an example that the higher-ups did not condone this kind of behavior. Two month after the comfort house opened, Capt. Hiroshi Suzuki hears a rumor that screams can be heard from the place at night. He relays this information to Army Chief Gen. Yamamoto, who, infuriated, orders an immediate shutdown of the facility. Later, Suzuki gathered the girls to apologize for what had happened.
The man executed for this crime, Major Okada writes in his diary that, “Now that the tide has turned, I imagine they cannot confess that they had cooperated with us. Alas, bite the hand that feeds.”Â? Seeing how the Frenchwomen who had dated Germans soldiers were treated after the surrender by their own society for sleeping with the enemy, I guess there is a possibility that he may be innocent. However, I have no way of knowing. He may only be trying to save his reputation after his death.
My second point is on the part you wrote,
One man, Yoshida Seiji, confessed that he was one of the officers responsible for this action.
From now on, I advise you not to cite him as evidence as Yoshida himself admitted that his book is a work of fiction. After the publication of Yoshida’s book, Prof. Hata of Chiba University did a follow-up research in Cheju Island where Yoshida confessed to have abducted the girls. None of the former workers at the button factory in the story were able to recall such an incident. An article in the Chejyu Newspaper dated Aug. 14, 1989 says that although the islanders were shocked by the book, no evidence could be found to support of the story. Chon Oktan, an 85-year-old woman says that, “In a small village as this with only 250 households, drafting of 15 girls would have been a serious incident. I’ve never heard of it.”Â? A local historian, Kim Ponok says, “Ever since the Japanese version was published in 1983, I have conducted extensive research and have come to the conclusion that this is just not true. This is an example of the wickedness of the Japanese and is nothing but a product of frivolous commercialism.”Â?
Cornered by Hata, Yoshida admits in a telephone interview by Shukan Shincho magazine (May 2&9 1996 issue) that he fabricated the stories saying, “What is the point of writing the truth in books. Even newspapers hide the truth and strew articles with what they claim to be facts.”Â? The publisher of his book, Iwanami has also stated that it is fiction. Asahi Shimbun, which made a great campaign of the comfort women issue based on this book, has never formally apologized or devoted any space for corrections regarding their error in promoting this book as a non-fiction. Thus, a book citing Yoshida’s story as true published after 1996, can basically be regarded as poorly researched.
It is also Yoshida’s book that seems to have given the Koreans the impression that young women drafted for labor durign the war were taken as comfort women. No such case has been confirmed in any of the testimonies given by former Korean comfort women. Last year, a Korean woman was suing the Japanese government because her husband divorced her after he found out that she had been drafted for labor. She claims that it is the Japanese government’s fault that her husband confused her for a comfort woman. The Japanese have never equated drafted women with comfort women. Such misperceptions have been propagated by the Koreans to inflate the number of victims.
Gotta agree with Jing on this one. Nothing else need be said.
Two Cents: I gave one quote from the guy, never read his book. Also, I keep finding, nearly verbatim, what you have written about him on the net without there ever being any direct indication of the source. The only Prof. of that name I could find isn’t at Chiba University.
You might try reading Hidden Horrors. I linked to it above. Or the myriad of other books on the subject.
I’ve gotta stop commenting on this subject before I go nuts thinking there are folks that actually deny this happened.
Plunge,
Though you’re not going to reply.
Professor Hata is retired, so I should have written “former” professor of Chiba Univ.
You seem to wonder why I put so much emphasis on Yoshida. It is because his book was what started the whole campaign, giving the forced abduction image to the recruitement of women.