ARTICLE: Japan rewrites its sex slave history

[thomas]

The following article has been featured in The Australian on 31 March 2001:

Japan rewrites its sex slave history

By Stephen Lunn, Tokyo correspondent

The winners write history, it is said. In Japan's case, it seems, the loser rewrites it.

The Hiroshima High Court this week overturned the only ruling ever given in favour of the "comfort women" 窶 women mostly from South Korea, The Philippines and China forced into military brothels to provide sex for Japan's Imperial Army during its military expansion of the 1930s and then World War II.
The ruling coincides with the release of a new film, Merdeka, being launched by supporters of Japan's nationalist right-wing that portrays Japanese troops during the 1930s as liberating heroes, freeing countries such as Indonesia from their colonial oppressors.

Earlier this year, despite outrage from China and South Korea, the Japanese Government refused to intervene in the authorisation of a junior high school history text written by right-wing historians that, according to its opponents, ignored the plight of the sex slaves and claimed Japanese military occupation had a positive effect on south-east Asian nations, freeing them from Western rule.

Even famous Japanese manga (comic) cartoonist Yoshinori Kobayashi has got into the act this month, with a series of cartoons depicting Taiwanese women volunteering to act as "comfort women" for the Japanese army troops. Kobayashi has since been banned from visiting Taiwan.

The Hiroshima Court's ruling must have been all the more galling for the three South Korean women who originally won their case in 1998, because they brought the appeal claiming the 900,000 yen ($14,700) damages award was too little. They were seeking up to Y396 million.

The court reversed the lower court's ruling in favour of the abused women, saying it had no right to ignore Japan's constitution, under which the government is not required to apologise for wartime actions or to provide compensation for any suffering.

"I hate the Japanese. I don't feel like thinking of anything for now," Pak Du-ri, 76, one of the former sex slaves who brought the action, said after the court's verdict on Thursday.

Lawyers for the women said they would appeal the ruling to Japan's Supreme Court.

While the court's position was basically that any such compensation or apology must come from the parliament after a change in the constitution, there is considerable doubt the Government would be inclined to help, given its position on the textbook issue and its fears of a backlash from nationalist supporters.

The group responsible for compiling the new history text, led by Kanji Nishio, a professor at the state-run University of Electro-Communications, maintains the present authorised textbooks are biased and full of overly apologetic self-denigration.

The new textbook, to be introduced into the curriculum for the school year beginning on Monday, has infuriated South Korea's parliament.

"Japan's distortion of historical facts is to betray all humankind in the world who aspire for democracy and peace, as well as a serious challenge to Asian neighbours that fell victim to Japan's imperialism," a resolution passed by the parliament said.

Copyright The Australian

 

[shiroma]

history rewritten indeed

Another Comfort Woman Passes Away

A native of Hadong, South Kyongsang Province, Chung was dragged off as a sexual slave when she was just 13 years old in 1937.

She left home thinking she was going to work at a factory in Japan to help release her father from the Japanese, but what later followed was eight years of being raped by Japanese soldiers in Indonesia.

The first Japanese soldiers' attack in Dutch Indonesia was in 1942.
Whoever wrote this article didn't even know that? How was it possible that they raped her between 1937 and 1941, in Indonesia??


This is a very short timeline of events there in 1942:
Jan. 1 Army starts landing Tarakan Island, the very first attack
Jan. 11 Navy paratroops land Manado city in Sulawesi Island
Feb. 27 Battle of Java Sea
Mar. 1 16 Army led by Liutenant General Hitoshi Imamura lands Java Island
Mar. 9 Dutch surrender

 

[lineartube]

Hadong is in Korea, therefore she was a Korean and the article does mention that she was dragged around.

Forcing women into prostitution isn't exactly a high moral ground, even for XXth century world standards, so exactly what would be the consequences of the Japanese government acknowledging and apologizing for this particular sad event? Somehow I feel that there is more than money at stake here.

 

[shiroma]

Somehow I feel that there is more than money at stake here.

Yes, it is actually a mockery of readers who blindly believe everything they are told.

This is the same news in another newspaper site: An Activist for Comfort Women Dies

She died yesterday at her home in Jinhae, South Gyeongsang province at the age of 80.

She died on Feb. 26th, 2004 at the age of 80, which means she was born in 1924.

Ms. Jeong said that she had been forcibly taken to Indonesia by the Japanese military when she was only 13 years old.

Taken to Indonesia when she was 13 years old means it was in 1937.

After taking Ms. Jeong from her home in 1937, the Japanese military sent her to Jakarta, Indonesia through Taiwan, China, Thailand and Singapore. Confined in Jakarta for seven years, Ms. Jeong was forced to serve as a sex slave there.

Confined in Jakarta (called Batavia before 1942) for seven years means, it was either 1937 to 1944, or 1938 to 1945 considering time spent in Taiwan, China, Thailand and Singapore.

Indonesia was a Dutch colony until the end of 1941. Dutch rule means that there were no Japanese soldiers in Indonesia before 1942.

Had any editor ever thought of double-checking it before this news report was published.

 

[Lina Inverse]

Yes, it is actually a mockery of readers who blindly believe everything they are told.

This is the same news in another newspaper site: An Activist for Comfort Women DiesShe died on Feb. 26th, 2004 at the age of 80, which means she was born in 1924.Taken to Indonesia when she was 13 years old means it was in 1937.Confined in Jakarta (called Batavia before 1942) for seven years means, it was either 1937 to 1944, or 1938 to 1945 considering time spent in Taiwan, China, Thailand and Singapore.

Indonesia was a Dutch colony until the end of 1941. Dutch rule means that there were no Japanese soldiers in Indonesia before 1942.

Had any editor ever thought of double-checking it before this news report was published.

Indeed... seems like they just wanted to bring some anti-Japanese stuff and didn't care for accuracy

 

[digicross]

Prostitution is official, but rape is not.

Well... The fact is that any of the rape was NOT part of the OFFICIAL agenda of the Japanese military.

Prostitution is part of the official agenda, but taking people for prostitution by force was never part of the official agenda.

But... There were people taken by force for prostitution, and these were done by people who are part of the Japanese military (or at least people doing things under the name of the Japanese military), though these people aren't the only ones, there are also people who are not part of the Japanese military.

Why was these rapes were done? Chances are these things are done so that there would be materials to defame the Japanese people, both in the past, the present, and the future.

Those who make a big fuss over rapes are usually aren't the ones who were raped, because they would just prefer to let things pass, but instead those who make a big fuss over it are those who would gain the most over the defamation of the defendant.



As for women being tricked into sexual service that they don't want to do.

These things happened before the Japanese participation in the Pacific war and after, and these things still happen to this very day. And the people responsible for that seems to be already doing this even before World War I.

Women (especially young girls) in a kind of way are innocent people, just like babies. They can be easily tricked.

 

[Golgo_13]

Wouldn't be the first time a country somewhere on this Earth tried to re-write history.

 

[urecco]

Wouldn't be the first time a country somewhere on this Earth tried to re-write history.

It is not a historical thing but a political thing.

The movement of "Japanese sex slavery" began in 1980's after the non-fiction novel "watashi no sensouhanzai-my war crime" published.
In the book, the author,Seiji Yoshida,said he had forced many Korean women to work as prostitue.However he confessed that the book is fiction after many people had mentioned errors in it.

Then China and Korea gov'ts re-wrote their history books without any check.
Actually,there are many ex-comfort women who say they were forced to work or tricked to work,but some of them told a lie or,at least, made terrible mistakes when they claimed.Some of them claimed that they were tricked by Korean ,and one of them claimed that she had had 26,145 yen in her bank in 1945,when she could buy a small house in her home town for about 1,000 yen.Above all,if every testimony were trustful,they could not know that it was due to Japanese agenda or even it was done by private brokers which ordered to force korea women to prositute.

There are no real evidence.If there were,China and Korea definitely would have claimed it before the "non-fiction" novel published.
Where could China and Korea find out enough evidence to re-write their history books adding Japanese new war crime?

If there had been more than 10,000 comfort women forced to work, there would have been big campaign or movement against it.

 

[sabro]

Not this subject too? Japan has acknowledged this crime and appologized. Get over it.

 

[urecco]

Policitans can't change the history.
Please,read it.
http://coralnet.or.jp/kakichi/qa-1.html

 

[bossel]

Policitans can't change history.
Please, read it.
http://coralnet.or.jp/kakichi/qa-1.html

Not that I think your crappy link is worth a response, but well, I can't help it:

From the UNHCHR:

"The present appendix relies exclusively on the facts established in the Japanese Government's own review of the involvement of Japanese military officials in establishing, supervising and maintaining rape centres during the Second World War."

& another one:

Comfort Women, An Unfinished Ordeal

 

[sabro]

I did not know until recently (what I learned on this forum) that there was such a large revisionist movement in Japan. Does anyone know how wide spread the movement to rewrite history in Japan is? How does the average person on the street feel about those who would deny Japan's role in 20th century war crimes?

Honestly, this scares me.

 

[urecco]

Bossel,First link calls the comfort station "rape camp"
Second one calls the comfort women "sexaul slaves"

there is a simple question.
Did they get paid?

 

[bossel]

Do you really think it makes much difference for a girl who is forced to work as a "prostitute" whether she gets (a probably rather symbolic amount of) money, or not?

 

[urecco]

There were some or many comfort women who had decided to became a prositute by their own will.
If they got paid,"comfort stations" should not be called "rape camp" and "comfort women" should not be called "sexual slaves."

They were prostitutes.And the problem is why they became a prostitute.

 

[bossel]

Redefining history again?

Forced labour is slavery. Being paid doesn't make it really better.

Whether you want to call it slavery or not, I don't care.

 

[urecco]

How many of them were forced to work?

There were about 8,000 Japanese comfort women.Were they slaves?

In Korea,who forced to work them?

 

[stupidumboy]

There were two kind of systems for using women workforce during the war period in Japan and Korea. (actually the systems applied for the both countries equally)

One was "窶凖ｰﾂ身窶佚?" a technically 'volunteer corps' -but that was forceful system planned by the Jpanese government to use the women workforce(aged from 12 to 40) for the industrial production in the factories.

And the other is the hot issued "ﾅ渡ﾅ坦ﾋ?藩??窶｢w" -often so called 'comfort women' who served for the militarymen's sexual desire near the military bases.

The comfort women system was mainly managed by the private keepers of a brothel in both countries but Japanese government encouraged that system by connecting women with private keepers or allowing as many passports as they could.

the Korean women were not paid their saleries by some cheating managers and they misunderstood its all ripped by the government as I think.

 

[sabro]

Urecco, I hate to ask, but if you got kidnapped and gang raped by a bunch of American convicts, and then they gave you a pack of cigarettes, would that be okay?

 

[urecco]

There were two kind of systems for using women workforce during the war period in Japan and Korea. (actually the systems applied for the both countries equally)

One was "窶凖ｰﾂ身窶佚?" a technically 'volunteer corps' -but that was forceful system planned by the Jpanese government to use the women workforce(aged from 12 to 40) for the industrial production in the factories.

And the other is the hot issued "ﾅ渡ﾅ坦ﾋ?藩??窶｢w" -often so called 'comfort women' who served for the militarymen's sexual desire near the military bases.

The comfort women system was mainly managed by the private keepers of a brothel in both countries but Japanese government encouraged that system by connecting women with private keepers or allowing as many passports as they could.

the Korean women were not paid their saleries by some cheating managers and they misunderstood its all ripped by the government as I think.

It's amazing that you know lots of things.
I thought most Korean people do not know the difference between "窶凖ｰﾂ身窶佚?" and "ﾅ渡ﾅ坦ﾋ?藩??窶｢w".Indeed,the commitee which is tring to protect "comfort women" is called The Korea 窶凖ｰﾂ身窶佚? *** committee,isn't it.

Japanese gov't encouraged private pimps to recruit or collect prostitutes.
Maybe,because Army did not have spare soldiers to recruit prostitutes or the gov't wanted to avoid crimes committed by soldiers.
Admittedly,some or many pimps deceived and kidnapped women.
However ,according the japanese military record,after knowing it,they ordered to choose the pimps to avoid wired pimps in 1937.
Unfortunately,this order is somethings distorted as "involvement of Japanese Army".
I don't know whether this order succeed or not.

Urecco, I hate to ask, but if you got kidnapped and gang raped by a bunch of American convicts, and then they gave you a pack of cigarettes, would that be okay?

It would not be okey.but this metaphor is unsuitable.

As I said before,not all comfort women were deceived or kidnapped.
And at least,in Korea,the army never deceived or kidnapped but pimps did.
In addition,their advarage wages were not something like packs of cigarettes,but about 800 yen per month whilst the avarage soldiers' wages were about 15 yen per month.
some pimps did not pay well.But soldiers paid moderate fees.

If you got kidnapped and forced to work as a prostitute and could not get paid,who would you hate:customers or pimp?

 

[TwistedMac]

If you got kidnapped and forced to work as a prostitute and could not get paid,who would you hate:customers or pimp?

both. and with burning passion.

 

[sabro]

Again, all the accounts I can find say these women (mostly little girls) were kidnapped and raped- forty to sixty times a day, drugged, beaten, starved, dragged around the pacific and finally whoever survived was simply abandoned. But I guess this is okay with you. (Imaginary pimps and paychecks make it so--I guess my metaphor would have to include a pimp for you and more than a pack of cigarettes to be suitable. How much would we have to pay you per month to make brutally gang raping you okay?)

You seem to be privy to some secret information that the Japanese imperial army was a bunch of peace loving boy scouts out on a Sunday picnic. I've looked through all the posts on this forum and I've come to the conclusion that your information is unreliable. Basically you have found information to match your revisionist view and you disregard all the other information. I hope someday you will wake up to the pain, suffering and death Japan caused during the last century. It's not a proud chapter in your history, but like slavery or the genocide of the American Indian in the US, or the holocaust in Germany-- It needs to be remembered.

I keep replying. Why? If you were a neo Nazi I would reply. If your were denying slavery in the US I would reply. If your said that the Native Americans were not that badly treated or that the US was blameless in its conduct in latin America and the Phillipines last century- I would argue with you. Hiding these things would be wrong.

Eventually I will tire and give up, move on to talking about sporks and tatoos. Then you can spout your right wing fairy tales and feel like people believe this misdirected and pathetic drivel.

 

[urecco]

Did I say it would be okey to be kidnapped?
victims would have hate both.
But whose fault?
pimps.

Did the Army force women work?-no evidence.
Did the Army order pimps to kidnap or deceive women?-no evidence.
Did the Army force women who had been kidnapped and explained it to continue to work?-no evidence.
Unfortunately most Korean girls could not speak Japanese.

Although you said my sources were unreliable,
you haven't even shown any evidence besides Ohta testimony.

Give me sources besides Yoshida confession.

there were no witness, no movement against comfort women and no document which prove Japanese Army forced women to work.

Are revisionists' sources unreliable?
Did 4 million Jews die in Auschwitz? NO
Did nati make soap from human bodies? NO
Did Japanese newspaper boast the civilians killed? NO
What do you think about that?

 

[bossel]

no document which prove Japanese Army forced women to work.

Look at Rabe's diary again!

Are revisionists' sources unreliable?

Obviously quite often.

Did 4 million Jews die in Auschwitz? NO

Who says so? The number is closer to 1m (960,000 or something). Are you mistaking that for the overall number of Jewish Holocaust victims? Which would be 5 to 6m.

 

[sabro]

Did I say it would be okey to be kidnapped?
victims would have hate both.
But whose fault?
pimps.

Did the Army force women work?-no evidence.
Did the Army order pimps to kidnap or deceive women?-no evidence.
Did the Army force women who had been kidnapped and explained it to continue to work?-no evidence.
Unfortunately most Korean girls could not speak Japanese.

Although you said my sources were unreliable,
you haven't even shown any evidence besides Ohta testimony.

Give me sources besides Yoshida confession.

there were no witness, no movement against comfort women and no document which prove Japanese Army forced women to work.

Are revisionists' sources unreliable?
Did 4 million Jews die in Auschwitz? NO
Did nati make soap from human bodies? NO
Did Japanese newspaper boast the civilians killed? NO
What do you think about that?

Bossel- thank you very much.

Urecco, you still seem to be saying that the conduct of the Imperial Army was fine with you. That somehow these thousands of women mistook their brutal treatment for a gesture of goodwill. That it wasn't the Army's fault because the women didn't speak Japanese. Somehow these other non-Army people just found these lost and wandering women and decided to pimp them out and scatter them across the pacific. You say there are no witnesses when thousands of soldiers have come forward and thousands of former comfort women have come forward, where documents confirm and investigations have concluded a vast criminal system that victimized thousands of women.

The Nazi's kept great records. They would be insulted and offended by your diminuishing their "accomplishments." They killed well over 6 million Jews. They also murdered communists, homosexuals, the handicapped, gypsies, slavs and political dissenters. They experimented with the harvest of skin, fat for soap, and gold teeth to try to squeeze every penny out of the operation. They figured out the most efficient killing methods and how little gas or coal would be needed to creamate the bodies if the oven were kept hot. They were quite proud of what they had done all the way to the end.

You should skip back and check the refernces that we have attempted to give you on this thread and throughout the forum. Type "comfort women" into google and see what comes up. Ask any old Japanese soldier that was there what he thinks. Because you can read Japanese check out the microfiche of WWII newspapers and read the stories yourself. You yourself have only cited one dubious source-- a right wing revisionist. Others you take out of context or seem to apply only the rosiest interpretation to what they wrote. I have given you my agenda-- not to slam the Japanese or to make them look bad, but to call what you keep posting here utter crap.

I don't think a 40 year old American should have to school a 24 nihonjin about his own history. You should know better.

That is what I think about that.