SEOUL
An 88-year-old South Korean former sex slave made a strong complaint against Japan’s review of an apology it made in 1993, as she visited Wednesday the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.
“Japan must tell the truth over the issue as it is and make atonement if the country really wants to repent for its wrongdoings and promote world peace,” said Kim Bok-dong according to local civic group The Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery.
She explained how her ordeal began at an early age: “I am a witness of history as I was coerced into sexual servitude until the age of 21 after I was dragged at 14 (into brothels).”
Japan’s Kono Statement of 1993, released by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, represented Tokyo’s first admission that women had been forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.
Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, including from Korea under Japanese rule, were coerced into becoming so-called ‘comfort women’.
But last Friday a panel of Japanese government-appointed experts concluded that Seoul officials had influenced the wording of the ‘Kono statement’ – calling into question Tokyo’s original admission of guilt.
The debate over the sincerity of Japan’s view of history continues to be a thorn in South Korean-Japanese relations – former sex slaves have rallied outside Tokyo’s embassy in Seoul every Wednesday since the start of 1992.
With just 54 known surviving victims, time is also running out for them to receive what they would view as an appropriate apology and compensation.
Seoul’s Foreign Ministry called in the Japanese ambassador Monday to protest the move to review the Kono Statement – though Tokyo officially continues to uphold it.
Regarding compensation, Japan insists that all issues connected to its twentieth century colonization of the Korean Peninsula were settled by a treaty with Seoul in 1965.
But South Korea also raised the issue Tuesday in Washington at high-level talks involving Seoul’s Vice Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yong and William Burns, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State.
Cho is understood to have emphasized concerns that Japan’s Shinzo Abe administration could be backtracking on the country’s established view of history.
Washington deviated from its middle way between its regional allies South Korea and Japan in April, when President Barack Obama chose to address the issue of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery as a “terrible” violation of human rights.
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