Unusual Monument

Unusual Monument

Recently extraordinary monuments have been built in several cities in the United States and other parts of the world–they are the monuments to the comfort women for the Japanese army during days of the Second World War.

A city in New Jersey erected the first monument of this kind in October 2010. It was followed by New York.

The monument erected in New York is inscribed with the words that the former Japanese army forcibly kidnapped over 200 000 women to satisfy the sexual desire of its soldiers and that the anti-human sex crimes committed by it will never be forgotten.

As is widely known in the world the Japanese imperialists reduced over 200 000 women from Korea and various other countries into sexual slaves for their soldiers in the days of the Pacific War by forcibly dragging, kidnapping and abducting them.

The world history of war records no country like Japan which committed an organized and collective rape on foreign women taking them to the battle fields. Wherever the Japanese army set their feet on, may it be China, Thailand, Myanmar, Singapore, Sakhalin or Guam, is permeated with the rancour of their sexual slaves; their souls do not rest in peace there.

The International Women’s Tribunal for War Crimes held in Tokyo, Japan in December 2000 and many international conferences and organizations such as the UN Commission on Human Rights and the UN Committee on the Elimination of the Discrimination against Women stigmatized the sex crimes of Japan as largest-scale anti-human and state-sponsored crimes and delivered judgments that Japan must thoroughly apologize and compensate for them.

However, until today when nearly 70 years have passed since its defeat, Japan has been doggedly sidestepping self-criticism and apology for the crimes it committed in the past.

The shameless attitude of Japan aroused the indignation in the conscience of the world. By reflecting this indignation monuments disclosing the heinous crimes of Japan have been erected one after another even in the United States, one of its allies. What further infuriates the international community is that some Japanese politicians are denying and distorting the stark realities of history with a view to shirking the liquidation of the past.

Worse still, tripping off their tongue are such absurd arguments as that there is no evidence that Korean women had been dragged by violence and under threat and that it was a voluntary act of prostitutes to earn money and that wartime rape is not a war crime or anti-human crime.

This is the true colours of Japan which is enthusiastically advocating civilization, humanitarianism and building of a beautiful country in the international arena.

It is an elementary article of moral obligation of human beings for the assailant to apologize for his crime and indemnify the victim. The same holds true of countries.

However, though the government is frequently reshuffled in Japan, no authorities had ever made a sincere apology for its past crimes. On the contrary, they are making desperate efforts to cover its shameful past which is known all to the world.

Not long ago Japanese diplomats proposed Japan’s investment in the development of the city in New Jersey in return for the demolition of the monument to the comfort women erected in front of a municipal library, only to be flatly rejected. This can be said to be an extension of the cunning method Japan used in the closing years of the last century to conceal the anti-human enormity behind the curtain of history by giving a small amount of national fund squeezed from its people to some surviving comfort women. At a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council the Japanese representative revealed once again the craftiness and shamelessness peculiar to Japan by saying that the problem of comfort women had already been settled.

The international community severely criticizes Japan.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of Germany, L’Express of France, The Financial Times of Britain and El Mundo of Spain and the international conferences such as the UN Human Rights Council and the International Solidarity Council showered criticism on mean acts of Japan.

Even the United States denounces it. A Democratic member of the US Congress who was former chairman of the diplomatic commission of the House of Representatives said that some Japanese tried to shift their responsibility onto the victims denying and distorting history, a disgusting act. The Secretary of State Hillery Clinton asserted that “sexual slaves” are more appropriate than “comfort women for the Japanese army.”

Japan should be well aware of how it is regarded by the international community.

It must clearly know that without compensating for its past crimes it cannot lift its face in the international community nor escape from international isolation and denunciation.