Japan's Crime-woven Past Can Never Be Covered: KCNA Commentary

Pyongyang, January 8 (KCNA) -- Evidence and data laying bare the crime of sexual slavery committed by Japan have been brought to light one after another.

At the end of last year, a hall storing data on wartime women and peace in Sinjuku Ward, Tokyo Metropolis of Japan updated and posted on its website a map recording the places where the Imperial Japanese Army kept women sexual slaves, 10 years after its opening to the public. The map, made on the basis of official documents found in different countries, records thousands of data on 23 countries or regions.

A Japanese university professor said that there exist data gained through investigation into specific countries and regions, but the recent map is of great significance as it carries collected and pigeonholed data on "comfort stations" across the Asia-Pacific region occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army, adding that it will serve as a database for investigating the issue of sexual slavery.

This shows that the crime of sexual slavery committed by the Japanese imperialists is a historical fact that can never be covered up and the truth behind the crime is being made clearer with the passage of time.

As well known, the Japanese imperialists, prompted by a wild dream to become "the leader of Asia", unleashed a war of aggression in the last century and committed the crime of sexual slavery, an unprecedented hideous crime against humanity that was enforced in an organized and systematic way by the government and the military.

The Japanese imperialists took women of many Asian countries like Korea, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia and even European women to battle fields to satisfy the carnal desire of the extremely corrupt "imperial army", thereby brutally trampling down the dignity and rights of the women.

Regarding Korea as a main base for supplying sexual slaves, in particular, Japan kidnapped or abducted a total of 200 000 Korean women, including married women and even 11 year-old girls, to make them subject to all sorts of disgrace, and massacred them without hesitation to destroy evidence.

But the Japanese reactionaries shamelessly repudiate the crime-woven history that has become irrefutable by testimonies made by survivors, confessions made by those involved in the crime and continuous discovery of documentary evidence.

They, not content with insulting victims of sexual slavery with such expressions as "prostitutes" and "voluntary services for money," specified in a "diplomatic blue book" that the phrase "sexual slavery for the Imperial Japanese Army" should not be used.

Japan's political swindle such as denial and justification of the crime-woven history of aggression is designed to flee from the legal and moral obligation i.e. the atonement for the past, and lay the foundation of militarism for the realization of the outdated old dream of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere".

But it is a foolish dream.

The Japanese reactionaries' denial of the past crimes will only boost the world's vigilance over and hatred for Japan, a criminal state.

The Japanese authorities should choose a correct way before it is too late, mindful that their shameless act will never bring them the confidence of the world people but lead the archipelagoes to miserable ruin.

A priority task for them is the liquidation of the past crimes. -0-