Holocaust has been exploited irresponsibly to describe "Comfort Women" issue

 Below is the letter to UNESCO from Canada-Israel Friendship Association, which claims "UNESCO  has turned into a tool of imposing the political agenda of its most aggressive members through distortion of the very same cultural issues that it was supposed to protect."

The letter is self-explanatory.

"Comfort Women" issue cannot be equated to Holocaust.

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Letter to UNESCO from Canada-Israel Friendship Association

Source: http://nadesiko-action.org/?page_id=10750

October 30, 2016
Mr. Frank La Rue, UNESCO Assistant Director-General
Secretariat of UNESCO Memory of the World Programme
Communication & Information Sector
7, place de Fontenoy
75007 Paris, FRANCE

　　Years ago, UNESCO was established with the noble goal to facilitate cultural exchange and mutual understanding among the countries in the world in order to establish peace and harmony. Article 1 of its constitution boldly states: “The purpose of the Organization is to contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the Charter of the United Nations.”

　　Unfortunately, today the reality is quite different. By betraying its original principles, UNESCO has turned into a tool of imposing the political agenda of its most aggressive members through distortion of the very same cultural issues that it was supposed to protect. Recently, we witnessed a new development in that disturbing trend that affected two of its outstanding members – Israel and Japan. What UNESCO does by misinterpreting cultural issues that concern those two countries is far from creating mutual respect and peace. It creates animosity and confrontation.

　　The recent resolution to strip Israel and the Jews of their heritage in Jerusalem is disturbing. It declared Temple Mount and the Western Wall Arab Muslim heritage sites. Over 3,000 years of Jewish history were wiped out with a simple vote. The People’s Republic of China was one of the countries that voted for the resolution. If UNESCO was guided by science and objectivity, it would have noticed the extensive archaeological, historical and Biblical evidence that links Jews with that part of Jerusalem. Temple Mount was the place were the First and the Second Temples once stood. One of the remaining walls of the Second Temple still is the most revered place of worship in Judaism, visited every year by millions of people.

　　It is a sign of utmost cynicism to deny the connection of the Jews with Temple Mount. At the same time, the arguments of the group, which sponsored that anti-Jewish resolution, are beyond questionable. The only link of Islam with the area was the “vision” of its founder, in which he was miraculously transported there, without ever actually visiting the place. If the Koran is used to establish that connection, then the Biblical evidence has much more credibility because it shows the actual Jewish presence in more details, which are confirmed historically.

　　As it is the case in many areas in the world, a decision that affects the interpretation of old historical facts often has tangible negative consequences. The denial of the Jewish heritage by an international organization emboldens various Arab extremist groups, which see it as a justification for their murderous activities.

　　People and organizations that hold such views are often hypocritical. On one hand, they promote views that harm the actual Jews, while on the other hand they do not shy away from exploiting past Jewish suffering to promote just as vigorously their political agenda. The event, most frequently used for that purpose, is the Holocaust. The Temple Mount resolution, adopted with the majority of the Muslim members and their supporters, was just the first blow against Israel.

　　A second blow was delivered in a document against Japan, concerning the so-called “comfort women”, which alleges that between 80,000 and 200,000 Asian women (the presenters are unable to provide a definitive number) have been forced into sex slavery by the Japanese government during World War II. This was stated in the Nomination Form for presenting documents as part of UNESCO’s International Memory of the World Register, under the name “Voices of the ‘Comfort Women’”. Among other things, the nominators stated in section 5.2:

“The ‘comfort woman’ system, which has become recognized through the gradual accumulation of fragments of evidence, is a wartime tragedy comparable to the Holocaust and the Cambodian genocide, not in terms of the numbers of victims, but in terms of the depth of the victims’ suffering and their enduring humiliation.”

　　An examination of the facts will clarify the validity of the statement, but even before going there, it is clear how the Holocaust has been exploited irresponsibly. Those who use it here distort and denigrate its meaning. There have been many interpretations of that unique catastrophe that befell on the Jews, but the concise remarks by Eli Cohen, former Israeli Ambassador to Japan, in a letter to a Japanese journalist, summarize the problem quite well: “There was no comparison to the Holocaust. No nation in the world planned with cold heart how to murder a nation systematically. Jewish kids, women, men, even if they were only partially Jewish, like only mother or only father or even if you grandmother or grandfather was a Jew. They built a system to look for every Jew wherever he is and just murder him/her. And the whole German nation was involved. It continued for years when nations like Poland, Austria, Italy and others cooperated in this massacre and only few brave people were ready to help Jewish people and risked their lives to hide or save miserable escaping Jewish people all over Europe. This never happened in the history of human kind and I hope it will never happen with no other nation.”

　　For the record, Japan didn’t cooperate in that massacre. On the contrary, it helped Jews. At the San Remo Conference in 1920, Japan co-signed the resolution to create the “Mandate for Palestine” that paved the road to “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. Shortly before World War II, Japan promoted the idea of creating a Jewish state on its territories (the so-called Fugu Plan) which didn’t materialize due to the resistance of the Jewish leadership in the USA. Still, Japan managed to save thousands of Jews. Best known is the case of Chiune Sugihara, the Ambassador of Japan to Lithuania, who issued transit visas to about 6,000 Jews. After they arrived in Japan, their visas were periodically renewed by the Japanese government. Japan also hosted thousands of Jews in some of the occupied territories, notably Shanghai, despite the fierce objections of Hitler’s regime.

　　Still, the war record of Japan is a sensitive issue, but when talking about the past, especially when someone is accused, facts are more important than emotions. Considering that point, it is necessary to take into account the facts to determine whether the “comfort women” case equals the Holocaust.

　　The actions of Japan in the occupied countries were thoroughly investigated after the war. The guilty parties faced an international tribunal in Tokyo. Though one of the judges, Justice R.B. Pal from India, found some of the charges excessive and issued a dissenting opinion, Japan accepted the findings and the verdict in an agreement signed after the end of the American occupation in 1952. At no point during the trial was the alleged government conspiracy to enslave sexually 200,000 women brought to the judges’ attention and it is impossible to assume that they would overlook something so important.

　　The American authorities, which occupied Japan for nearly eight years, practically ruled the country and had unobstructed access to its archives. They were interested in bringing down the Japanese politicians of the war period and didn’t hide that, as we can see it in the infamous photograph of General Douglas MacArthur with the Emperor of Japan, where the General stands next to the Emperor with hands in his pockets. Most government ministries were purged of the old bureaucracy. A notable victim of that “downsizing” became the Holocaust hero Chiune Sugihara, who was fired and forced to make a living as a door-to-door light bulbs salesman.

　　The issue of the army brothels was investigated by the American authorities. Declassified documents show that the conclusion was that in most cases they employed paid prostitutes. Again, there was no sex slave conspiracy uncovered.

　　In the 1960’s, Japan negotiated a reparations settlement with South Korea, signed in 1965. Consequently, a large sum was paid in full in several installments. During that period, South Korea didn’t raise the “comfort women” issue, and neither did China. That happened only in 1991.

　　According to section 3.4 of the submission form, “until 1991, the issue of the `comfort women’, and the systematic, coercive nature of the sexual slavery that they suffered, was not generally known to the world. Under the strong patriarchal ideology prevailing in many parts of Asia, women’s sexuality was a taboo subject, and women who lost their chastity often had no place even within their family, thereby subjecting the victims to a strong social stigma and pressure not to speak about what had happened to them.”

　　This is not a plausible explanation of a delay of nearly fifty years. It fails to mention that in 1949, China was taken over by a totalitarian communist government and transformed into a society with a new morality, where “chastity” and “patriarchy” were obsolete concepts, actively eradicated. The People’s Republic of China had always been involved in a propaganda war against Japan. “Comfort women” would have been a perfect propaganda point and any patriarchal considerations would be out of the question. China has no qualms about attacking its foes, a fact clearly displayed even in the submission discussed here. It was started by China but includes applicants from several countries. One of them is referred to by the derogatory name “Chinese Taipei” but it is actually the “Republic of China,” commonly known as Taiwan. Even in a document intended to “restore” justice, China manages to put down one of its co-applicants, which shows what type of countries dominate UNESCO.

　　The “comfort women” issue became important only after China and South Korea acquired significant local economic power to compete with Japan. It was just one of the tools to create animosity against their competitor. In that sense, the situation is similar to the BDS (Boycott-Divest-Sanction) movement against Israel, whose goal is to discredit and isolate the country over phony “apartheid” issues. Just like the case of Israel, the driving force are various NGO’s and groups, which create the impression of a vast popular movement, even though they will fall apart without government financial support.

　　So far, the proponents of the movement have failed to produce convincing documents about the sex slave conspiracy. Even the documents presented to UNESCO in the submission are kept secret by the organization and the applicants. In 1993, the Japanese government, in the so-called “Kono Statement,” confirmed the existence of the wartime army brothels, but that was nothing different from the information collected by the Americans on the issue. There is nothing good in the existence of such establishments, but that is far from the claim of causing another Holocaust.

　　Despite the lack of evidence about mass atrocities, the applicants still insist in section 3.4 that a Holocaust has taken place: “The revelation over the last 25 years of the factual truths of the matter has created diplomatic conflicts, including in relation to the demands from the victims, and organizations supporting them, for a formal apology from the Japanese government in the manner of the German government’s apology for the Holocaust.”

　　Compare this with the real Holocaust, where the facts started to come out in the early 1940’s, despite the reluctance of the Western media to cover them. Visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, is a haunting experience. The visitors are overwhelmed by all the information, collected since the war. Millions of documents, photos, movies, and recordings tell the horror of the catastrophe. It is not surprising that many are trying to imitate the impact, applying it unsuccessfully to their own agenda.

　　Though the notion of a “comfort women” Holocaust has no basis in reality, the applicants don’t stop, in section 5.2 they claim that they have opened new frontiers to a wider discussion of sex slavery: “The still pervasive and systematic sexual violence and sexual slavery perpetrated during armed conflicts of today, both internal and inter-state, are similar in nature to the atrocities suffered by the ‘comfort women’. Encouraged by the courage of the ‘comfort women’, victims of rape in places such as the former Yugoslavia, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Cambodia, have spoken about their sufferings in various formats, including their testimonies at the tribunals and hearings relating to the crimes committed against these women. Increased awareness of the ‘comfort women’ issue has also led to new studies being carried out in related areas, for example on the issue of sexual violence and forced prostitution during the Nazi Holocaust.”

　　If it follows the logic of that statement, UNESCO may need to consider for condemnation some countries absent from the list. The 1959 invasion of Tibet by the People’s Republic of China ended with the deaths of about 1.2 million Tibetans, rapes of ten of thousands of women and the total destruction of the Tibetan Buddhist culture. That comes much closer to the concept of the Holocaust than what Japan was condemned for. Even worse, the government of Mao Zedong caused the deaths of tens of millions of its own people during the Great Leap Forward in 1957. Unlike Japan, which has become an exemplary peaceful country, China has attacked most of its neighbors at different times and continues to do so. These disastrous policies continue with the repressions against the followers of Falun Gong – thousands of them are arrested and killed and their organs harvested.

　　In the 1960’s, the South Korean army fought in the Vietnam War. It was confirmed by the Vietnamese government that Korean soldiers have raped thousands of women, however, there is no information about entering documents of that event into the “Memory of the World” program. The crimes of the North Korean government against its own people are even more bloody.

　　Other catastrophic events, like the expulsion of 800,000 Jews from Muslim countries in the late 1940’s and the confiscation of their property, still haven’t caught the attention of UNESCO. Right now, thousands of Yezidis are killed by Muslim extremists and their women sold into sex slavery, yet UNESCO doesn’t seem to notice that either.

　　The organization, supposed to promote cultural mutual understanding, has fallen under the control of countries that perpetrate some of the worst abuses in the modern world. It is no wonder that some democratic countries refuse to finance such a betrayal of the principles of mutual respect and cooperation. If UNESCO is to preserve its relevance in the world, it should return to its original principles.

© 2016 Canada-Israel Friendship Association

 

The Japanese Colonial Legacy in Korea 1910-1945

There are various views on Japanese colonial administration in Korea in 1910-1945. Most Koreans believe, "Because of Japan, Korean modernization was delayed", "Under the Japanese, many Koreans were tortured and forced into labor", or "Koreans were brainwashed and we had to change our names to Japanese names"… Many Koreans label the Japanese colonial period as the cruelest, most atrocious, and the darkest period in Korean history. But is this so? 

George Akita (Emeritus Professor at the University of Hawaii) and Brandon Palmer (Adjunct Professor at Coastal Carolina University) have researched into the issue and published Japan in Korea: Japan’s Fair and Moderate Colonial Policy (1910-1945) and Its Legacy onSouth Korea’s Developmental Miracle (Tokyo: Soshi-sha, 2013). I introduce some points from the book below.

(The English version, The Japanese Colonial Legacy in Korea, 1910-1945, will be available on amazon.com on October 30 this year.)

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Colonial policy of Japan (p.61-66, Akita & Palmer, 2013)

First of all, the basic colonial policy strongly held by the leaders of the Japanese government since the Meiji era (1868-1912) was first presented by Yamagata Aritomo, which was inherited by following leaders. Although Yamagata’s policy was originally concerned with Ryukyu, which became Okinawa in 1897, this progressive and moderate policy was later applied to Taiwan and Korea.

The principle was, first, reflecting on the reality of the fierce territorial fight among the great powers in the 19^th century, to defend Japan from foreign invasion. This corresponds to the belief of the Western leaders that, for the purpose of security and safety, their own nation and areas under their administration must be defended at all cost.

The second principle was sound economy: Yamagata believed that vibrant, productive economy was closely related to making the newly acquired territory function as Japan’s stronghold (policy of increasing wealth and military power). He further pointed out that economic power of a nation / territory depends on whether it can rely on production of goods utilizing the geographic features characteristic of the nation / territory. And he emphasized that sales of such goods should benefit both Japan and the newly acquired territory, which shows that the Japanese colonial policy was based on the principle of reciprocity. 

The policy of reciprocity was expected to additionally provide the native people with strong motivation of defending their own land and Japan, but when the native people have no tradition of military or have little sense of patriotism, this expectation would fail. The solution was to provide Japanese education; and here, Yamagata still emphasized the importance of moderation in education, as in conscription of soldiers. Yamagata’s stance was gradualism, which became the basic stance of the Meiji government regarding reform and colonial administration. The Japanese government decided not to take a radical approach for reforming its colonies. 

Education in Korea (p.174-182, Akita & Palmer, 2013)

Looking at modern education, the policy of the government of the native Yi Dynasty did not move forward. In the traditional Korean society, “Yangban” (両班), males of the patrimonially privileged class, went to Seodang (書堂), small private school, but its education was based on Confucianism and was not fit for the modern era. According to Professor Michael J. Seth at James Madison University, Virginia, in 1904, “school education was limited in the capital Seoul, which only had 7-8 primary schools”, and out of the population of 12 million in Korea, only 500 students attended modern public schools. 

However, the number of students attending public primary schools in Korea was 20,200 in 1910 when Japanese administration officially started, and increased 45-times to 911,209 in 1937. At the same time, the total number of students at all schools, excluding those at private Confucius schools, totaled 110,800 in 1910, and increased 11-times to 1,214,000 in 1937. Moreover, one fourth of the total students were female. 

These numbers show astonishing progress; yet, even with such progress, only one third of the children who reached the school age could attend school. In the middle of the Greater East Asia War / WWII, the Japanese administration had planned to introduce compulsory education system in Korea in 1946. In 1939, the number of students at colleges and teacher’s schools was 6,313, and in addition, 206 students attended Keijo Imperial University, the only university established in 1925 in Seoul (predecessor of Seoul University). Furthermore, several thousand Korean students attended schools in Japan. 

Education in Western colonies (p.174-182, Akita & Palmer, 2013)

When comparing with other colonies of the West, it can be easily seen that the educational achievement in Korea under Japanese administration belonged to the best category. Even though only one third of the children who reached the school age could attend school in Japanese-administered Korea, in Cambodia under French administration, in 1944, “less than one fifth of the male children who reached the school age could go to school”, and the percentage of female pupils was much lower than that in Korea. In Cambodia, there was no university, and by 1953, Cambodians with university diploma totaled only 144. Considering the fact that France had colonized Cambodia since 1863, we can only say that French took education for Cambodians lightly. 

In Vietnam under French administration, only one in ten children of school age could benefit from modern education. Children of colonizers and native people went to different schools, and schools for Vietnamese were of poorer quality than those for French. In Korea under Japanese administration, initially, the schools for Japanese and Koreans were separate due to significant difference in academic ability; yet, as Koreans increased their ability, the number of co-eds increased. At the time of 1945, the literacy rate of Koreans was slightly less than 50%. Though it was lower than the literacy rate of the Philippines under the US administration, which was over 50%, the literacy rate for Indonesia at the end of the colonial period was only 8%, and 10% in French Indochina.

Furthermore, looking at colonized Africa as one continent, the literacy rate was 15-20%. Portugal colonized Angola, Guinea, and Mozambique for over 500 years, yet there was no native doctor in Mozambique, and the average life expectancy in eastern Angola fell short of 30 years. In Congo under Belgian administration, the value of native human resources was neglected, and Belgians only focused on exploitation of local wealth. Belgians had the policy of not creating native elite groups, and neglected mid-level and university education, and as a result, at the time of Congo’s independence in 1960, the native degree holders was less than 20 out of the population of 13 million.

Japanese Investment for Korea (p.182-186, Akita & Palmer, 2013)

The Chosen Government-General, or the Japanese administration in Korea, was in constant lack of funding, and debts kept increasing; however, for development of Korea, it made huge investments on railways, industrial and agricultural development as well as on educational system, health system, police, judicial system, etc. The financial source of the Government-General was mainly borrowing, and in 1941, the debts reached over 1 billion yen. 

For 10 years between 1929 and 1938, the number of businesses in the modern industry increased from 484 to 1,203, with over 230,000 laborers. Including the industry, agricultural industry, manufacturing, and construction, 2.1 million Koreans were employed in 1938 in one or the other modern industry sector. Needless to say, the quality of life for Koreans had dramatically improved compared to that in the pre-colonization period. 

In India under British administration, for 5 years between 1874 and 1879, estimated 4 million Indians were starved to death; whereas in Korea under Japanese administration between 1905 and 1945, not one famine had occurred. 

Research by Hildi Kang – What Koreans experienced under Japanese (p.91-98, Akita & Palmer, 2013)

Hildi Kang, a white American woman married to a Korean-American, interviewed a total of 51 elderly Koreans who had lived through Japanese colonial rule before eventually moving to the United States. Ms. Kang put together details of these interviews in her book, Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, 1910-1945 (Cornell University Press; 2005). Some of the interviewees included those who were put into jail, persecuted, or discriminated against in promotion by Japanese, and thus were expected to tell the stories of suffering. 

While Ms. Kang admitted that there was a limit to use the small sample of 51 interviewees as the primary source, and that recollection of the interviewees could be accompanied by misconception or vagueness due to loss of memory, she let the interviewees tell freely their memories of the lives under the Japanese administration, without asking her prepared questions.

As the interviews continued, Ms. Kang observed that the family members of the interviewees smiled and chuckled when listening to the stories of their fathers. She then realized that the experiences that the interviewees told with a sense of nostalgia all happened “under the bitter era of Japanese administration”. Then she asked herself: “Why can’t I hear the stories of Japanese act of atrocity that I expected?”

The interviewees saw, in the Japanese-ruled Korea, complication, shadow, contradiction, as well as normality; and at times, they even accepted favorably Japanese people in general, including the police. The interviewees started their stories by saying, “I experienced nothing harsh…”. There were many who said, “Not much of bad things happened”, 

“I have not experienced anything hard”, 

“Most Koreans adapted to Japanese rules”. 

This means that quite a number of Koreans “lived normal lives”.

Furthermore, three elderly interviewees all mentioned, 

“we could live our lives more or less based on our own choice”. 

Another interviewee described the time of 3.1 movement when a significant number of Korean demonstrators clashed with the Japanese police and army. The police started to arrest the demonstrators, but “the police chief spoke politely” especially to the elderly, and “loosened the rope and allowed us to go home”. He further continued that “the most kind was the police”. 

Another interviewee told Ms. Kang that his father received higher education than that of Japanese leaders, thus, “the Japanese police chief who was the highest authority in town always bowed his head deeply whenever he met my father”.

Another said, “I have no memory of having been harassed by the Japanese police or government officer”. 

Ms. Kang’s research shows that the Koreans who lived under Japanese rules themselves deny “the worst colony in the history”. 

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From the objective facts as well as the hearings from the Koreans who lived the time, we can see that the Japanese administration in Korea was basically fair, and that, even with huge debts, Japan dramatically developed Korea which had been suffering from the misrule of the native Yi Dynasty government. 

The Koreans who never cease to believe that Japan did the worst things to Korea should accept these facts in a matter-of-fact manner. 

How did Japan decide Korean annexation in what kind of the world? 

What was the situations in Korea before having been annexed by Japan? 

What was happening in other colonies around the world? 

By answering these questions, one can start to see the real picture of the Japanese-administered Korea. Koreans must have the courage to “know”. Emotional anti-Japan theory only increases hatred and leads their own country to a wrong direction. Japanese should also realize this, and should have enough knowledge and courage to raise voice to correct misunderstanding. Then, only then, we can start cooperating for the respective future.

If you want to have the objective knowledge on the issue, I strongly recommend you to read Japanese Colonial Legacy in Korea, 1910-1945 by George Akita and Brandon Palmer, available on amazon.com on Oct 30, 2014.

Falling Kono Statement - culprit of the comfort women myth

As you may know, Kono statement of 1993 is regarded as the evidence, and the official affirmation, that Japan committed the atrocity of making massive number of women as sex slaves. 

I do not blame those who believe in this – it is totally the fault of the Japanese government who has been silent, irresponsible, and coward in not stating known facts on the sensitive issue. But one should know what Kono statement really is and how it came about.

[The following is the rough English translation of the Sankei scoop on this]

The Kono statement was made based on the 5-day hearing investigation of 16 former so-called comfort women in 1993; however, the interview report was long undisclosed. 

On October 15, 2013, Sankei Shimbun finally obtained the interview report. In the report, the factual information was obscure, and different from what the women said in other occasions. Some names and date of birth were inaccurate. Although proper family registration system existed in the Korean peninsula at the time, only 8 comfort women indicated their date of birth, while 6 left it blank. 13 women left their hometown “unknown” though in Korea, the hometown is an important indication for an individual.

Some names indicated only family name, or were insufficiently written, without proper Kanji. Furthermore, some women testified that they worked in Osaka, Kumamoto, and Taiwan, i.e. non battle zones where comfort stations did not exist, though ordinary brothels existed. 5 comfort women who sued the Japanese government in 1991 were included as interviewees, but their testimonies differed from what they said in other occasions.

Before this interview took place, then Korean Professor Ahn Byung-jik of Seoul National University and his group conducted hearing investigation with 40 comfort women in 1992. The group met and interviewed the women 5-6 times, and stated in its report that “the cases that presented the most serious problems to the researchers were those in which the witnesses seemed to be intentionally distorting the facts”, and thus adopted only 19 of them in the report.

pp.36-43 is relevant to Prof. Anh's research --> http://www.sdh-fact.com/CL02_1/39_S4.pdf

It is highly probable that the hearing investigation of the government included those who were dismissed in the Korean investigation, but the government has not done any cross-checking or confirmation.

Former Deputy Cabinet Secretary Ishihara Nobuo, who was involved in the making of the Kono statement, was interviewed by Sankei, and said:

 “I did not look at the report, and I made judgment based on the briefing by the officer in charge. However, if the content of the interview report, which was the foundation of the Kono statement, is sloppy and lacks credibility, then it is a grave problem. The Korean government selected the 16 comfort women, thus the trust would be shaken.”

Kono Statement: In August 1993, then Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei, under Miyazawa Kiichi administration, expressed remorse and apology for former comfort women. Despite the fact that no government record was found, in and outside Japan, to prove abduction of women in recruitment, the statement confirmed forced recruitment, indicating that "in many cases they were recruited against their own will, through coaxing coercion, etc., and that, at times, administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitments." There is no cabinet approval for the statement.

 

Click here for Sankei scoop on Oct 16, 2013, in Japanese 

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The Korean government opposes to re-examination of the process of how the investigation with the comfort women was done for making the Kono statement. If there is nothing to hide, they should be glad to re-examine the process to prove their credibility.