Korean Comfort Women – slaves or employees?

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Advertisement in Keijo Nippo (Seoul Daily), 26 July 1944

URGENT RECRUITMENT DRIVE FOR COMFORT WOMEN

Age requirements:    Must be between the ages of 17 and 23

Place of employment: Behind-the-lines comfort station attached to Military Unit X

Monthly pay:             300 yen (may authorize advance pay of up to 3,000 yen)

Working hours:         8:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m., subject to consultation

Apply to:                   Imai Agency, 4-20 Shinmachi, Keijo City, Telephone: East (3) 1613

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What’s this?

This is a job advertisement for comfort women in the newspaper, Seoul Daily, distributed in Keijo (Seoul) during the WWII when Korea was under the Japanese administration.

Do you notice the monthly pay? – 300 yen.

At that time, a Japanese Imperial Army sergeant was paid 30 yen a month.

An American historian Max von Schuler-Kobayashi frankly asserts as follows:

“As far as the comfort women were concerned, they were paid. The recruiters were all ethnic Koreans. People have conjured up an image of the Imperial Japanese Army rampaging through Korean villages, and hauling off screaming women. This never happened.”

An American Historian Accuses the Lies of Sex Slaves, “This is profanation of history!” 

 

Max also sent a letter to the members of the City Council of Glendale, California, who misunderstand the issue and have decided to put up a memorial to the "Comfort Women".

Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact also points out that poverty prevailed in those days, and just as at similar instances in history, a great many poor women found the pay so attractive that they were willing to accept the concomitant risks.

 “Since the Koreans insist that Korean women were coerced into prostitution, we must ask them why they did not rise up in anger. At the time ethnic Japanese represented only 2% of the population of the peninsula, and half the police officers were Korean. The Korean population was certainly capable of rebelling or rioting.

But there were no rebellions. There was no rioting. If there were indeed abductions of young women, did Koreans stand by in silence while their daughters, sisters and girlfriends were abducted by a small number of Japanese and forced into prostitution? The Koreans of that era were neither apathetic nor powerless. The absence of riots or rebellions proves beyond a doubt that there were no abductions.”

pp.117-119 of "A New Look at the Annexation of Korea" shows relevant newspaper articles from 1930s - 1940s.

It was definitely a sad time when women had to sell themselves to live and/or support their family. However, the Koreans who claim “sex slavery by the Japanese army” are in fact fooling themselves, and the world. Whatever sentiment they may have toward Japanese, falsification of history should not be tolerated.

China Japan Relation 101

Why is China so hostile to Japan?

Ms. Sakurai Yoshiko neatly explains the situation of China on online Genron TV.

Let’s take a look at key points and analysis she puts forward.

First, here is the economic disparity data:

Japan            the top (richest) 1% owns 9% of the national wealth (GNI)

US                  the top 1% owns 23% of the national wealth

China            the top 0.4% owns 70% of the national wealth

Wow. That’s too much of a disparity in China – the richest is really stinking rich!

And who are the rich?

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders who control all: the economy, the military and the justice. Indeed, the judges are appointed by the CCP; meaning, the CCP is above the rule of law.  

In fact, you may remember that in late 2012, New York Times put up a big article on China’s former Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s (温家宝) family assets – totaling US$ 2.7 billion. All of this is “legal” assets, they say. Just to remind you, China’s GDP per capita is US$5,400 (in 2011).

The leaders of the CCP normally send their kids overseas for education. The remittance from China for kids and relatives who live abroad amounts to about US$11 billion every year (what’s known). Ms. Sakurai analyzes that the CCP is afraid of people getting to know about the fact of the stinking rich, and thus, carries out strict censorship of the internet.

But people do sense these things. There are 300,000 cases of riots every year in China – that’s like 600 – 1,000 riots per day. People are fed up with the unfair and corrupt system of the society, namely the CCP rule.

China’s military expenditure has been growing at 2 digits every year for the past 24 years. The country is now the second largest military superpower. Yet, the CCP spends much more money on controlling the people inside the country: police, armed police, security police, wiretapping, monitoring of the internet…

Despite all these efforts, 300,000 case of riots every year…

How can the CCP control the dissatisfaction of the people while keeping their too-good-to-be-true privileges?  

Deviate the dissatisfaction outside, i.e. to a foreign country Japan.

Thus China has been taking the hardline tactics by force, targeting Japan and making it “evil”. The Democratic Party of Japan who took power for 3 years up to 2012, for example, succumbed to this tactics. But then why has not Japan been able to stand up against such threats by China? Ms. Sakurai sharply points out: It’s because Japanese people have closed eyes on the modern history.

Because Japanese don’t know the history, when Chinese say “You committed such atrocities!”, they can’t say anything. Many Japanese politicians also have not studied the history properly, and when confronted with the “historical problems”, they retreat. However, Ms. Sakurai strongly emphasizes that in order to keep a good relationship with China, and to be able to speak up in dignity, Japanese must first learn the modern history.

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You can watch this talk by Ms. Sakurai on youtube (unfortunately, only in Japanese). I feel this is a very good introduction on the topic, and for sure a must-see for Japanese!

And yes, we need to learn: once we learn, we would know in fact how much lies and incorrect things are spoken loudly, and believed, today.

The Good Cause - the reason to go into the war

Someone said the following, in debating the reason for Japan to go into the Greater East Asia War / Pacific War (WWII):

"Taking back Asia for Asians was certainly a good cause."

It sounds very nice, but I doubt if you'll find many people, even in Japan, who actually believe that's what Japan's real motives were...

Yes, there are many informed ones who know, in and outside Japan!

First of all, it's quite obvious from the extensive list of countries the West had colonized by the late 19th century, i.e. almost all parts of the world except the far east. 

In June 1955, a former Lieutenant-General Aketo Nakamura was invited to the Kingdom of Thailand. The former Prime Minister of Thailand, Kukrit Pramoj, who was Chief Editor of the newspaper ‘Siam Rath’ at the time and who took office as Prime Minister in 1973, stated:

“It was thanks to Japan that all nations of Asia gained independence. For Mother Japan, it was a difficult birth which resulted in much suffering, yet her children are growing up quickly to be healthy and strong. 

Who was it that enabled the citizens of the nations of Southeast Asia to gain equal status alongside the United States and Britain today? It is because Japan, who acted like a mother to us all, carried out acts of benevolence towards us and performed feats of self-sacrifice. December 8th is the day when Mother Japan – who taught us this important lesson – laid her life on the line for us, after making a momentous decision and risking her own well-being for our sake.

Furthermore, August 15th is the day when our beloved and revered mother was frail and ailing. Neither of these two days should ever be forgotten”.

US had 78 times more resources (oil, coal, iron-ore, etc) than Japan had at the start of the war in 1941. Why would Japan go into such a suicidal war if there was no serious cause such as defending its sovereignty and getting rid of the West from Asia, and if she was not pushed into it? 

Many people do know the reason.

Reliable Testimonies by the Innocent Victims?

Most people who believe in “Japanese sex slavery of Korean women during WWII” probably do so because these “victims” are saying so. But have they ever examined their testimonies given at various places over time?

For example, Lee Yong-Soo, a former comfort woman living in Seoul at Nanum House, have been explaining the circumstance of kidnapping at various occasions as follows:

1992, in the report submitted to Korean Council for Women Drafted for Sexual Slavery by Japan: “Delighted to receive a red dress and leather shoes from a man wearing clothing resembling a uniform. Went along with him right away”.

2000 Dec, at Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery: “Deceived by Japanese man (comfort station proprietor)”.

2002 Jun, in the article in Akahata, Japanese Communist Party’s paper: “kidnapped at bayonet point at the age of 14”. 

2007 Feb, at hearing at US House of Representative: “In the autumn of 1944, when I was 16 years old, my friend, Kim Punsun, and I were collecting shellfish at the riverside when we noticed an elderly man and a Japanese man looking down at us form the hillside.… the Japanese beckoned to us to follow him. I was scared and ran away…. A few days later, Punsun knocked on my window early in the morning, and whispered to me to follow her quietly. I tip-toed out of the house after her. I left without telling my mother…. I followed my friend until we met the same man who had tried to approach us on the riverbank. He looked as if he was in his late thirties and he wore a sort of People’s Army uniform with a combat cap. Altogether, there were five girls with him, including myself.”

These statements differ so much from each other though describing the same event. Even if one would defend Lee Yong-soo for her weak memory due to old age, these are simply “different” stories on how the kidnapping occurred. It is natural to think that Lee Yong-soo cannot stick to one story, because what she is trying to say is not true. 

More details on “No Organized or Forced Recruitment” (Differing versions of Lee Yong-soo’s account on p.10)

http://www.sdh-fact.com/CL02_1/31_S4.pdf

Even Korean Professor says No Evidence on Forced Comfort Women

It was not until the 1990s that Koreans started claiming on “Comfort women”. The issue was started by a book “My War Crimes” published by a Japanese communist Yoshida Seiji in 1983. In the book, he wrote that he had captured 205 Korean women in the Jeju Island in 1943 with other 19 Japanese soldiers to make them sex slaves for the Japanese army. The book was translated into Korean language in 1989 and surprised Korean people especially the residents of the Jeju Island.

Soon after that, Jeju Sinmun, a local newspaper in the island, made an investigation and issued a report on August 14, 1989 that no resident of the island had ever heard such a story. Subsequently, the author of the book himself admitted that he had made up the story in an interview with a Japanese magazine in 1996, stating, “There is no profit in writing the truth in books. Hiding the facts and mixing them with your own assertions is something that newspapers do all the time too”.

Despite the denial by Jeju people and the author himself, Koreans kept insisting this story must be true. In 1990, a special organization to deal with the issue named the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Slavery by Japan was established. They started collecting testimonies from old Korean women, who confessed that they had been Comfort Women. 19 testimonies were collected and published in 1993 as “Testimonies 1”.

However, Honorary Professor Ahn Byung-jik of Seoul National University, who supervised the research and publication of the testimonies, stated in a news program in 2006 as follows:
“The point at issue is, needless to say, Comfort Women existed. Nobody denies it. The problem is whether Comfort Women were mobilized forcibly or not. Some former Comfort Women testified that there had been forced mobilization. However, no objective evidence has ever been found in both Korea and Japan. This is the problem.”

“It is an objective historical fact that Comfort Women had spontaneity, more or less. For example, there were traders, who were doing business by recruiting Comfort Women…. Over half of the agencies were Koreans. What kind of power did those Koreans have to mobilize Comfort Women forcibly?”

Despite the fact that the Korean professor who led the research himself admitted that there was no sufficient evidence to verify those testimonies, the story “Japanese Army abducted 200,000 women to make them sex slaves” spread worldwide due to the enthusiastic campaign by those “innocent victims”. 

From Sex, Lies and Comfort Women
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLyKJsbw4G4 ("Comfort Women" starts at 12 min 24 sec)