Shinzo Abe: "What Sex Slaves?"

This news has been floating around lately. I'm surprised there has been no discussion here.

Quote:

Decades past, little comfort for Japanese sex slaves
By Norimitsu Onishi

Thursday, March 8, 2007

SYDNEY: Three grandmothers from three different countries, speaking no common language, they had traveled far to protest outside the Japanese Consulate here.
What bound them — a 90-year-old Taiwanese from Taipei, a 78-year-old South Korean from Seoul and an 84- year-old Dutch-Australian from Adelaide — was their experience as sex slaves of Japan's military during World War II.
All three had participated in international conferences for Japan's former sex slaves before. But on Wednesday, just days after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan denied the military's role in coercing the women into servitude, the three were united in their fury.
"I was taken away by force by Japanese officers, and a Japanese military doctor forced me to undress to examine me before I was taken away," said Wu Hsiu-mei, 90, who had landed here the night before after a daylong flight from Taipei. "How can Abe lie to the world like that?"
Abe's denial drew official protests from China, Taiwan, South Korea and the Philippines, some of the countries from which the sex slaves were taken. They pushed back to the forefront a dark chapter of Japan's wartime history that, despite an increasingly well-organized international network of activists, seemed destined to lose its raw power along with the dwindling population of former sex slaves now mostly in their 80s.
The furor highlighted yet again Japan's unresolved history in a region over which it has been ceding influence to China. It has also put at the very center of an emotionally charged debate the United States, which has strongly resisted being drawn into the history disputes roiling East Asia in recent years.
The prime minister's comments resulted from a confluence of events. Abe, a nationalist who had spent his career trying to play down Japan's wartime past, was elected prime minister last fall. At the same time, the Democratic victory in Congress gave impetus to a nonbinding resolution in the House of Representatives that would demand that Japan unequivocally acknowledge and apologize for its sex slaves, known euphemistically as comfort women.
Even as Abe's closest allies pressed him to revise a 1993 government statement that acknowledged the military's role in recruiting the women, three former sex slaves testified in Congress last month. On Monday, Abe said he would keep the 1993 statement but denied its central admission of the military's role, saying that there had been no "coercion, like the authorities breaking into houses and kidnapping" women. He said that private dealers had coerced the women, adding that the House resolution was "not based on objective facts" and he would not apologize even if it were passed.
The resolution calls for Japan to "formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Force's coercion of young women into sexual slavery."
"Prime Minister Abe is in effect saying that the women are lying," Mike Honda, the Democratic congressman from California who is spearheading the legislation, said in a telephone interview. "I find it hard to believe that he is correct given the evidence uncovered by Japanese historians and the testimony of the comfort women."
Abe's distinction goes to the heart of the debate over state responsibility in Japan during the war. While Abe admitted coercion by private dealers, some of his closest allies in the governing Liberal Democratic Party have dismissed them as prostitutes who volunteered to work in the so-called comfort stations.
Japanese historians, using diaries and testimonies of military officials, as well as official documents from the United States and other countries, have been able to show how the Japanese military was directly or indirectly involved in coercing, deceiving, luring, sometimes kidnapping outright young women throughout its Asian colonies and occupied territories. As many as 200,000 comfort women are estimated to have served in stations that were often an intrinsic part of military operations. But Abe's allies point out there are no official Japanese government documents showing the military's role in recruiting the women.
In 1995, a private fund was set up to compensate the sex slaves, but many women refused to accept any money because they saw the fund's nongovernment nature as a way for Tokyo to avoid taking direct responsibility. Only 285 women have accepted money from this fund, which will be terminated at the end of this month.
According to historians, the military established the comfort stations to boost morale among its troops, but also to prevent rapes of local women and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among soldiers. Japan's deep fear of rampaging soldiers also led it to establish brothels with Japanese prostitutes across Japan for American soldiers during the postwar U.S. occupation — a fact that complicates American involvement in the current debate.
"An apology is the most important thing we want — an apology that comes from the government, not only a personal one — because this would give us back our dignity," said Jan Ruff O'Herne, 84, who testified before Congress last month.
Ruff was living with her family in Java, in the former Dutch East Indies, when Japan invaded in 1942. After she had spent the first two years in a prison camp, she said, Japanese officers came one day in 1944. They forced single girls to line up and eventually picked 10 of them, including Ruff, who was 21 years old at the time.
"On the first night, it was a high- ranking officer," Ruff said. "He had a beautiful sword — I can see it as clearly as if it were yesterday."
"It was so well organized," she said. "A military doctor came to our house regularly to examine us against venereal diseases, and I tell you before I was examined, the doctor raped me first — that's how well organized it was."
In Japan's colonies, historians say, the military worked with locals to recruit women or relied on them completely.
In Taiwan, Wu said she was 23 years old and working as a maid in a hotel in 1940, when her Taiwanese boss handed her to Japanese officers. She and some 15 other women were then transported in a Japanese warship from Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan to Guangdong in southern China.
Inside a hotel, the comfort station was managed by a Taiwanese but served only Japanese military, Wu said. As she was forced to have sex with more than 20 Japanese a day for almost a year, Wu had abortions and became sterile.
In Pyongyang, in what is now North Korea, Gil Won Ok, 78, said she had lined up outside a Japanese military base to look for work in her early teens. A Korean man, she said, approached her with the promise of factory work, but she eventually found herself in a comfort station in northeast China.
After she caught syphilis and developed tumors, Gil said, a Japanese military doctor removed her uterus. "I've felt dead inside since I was 15," said Gil, who was 16 when the war ended.
Ever since a Korean woman spoke in 1992 about her experiences as a sex slave and broke the silence, other women in several countries, assisted by private organizations, have revealed details about their lives during and after the war.
Like many of the women, Gil was unable to bear children and never married. She found herself in South Korea, separated from her family in the North; she took all sorts of jobs to survive.
One day, an unmarried woman for whom she had prepared seaweed soup gave birth to a boy, whom Gil immediately adopted. The son, now 49, is a Methodist minister and has his own family.
In Taiwan, Wu married twice, each time hiding her background. Somehow the husbands found out, and the marriages ended unhappily.
As for Ruff, she returned to the prison camp in Java after her release from the comfort station. Her parents swore her to silence. But it is at the camp that she met her future husband, Tom Ruff, one of the British soldiers who had been deployed to guard the camp after Japan's defeat. She told him her story once before they were married — long before they would have two daughters and migrate to Australia.
"But I needed to talk about it," Ruff said. "I could never talk to my husband about it. I loved Tom and I wanted to marry and I wanted a house. I wanted a family, I wanted children, but I didn't want sex. He had to be very patient with me. He was a good husband. But because we couldn't talk about it, it made it all so hard."
"You could talk to Dad about it," said her daughter Carol, 55.
"No, this is what I keep saying," Ruff said. "I just told him the story once. It was never talked about again. For that generation, the story was too big. My mum couldn't cope with it. My dad couldn't cope with it. Tom couldn't cope with it. They just shut it up. But nowadays, you'll get counseling immediately.
"You don't know how hard it was to carry this enormous burden inside you, that you would like to scream out to the world, and yet you cannot," Ruff said. "But I remember telling Carol, one day, I'm going to tell my story and people will be interested."

well, I really disappointed with Abe's statement, honestly. My granny is dutch descent, she told numerous story how Japanese military was sex-hungry monster during their imperial age. I'm grateful that my granny managed to avoid become sex slave, the worst was, she was being discriminated by japanese as 3rd class during their 3,5 years reign on East Dutch Indies.

We all adore japan's culture, but this news make me realize we should also not forget to be critical to japan.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Quote:

We all adore japan's culture

No we don't. Wrong forum.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Lol. Thought this was about Abraham Lincoln having a few sex slaves a la Jefferson Whew! Would've been... Odd.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Gechmir

Lol. Thought this was about Abraham Lincoln having a few sex slaves a la Jefferson

as did i. hah.


on a side note, more so than not, a fair share of people are fascinated with japan's culture. only it's mostly pointed at everyone and their mother thinking that anime is the complete representation of japan.


That article makes alot of sense though, and it is kinda depressing.

How do i put it, It's not so much that it's too crazy. It's too believable, it's too likely to abuse that kind of power. For him to deny it is pretty ballsy though.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Unfortunately, to at least most people here in the states, Japan is one of two things:

1. Just like an anime, with fancy technology everywhere, cute girls who squeal a lot, and the occasional robot attack.
2. Super traditional, where the men have swords at their sides and women wear kimono all the time.

Obviously, both views are far from the truth and a product of the movies/television/stories we've been exposed to. It's the only exposure we get to Japan here, through anime/manga/movies, so you can't blame that many people. Not too many people get to experience the real Japan. So you get a lot of Japan fans who think the country can do no wrong and its oh-so-much better than the states.

But of course, Japan has problems. And in this case, of the political nature. While problematic relations with the rest of Asia over the war is nothing new (Koizumi managed to rile them up every time he went to visit Yasukuni shrine), Abe's statement is pretty damn bold. I'm thinking this is more for his party support, since the LDP stance has always been pretty conservative. Unfortunately, he's willing to risk already poor international relations just for the sake of his party. Not a wise move on his part, but you gotta appease the people at home first before you do abroad (it's just politics).

In any case, I'm sure there would have been a less extreme way to do so. Not the best choice of words.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I've been following this a little... its rather depressing how the government just wont fess up. Hundreds of women witnesses (yet alone how many male witnesses there must be... lord only knows if they'll ever admit it though).

I watched a movie about the Vagina Monologues (they're basically skits about what women of the world go through), and the creator actually got a group of these comfort women together and asked them what it was like. Up to 20 men a day, during periods, abortions... horrible. One women said that her family is now ashamed of her for speaking up. Her children (not from any soldiers, but of her husband) wont talk to her because they blame her for letting the Japanese use her, and are ashamed that she's talking about it.

Sickening and heart-breaking. I really wish the Japanese government would just apologize. But that would be admitting they did wrong, and would cost them millions.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

A official apology from the Japanese government would go a long way for those women. Even a vaguely worded one. "Oops, sorry we went to war and caused a few problems back then!".

Originally Posted by TemariPC31

Sickening and heart-breaking. I really wish the Japanese government would just apologize. But that would be admitting they did wrong, and would cost them millions.

I think it's more of a cultural thing then a financial liability that prevents them from admitting doing any wrong.

FELIPE NO

If anything, denying wrongdoing is more of a liability because it creates a popular sentiment that discourages doing business with the Japanese.

Systematic rape certainly isn't a problem now, so how would admitting past wrongdoings put Japan in a negative light?

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Japan seems in general to have a big problem with his WWII past. It doesn't matter if you talk about crime or female sex slaves.

If it's true what I read then is the education in Japanese schools about WWII very bad.

And two another words: Yasukuni shrine.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Smooth move, Abe. That's really going to help the troubled Japan + Rest of Asia relations.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

There has been a general reluctance in Japan for people to discuss the war. This has been the case since the end of the war and nothing is probably going to change that attitude for awhile.

Japan has a very different stance on the war than Germany does. In Germany, holocaust denial is a criminal offence. They've been open and admitting about their role. However, in Japan, no such laws about war denial exists, which means all viewpoints (including the denials) get equal hold. While it's great for free speech purposes, it lets viewpoints similar to Abe's get broadcasted on a national level.

So unfortunately, I think it might just be the case that he actually does believe what he says. I'm hoping it's ignorance and misinformation rather than any actual attempt to provoke his Asian neighbors.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Why I'll continue to respect Abe (he and Koizumi were the best things to happen to that office in quite a long while), he's needlessly provoking people now while ignoring several real, more important problems in his country. I've studied a lot of countries' histories in-depth, so I'm surprised that I'm about to use a stereotype here, but is he really concerned about repainting everyone's views of Japan's atrocious acts during their imperialist days (and I have no problems with imperialism, either)?

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A large reason for the lack of discussion (or an apology, for that matter) from the Japanese government is because after WWII there was no systematic dismantling and condemnation of the ruling power. Military generals were charged, but many people continued to serve the Japanese government after the war in exchange for whatever favors the US government needed (such as medical documents from Unit 371, or simply credibility towards the people). Since the US never spent the time condemning the Japanese government at the time for its actions (instead turning it into its Asian ally), Japan never went through the guilt phase Germany did after learning of the Holocaust.

It is important to note, though, that Abe's recent statements regarding the sex slaves don't really have much to do with Asia, or the sex slaves themselves. He's responding to the US congressional act demanding Japan apologize for the sex slaves, since he wants to appear more independent of the US. Of course, he's doing it in an outright stupid manner (the Abe government is largely a bunch of buffoons) but his intentions are all the same.

Japan does need to formally apologize, though, and offer some kind of official compensation, or they're never going to really fix their relationship with the rest of Asia.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Watts

I think it's more of a cultural thing then a financial liability that prevents them from admitting doing any wrong.

That's true, it has been pointed out that Japan is hush-hush about the war time, but someone had to have considered how much money an apology would cost them. I understand that Japan isnt exactly America (thank god), but legal cases (little old ladies suing Japan!) and compensations would come up the second an apology is made. Money for the legal cases, money investigating the women to make sure they really were comfort women, and then the compensation itself...

I can only imagine how it would hurt the Japanese government, both in Pride and in the wallet. @_@ I totally wish they'd do it though.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

It's not a financial issue though - they can almost certainly afford to pay the limited compensation. Remember, a lot of these people are old now and many have probably passed away.

It is a matter of pride; same with Yasukuni. It just has to change. Japan is risking too much for too little.

FELIPE NO

Not to mention that many of the women are unwilling to come forward because of the shame it'll bring themselves/family.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Article

As many as 200,000 comfort women are estimated to have served in stations that were often an intrinsic part of military operations.

Perhaps a bit more than that.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

It's alright, if Japan holds out for another decade or two the problem will go away by itself!

There's nowhere I can't reach.

So, did anyone actually read those Historians' studies putting light on the government's active involvement ? 'Cause yeah, Abe isn't saying there wasn't sex slaves like the thread title hints at, but that the government wasn't involved.

Not infirming either thesis here since I haven't read anything on the subject, but sincerely wondering if any of you guys have.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Given that Abe was born a decade after the war, and the very real possibility that he was fed a doctored version of history, this was not surprising.

niki, how possible is it to systematically gather 200,000 'comfort women' for an army without the involvement of the Japanese government? Especially in a society as hierarchical as Japan's?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Zergrinch

niki, how possible is it to systematically gather 200,000 'comfort women' for an army without the involvement of the Japanese government? Especially in a society as hierarchical as Japan's?

Considering that the army in question is the Imperial Japanese Army, it's more possible than one might think at first. Remember that the IJA was effectively a law unto itself, and its junior officers were in particular quite happy to use violence to get the government to do what they wanted. They attempted several coups and assassinated several government ministers in the 1930s, for example.

So yeah, it was quite possible for the Japanese army to gather 200,000 "comfort women" itself, without the involvement of the Japanese government.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Was the army an extension of the government?

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Originally Posted by Bigblah

It's alright, if Japan holds out for another decade or two the problem will go away by itself!

The senior members of the Japanese Government would rather wait the problem out -- it isn't as though the women lodging these complaints are getting any younger. Afterwards, the entire ordeal gets whitewashed and swept under the rug. Saves its pride and a lot of money.

My problem is what if China decides to write an ignored wrong by tapping Japan upside the head with a nuclear warhead. It's a far-out scenario, but it's one to consider.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by FLEX

My problem is what if China decides to write an ignored wrong by tapping Japan upside the head with a nuclear warhead. It's a far-out scenario, but it's one to consider.

No, it really isn't. China wouldn't be stupid enough to risk their new-found global power by doing something that stupid. At most you'd get a political sanctions and increased tension. God, you're useless.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Which explains China's military buildup:

China's defense budget to rise 17.8% in 2007
Chinese military superpower?

They're fully aware that at this moment, we have the power to fcuk them up royally if need be. Building up their military defenses up to a point where the U.S. would pause and weigh the consequences would be in their best interests, especially if they decide to expand their global power.

Jam it back in, in the dark.