反省の会コミュのちょっと

Seoul ups ante on war crimes
Tokyo 'legally responsible' for sexual slavery, forced labor

Compiled from Kyodo, AP
SEOUL -- The Japanese government is obliged to take legal responsibility for crimes committed during its 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, including conscripting Koreans into sexual slavery and forced labor, Seoul declared Friday.

Delegates from Japan and South Korea sign the 1965 Seoul-Tokyo treaty at the Prime Tokyo in June 1965.

South Korea's demand, which is expected to touch off a new diplomatic row, represents the first clear-cut statement by a South Korean government that Japan is legally responsible for its war crimes since the two countries normalized diplomatic relations in 1965.

Until Friday, South Korea's government had maintained a similar line to Tokyo's, stating that Japan may be "morally" responsible for its harsh rule, but not legally.

South Korea's new position was announced with the disclosure of diplomatic documents that were exchanged with Japan in the leadup to the two nations' normalization of ties four decades ago.

"The Japanese government has legal responsibility for inhumane illegal activities committed by the state power, such as the government and the military, including 'comfort women,' " reads a statement issued after a meeting presided over by Prime Minister Lee Hae Chan.

"Comfort women" is Japan's euphemism for females forced into sexual slavery for Japanese wartime troops.

The statement says the issue of compensation for victims of Japan's "inhumane illegal acts" has not been put to rest by the Seoul-Tokyo talks.

South Korea will continue to intensify diplomatic efforts to settle issues relating to those "inhumane illegal acts" committed during Japan's colonial rule, the statement says.

"We cannot see that the normalization treaty resolved such inhumane crimes as comfort women, in which Japan's state power, such as the government and military, was involved," said Yu Chong Sang, a senior official at the prime minister's office. "Japan's legal responsibility remains."

Other "inhumane crimes" include slave laborers who died during their ordeal, and those caught up in the atomic bombings who were in Japan against their will, Yu said.

However, Seoul is not holding Japan responsible for other slave labor cases, as the money it received from Tokyo at the time of normalization included compensation for that, he said.

South Korea received an $800 million package, including $300 million in grants, from Japan in return for establishing ties. Yu said the $300 million was seen as resolving the compensation issue for slave labor.

But South Korea did not widely distribute the funds among individual victims, instead diverting them toward economic development.

The government of President Park Chung Hee used the money to build a highway linking Seoul and Pusan, and to establish Posco, now the world's fifth-biggest steelmaker, and other projects.

Yu said Friday that South Korea would study ways to make financial compensation to individual victims.

In reaction to Seoul's new position, Japan reiterated that the wartime compensation issue was settled with the 1965 treaty.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Akira Chiba said Tokyo has provided aid to address the humanitarian issue through a women's fund, and believed the legal issue was settled through inter-government agreements on economic cooperation.

Friday's disclosure on the diplomatic negotiations, which were conducted over a 14-year period from 1951, was the first since January.

The documents, totaling over 35,350 pages, also detail negotiations held on compensation for victims of Japan's colonial rule.

They are expected to prompt a series of compensation demands from those who suffered under that regime, including those forced into slave labor or sexual slavery.

"We hope the disclosure of the documents would not have a negative effect on relations between the two countries," Lee Hyuk, Asian affairs bureau chief in the South Korean Foreign Ministry, was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency.

The normalization talks also covered the legal status of hundreds of thousands of Koreans living in Japan, and the retrieval of Korean cultural assets taken to Japan during the colonial period, as well as a bilateral fishery accord.