Japan Should Atone for Its Crime-woven Past
Today, the international community is calling into question all sorts of atrocities committed by the war-crime states in their colonial and dependent countries, and efforts are being directed to making them correctly liquidate their past wrongdoings.
For example, Germany, a criminal nation of World War II, saying that the past crimes and misfortunes should not be repeated, made sincere apology and reparations to scores of countries and tens of millions of victims around the world. It also abolished a wartime crime prescription system, and delivers stern verdicts on the Nazi war criminals, regardless of their age.
On the contrary, Japan is still leaving no stone unturned to justify its colonial rule over Korea and escape from liquidation of its crimes there, denying and distorting history.
An international conference for peace and prosperity in Asia and the Pacific was held last year, in which this insular country, far from making sincere apology for its horrible crimes it had committed against the Korean nation and other Asian countries, behaved rudely that it could not accept it, that it was an eccentric thing and that it would cope with it resolutely.
Over its four-decade-long military occupation of Korea, it inflicted innumerable misfortunes and pains on the Korean nation; it forcibly took away millions of young and middle-aged Koreans to do slave labour, kidnapped over 200 000 Korean women and forced them to serve as sexual slaves for the Japanese soldiers, and killed over one million innocent people.
This being the facts, it doggedly denies its shuddering crimes, insisting that “they are against the facts”, “they were not sexual slaves but prostitutes,” and “it has no intention to make apology.”
Last year, the south Korean supreme court decided that Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industry should make reparations to the victims who had been forcibly drafted during the period of the Japanese occupation of Korea. At that time, Japanese Foreign Minister Kono shamelessly uttered that it could never accept it and that they would take strong steps, with all options under consideration.
But, voices are ringing out more loudly in demand of Japan’s liquidation of its past crimes.
Last February, over 20 Japanese intellectuals including professors, lawyers and pressmen held a press conference at the hall of the House of Representatives in Tokyo and released a statement. Holding that Japan’s military occupation of Korea cast a shadow over the history between the two nations and that it could never be erased, they condemned their country for showing no sign of trying to reflect on its crime-woven past and apologize for it.
Most recently, an annual general meeting of the Korean Committee on Measures for the Sexual Slavery for Japanese Army and Drafting Victims took place in Pyongyang.
Noting that it is an important issue for Japan to properly resolve its past history in ensuring peace and stability in Asia and establishing the basic ethics and order of the international community, it underscored the need to dynamically conduct the movement for demanding Japan liquidate its crime-woven past this year marking the 100th anniversary of the March First Popular Uprising.
For example, Germany, a criminal nation of World War II, saying that the past crimes and misfortunes should not be repeated, made sincere apology and reparations to scores of countries and tens of millions of victims around the world. It also abolished a wartime crime prescription system, and delivers stern verdicts on the Nazi war criminals, regardless of their age.
On the contrary, Japan is still leaving no stone unturned to justify its colonial rule over Korea and escape from liquidation of its crimes there, denying and distorting history.
An international conference for peace and prosperity in Asia and the Pacific was held last year, in which this insular country, far from making sincere apology for its horrible crimes it had committed against the Korean nation and other Asian countries, behaved rudely that it could not accept it, that it was an eccentric thing and that it would cope with it resolutely.
Over its four-decade-long military occupation of Korea, it inflicted innumerable misfortunes and pains on the Korean nation; it forcibly took away millions of young and middle-aged Koreans to do slave labour, kidnapped over 200 000 Korean women and forced them to serve as sexual slaves for the Japanese soldiers, and killed over one million innocent people.
This being the facts, it doggedly denies its shuddering crimes, insisting that “they are against the facts”, “they were not sexual slaves but prostitutes,” and “it has no intention to make apology.”
Last year, the south Korean supreme court decided that Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industry should make reparations to the victims who had been forcibly drafted during the period of the Japanese occupation of Korea. At that time, Japanese Foreign Minister Kono shamelessly uttered that it could never accept it and that they would take strong steps, with all options under consideration.
But, voices are ringing out more loudly in demand of Japan’s liquidation of its past crimes.
Last February, over 20 Japanese intellectuals including professors, lawyers and pressmen held a press conference at the hall of the House of Representatives in Tokyo and released a statement. Holding that Japan’s military occupation of Korea cast a shadow over the history between the two nations and that it could never be erased, they condemned their country for showing no sign of trying to reflect on its crime-woven past and apologize for it.
Most recently, an annual general meeting of the Korean Committee on Measures for the Sexual Slavery for Japanese Army and Drafting Victims took place in Pyongyang.
Noting that it is an important issue for Japan to properly resolve its past history in ensuring peace and stability in Asia and establishing the basic ethics and order of the international community, it underscored the need to dynamically conduct the movement for demanding Japan liquidate its crime-woven past this year marking the 100th anniversary of the March First Popular Uprising.
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