Author: Yumiko Yamamoto

Japanese : https://i-rich.org/?p=2428

Yamamoto Yumiko
Director
International Research Institute of Controversial Histories

The United States President Trump himself spoke to the Republic of Korea President about the “comfort women” issue between Japan and South Korea. It was during the first U.S.-South Korea top meeting between President Trump and President Lee Jae-myung of the Republic of Korea held in the White House on August 25, 2025. During the nearly an hour-long meeting, the comfort women issue was covered for about four minutes at the end. However, President Trump exactly conveyed what the late Mr. Abe Shinzo presumably had told President Trump to the South Korean president. While thanking President Trump for mentioning the issue, we must bear it in mind that those are words Mr. Abe left regarding the friendly relationship between Japan and South Korea.

President Trump himself mentioned “comfort women”

The trigger was a question that a Korean reporter asked President Trump:

Before visiting the United States, President Lee visited Japan. So, is there something to discuss regarding the cooperation among South Korea, U.S. and Japan?

President Trump himself mentioned “comfort women”:

“I had a little bit of a hard time getting you (Japan and South Korea) together because you’re still thinking about comfort women. Right? Comfort women. That’s all they wanted to talk about, comfort women. And I thought that was settled a few times over the decades.”

“And it was a very big problem for Korea, not for Japan. Japan was...wanted to go. They want to get on. But Korea was very stuck on that.”

President Trump kept talking about the Japan-South Korea relationship:

“Japan wants to get along very well with you. And I find them to be great people, great country, obviously, and they want very much to get along with South Korea. And you have something in common. You know, you want to solve the North Korea problem. Japan very much wants to get along with you, and I’m sure they will. I find the people that I deal with to be wonderful people, as they do with you.”

Lastly, President Trump mentioned the late Prime Minister Abe and concluded that Japan and South Korea will cherish a wonderful relationship:

“And, you know, if you look at Prime Minister Abe, who was a great man, he was a great friend of mine, and he was assassinated. But he felt very warmly toward your country, I can tell you that. And the current Prime Minister, who I’ve gotten to know very well, feels the same way. So, I think you’re going to have a great relationship with Japan.”

Abe-Trump and the comfort women issue 　

Prime Minister Abe met Trump for the first time in November 2016 before Trump became President during his visit to Trump Tower in New York. For nearly three years and eight months since Trump became President in January 2017 until Prime Minister Abe’s resignation in September 2020, they were the United States President and Japanese Prime Minister and counting days until July 8, 2022, when Abe was assassinated, they were very good friends for nearly six years.

Meanwhile in South Korea, the Moon Jae-in administration started in May 2017. Although the comfort women issue was settled “finally and irreversibly” by the agreement reached between Japan-South Korea foreign ministers meeting in December 2015, movements to nullify the agreement went on.

In January 2018, the then diplomatic director Kang Kyung-wha announced the South Korean Government’s position that the 2015 agreement cannot be the true solution of the issue. In November of the same year, the South Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family announced the dissolution of the “Conciliation and Healing Foundation” established with one billion yen contributed by Japan.

In January 2021, in a lawsuit filed by former comfort women and others against the Japanese government, the South Korean Seoul Central District Court ruled to deny the application of the sovereign immunity rule in the international law and order the Japanese government to pay compensation to the plaintiffs.

Overseas, South Korean groups led the movement to install comfort women statues and monuments worldwide. Since 2017, among installations in overseas public sites, there are monuments and statues installed in Brookhaven, Georgia, San Francisco, California and Fort Lee, New Jersey, USA, and Berlin, Germany, and Stintino, Italy.

To President Trump, the fact that he came to know after the event that a woman who passionately hugged him during the state dinner held at the South Korean Presidential Residence Blue House while he was visiting South Korea in November 2017, was Ms. Lee Yong Soo, self-claimed former comfort woman, perhaps sparked his interest in the “comfort women” issue.

National leaders’ bond and historical controversy

It is widely known that President Trump and Prime Minister Abe enjoyed close relationship both officially and privately through official meetings, phone talks and playing golf together. It is reportedly said that there were 30 to 40 meetings while they held their respective offices.

Even with such close relationship, I suppose it was not easy for Mr. Abe to explain the “comfort women” in terms of the Japan-South Korea relationship to President Trump. Overseas, the “comfort women” is viewed not as a historical issue but as a women’s human right issue. There must be pressure toward sympathizing with allegedly victimized women, and it is presumably unforgivable to deny their statements. Professor Mark Ramseyer at Harvard University Law School, who published an essay depicting the historical truth about the labor contracts of the comfort women and faced the severest bashing from all over the world, is a good example of such a hard reality.

The fact that during the U.S.-South Korea top meeting this time, President Trump himself brought up “comfort women” and talked about the issue with the South Korean President shows that President Trump deeply trusts the late Prime Minister Abe and fully understands Mr. Abe’s message.

Now that the Prime Minister is gone, the statement made by President Trump can be a message to us in Japan and South Korea from the bond between the two leaders of the United States and Japan. I presume Mr. Abe Shinzo in heaven smiles and says, “Thank you, President Trump.”

Japanese: https://i-rich.org/?p=2349

Yumiko Yamamoto
Director, International Research Institute of Controversial Histories (iRICH)

Forty years or so after an incident occurred, when few survivors remain, fake information is spread, and sometimes the utter fabrication may be perceived as a ‘fact.’ “During World War II, the Japanese Army abducted young girls and women in the occupied regions, made them sexual slaves called comfort women, abused them, and when the war was over, most of them were killed.” The lie conceived about the so called comfort women issue is such an example.

And now, another type of fake information is being spread. It is the crash accident of Japan Airlines Flight 123 at Mt. Osutaka in 1985. The comfort women issue and the JAL’s accident may appear completely unrelated, but the common aspect of fake information is the anti-Japanese smear of the Japanese Army and Self Defense Forces.

Fake information linking the suspect to Japan Self Defense Forces

JAL’s flight 123 crashed down on Mt. Osutaka on August 12, 1985, killing 520 people on board, the worst airplane accident in history. The airplane accident investigation committee reportedly ascribed the cause of the crash to improper repair on the rear pressure bulkhead, which led the bulkhead to break down during the flight. The Japan Self-Defense Forces sent about fifty thousand troops for the disaster rescue mission. They accomplished the difficult task of rescuing survivors and retrieving victims’ bodies at a very inhospitable location.

Already at that time, there was a conspiracy-theory type of criticism against the Japan Self-Defense Forces participating in the rescue mission. However, now, forty years after the incident, fake information that the crash was perpetrated by the Self-Defense Forces is being spread again.

The theory of the JSDF as a perpetrator can be summed up as follows:

1)Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s escort ship in Sagami Bay during missile launching drill accidentally destroyed part of the JAL aircraft’s vertical tail. 2) Then, two Phantom II jet interceptors followed the JAL plane and shot it down with a missile. 3) After the plane crashed on Mt. Osutaka, the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force burned survivors and bodies, using flame throwers, to conceal evidence. 4) For that operation, they intentionally delayed the identification of the crash site and sending of an airborne brigade for the rescue mission. 5) Since the JAL’s pilot who once belonged to the Maritime Self-Defense Force knew about this plan and possessed materials related to the secret mission, a member of the Self-Defense Forces stripped the pilot’s body found on August 14 of his uniform and destroyed the material evidence.

The theory was too absurd for any member of the Self-Defense Forces or those concerned to believe or refute at that time. However, in the Internet sphere, this kind of fake information attracts many viewers and not a few people believe in the theory. Also, books promoting the theory of the Self-Defense Forces being the perpetrator sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Three books among them were selected for recommendation by the National School Libraries Association and were displayed at school libraries. At Mt. Osutaka, a memorial monument, inscribed with the statement that Passengers, Victims were intentionally killed by the Self-Defense Forces, was installed by bereaved families.

Refute fake information with facts

Deeply worried about this situation, former Self-Defense Forces members and former Japan Airlines employees testified at a symposium held at the House of Councilors Hall on April 16, 2025.

There, the theory of JSDF being the perpetrator was refuted:

1. The escort ship Matuyuki at Sagami Bay was in fact handed to the Maritime Defense Force in March of the following year (1985). At the time of the accident, the ship belonged to Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. and the person in charge of the ship was the captain appointed by Ishikawajima-Harima and many of the crew were civilians. As such, no missile was installed aboard the ship. In the first place, a missile launching drill was never conducted in Sagami Bay. If such a drill had been held, many people would have seen flames.
2. Two Phantom II jets of the Air Self-Defense Force scrambled from Hyakuri base in Ibaraki Prefecture at 19:01, four minutes after the JAL plane disappeared from the radar. There was no scrambling before the two Phantoms. Therefore, no Phantom pursued the JAL plane. After the Phantoms returned to the base, it was also confirmed that no missile was launched. Within the Self-Defense Forces, the management and handling of weapons is very strictly conducted. If a plane should return, missing a single missile, it would certainly raise hell.   
3. Immediately after the accident, it is physically impossible to carry portable flame throwers and fuel to the site. According to one book, flame throwers burned the area of 3.3 hectares. However, to burn the area of 3.3 hectares, it will require 220 sets of portable flame throwers, which is equivalent to the total number of portable flame throwers that the Ground Self-Defense Force possesses and 16 to 17 steel drums each containing 200 liters of fuel. In addition, to produce gelled oil, it usually takes one full day or at least five to six hours. To conduct such a huge-scale mission in a little time in secret is totally impossible.
4. As to the identification of the crash site, they tried to identify the accurate location from airplanes. The area burning around the crash site stretched like a long band and using the TACAN (tactical air navigation system) at that time was not free from errors. A little error makes a big difference in the steep mountain ridges. At that time, there was no GPS (global positioning system) available, and it was difficult to specify the location by the ground map. Another book writes that the rescue dispatch order to the First Airbourne Brigade on the day of the accident was changed, and they were ordered to stand by until the next morning, allegedly to intentionally delay the rescue dispatch. This is a sheer lie. In the first place, there was no standby order, and it was the next morning after the crash that the First Airbourne Brigade received the mission order.
5. During the work of retrieving bodies on August 14, there were already many people concerned and media people at the site. If a dead pilot wearing his uniform had been found, everybody would have seen it. It would have been impossible to remove the uniform from the pilot’s body. Aboard a helicopter, bodies were covered with blankets and tightly laid side by side. It was impossible to strip the body of the uniform. As a matter of fact, the pilot body was found on August 29, only the lower jaw and several teeth remaining.

Never repeat the tragedy of the comfort women issue

It is argued that the comfort women in wartime were sexual slaves. People at that time would have laughed off such a story as a lie. However, Yoshida Seiji’s book was published, the Asahi Newspaper reported it in the 1990s, and leftist lawyers and civil groups acted overseas. Consequently, the concept of “comfort women being Japanese military sexual slaves” spread through the international community, and comfort woman statues were installed across the world. If somebody dared to refute the sexual slavery theory, they were harshly criticized as “history revisionist.”

If a member of the Self-Defense Forces refutes the fake information asserting the theory of the Self-Defense Forces being the perpetrator, the Internet speech sphere criticizes it as the perpetrator’s excuse and speech control by the State. Those who delight at the spread of anti-Self Defense Forces information are leftist groups in Japan and South Korea, as well as North Korea and China. Both the comfort women issue and fake information over the JAL crash incident are wars of intelligence and history. They are also wars of recognition, streaming fake or biased information, using information media such as Social Network Services and Internet, and influencing receiver’s thinking and judgement. To protect the honor of the members of Japan Self-Defense Forces and to convey the correct history to the next generation, we must not leave fake information as it is but must patiently keep disseminating the truth.

Japanese : https://i-rich.org/?p=2196

Yamamoto Yumiko,
Director, International Research Institute of Controversial Histories (iRICH)

Don’t destroy the country while observing the Recommendations

In October 2024, at the United Nations Headquarters in Geneva, the 89th session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women was held.　At that session, the issues of Japan were examined after an eight-year pause. I attended the meeting as an NGO member and participated in joint activities with several groups, which have a cooperative relationship with us. After the session was over, the Committee announced the overall statement. In the statement, the Committee mentioned various recommendations, including the one referring to the revision of the Imperial House Law that designates the male member in the male lineage of the Imperial Family as a successor to the throne.

The Committee on the Convention and NGO

The United Nations Committees on human rights treaties, conventions and covenants, are used as venues by various NGOs that are not satisfied with their countries’ current situation to initiate changes in the system or the laws. They appeal to the Committee as a victim or a supporter of a certain human rights issue. The Committee members follow the NGO statements on the premise that in those cases, citizens are oppressed by the State. The task of the human rights experts chosen from all over the world is to save the weak.

Every few years, states that conclude human rights treaties are to be examined by the committee on the treaty as to how the treaty is properly carried out. Everyone that claims to be an NGO member can attend the examination committee and speak at the session held at the United Nations, Geneva. The most active NGOs at the United Nations arena are the so-called leftist liberal civil groups. Particularly, Japan has the overwhelmingly large number of participating NGOs. At the Committee on the Elimination of the Discrimination Against Women, over 40 NGOs had submitted their statements beforehand. Roughly 30 NGO groups spoke at the Geneva session and there were nearly 100 participants at the examination meeting concerning Japan. Among them, the so-called conservative NGOs, including our Institute, were 13, which means that nearly 90% were leftist NGOs and those who are linked with them. Even so, in fact, ten years ago, there were no conservative NGOs among the attendants.

Recommendations announced by the Committee in its overall statement have no legally binding power. However, in Japan, where there has been deep-rooted worship for the United Nations, the U.N. Recommendations have overwhelming effect because many people misunderstand that if the UN Recommendations are to be left unfulfilled, Japan would be left behind by the international community.

First, there is a treaty and then follow up recommendations

It is extremely difficult to refute the issue that has been recommended in the overall statement and to have the recommendations withdrawn. That is because the recommendations follow the treaty. For instance, the Japanese military comfort women issue. However laboriously Japan explains that comfort women were not forcibly abducted nor sexual slaves and that they were licensed prostitutes based on the contract, the Recommendation asking for measures to save former comfort women is not to be changed. This is because in Article 6 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women states: “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution of women.” If we make the point that allowing a husband and wife to have a different family name damages the traditional family bond and nullifies the family register system, the U.N. Committee still recommends that a husband and wife should have a different family name, citing Article 16-1 (g) “the same personal rights as husband and wife, including the right to choose a family name.”

In the sixty paragraphs of the overall statement issued this time, various other recommendations were included. For example, under the “sexual reproductive health right, girls aged 16 and older shall have access to birth control, abortion and abortive pills without the consent of their parent or spouse.” This recommendation is along Article 12-1: “...in the field of health care in order to ensure on a basis of equality of men and women, access to health care services, including those related to family planning.”

Recommendation related to the Imperial House Law

Japan concluded the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women in   1985. Prior to the conclusion of the Convention, on May 29 at the 102nd Diplomatic Committee of the House of Representatives, the then Foreign Minister Abe Shinzo stated regarding the relationship between the Convention and the Japanese Imperial House Law, “The succession to the Throne is restricted to a male offspring in the male line belonging to the Imperial Lineage and this does not constitute discrimination against women defined in Article 1 of this Convention.” The Japanese Government was aware of the possibility of raising a question related to the Imperial House Law, prior to the conclusion of this Convention.

In 2001, Princess Aiko was born and two years later, in 2003, Committee member Mr. Enrique A. Manalo from the Philippines during the examination meeting over Japan asked about the Japanese Imperial House for the first time. “Have the Japanese Imperial House and the Japanese Government ever discussed the revision of the Imperial House Law so that Princess Aiko may become female Emperor?” The overall statement that time did not mention the Japanese Imperial Law.

In the 2016 examination over Japan, no mention was made at all about the Imperial House Law. Nevertheless, the overall statement about to be announced after the examination was nearly ready to include a recommendation that “the male succession in the male lineage in the Imperial House Law is discriminatory against women.” To mention in the overall statement an issue which was not discussed during the examination creates a procedural problem. The Japanese Government protested the reference and the part in question was deleted before the public announcement.

Then, a surprise attack occurred. In the advance list of questions to the Japanese Government announced by the Committee dated March 9, 2020, a question was asked about the Imperial House Law, “Explain in detail measures to be taken anticipating that female succession to the Throne can be a possibility.” Japanese NGO, Public Incorporated Association “Jiyu Jinken Kyokai (Free Human Rights Association) had submitted their statement that “The Imperial House Law allows only a male member in the male lineage of the Imperial Family to succeed to the Throne and this is applicable to the definition of discrimination against women in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.” The Committee had taken up their statement for examination.

In response to the advance list of questions, the Japanese Government replied in the ninth Government report in September 2021:

“Our Imperial House system and Royal systems in various countries in the world have been maintained to this day, based on the respective national history and tradition, supported by the people. The method of succession to the Throne should be, as defined in the Imperial House Law, a fundamental matter concerning the foundation of the State. In the light of the objective of this Convention aiming to eliminate discrimination against women, it is not appropriate for the Committee to address Japan’s Imperial House Law.”

It was well anticipated that during the examination over Japan to be held in October 2024 in Geneva, the Committee would deal with the Imperial House Law. Hopefully, the Society of the People’s Union to Preserve the Imperial Lineage (male in the male lineage), led by Chairperson Ms. Katsuragi Nami, was to act against the Committee. They submitted their statement in advance, participated in the meeting, spoke as an NGO at the open session, submitted an additional statement and handed out a brochure to the Committee members. We hope the material and information explaining that the Imperial House Law has nothing to do with the discrimination against women were fully understood by the Committee members.

Against our efforts and expectation, the Committee made the following recommendation to the Japanese Government regarding the Imperial House Law in the overall findings announced after the examination session:

“The Committee recommends the State Party to pay attention to the good examples of other States Parties that have revised the method of succession to the throne to ensure the equality of men and women, revise the Imperial House Law so that the equality of men and women may be guaranteed in the succession to the throne.”

The Committee regarded the Imperial House Law as the issue concerned to Article 1 of the Convention, “equality of men and women in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field,” and Article 2 (a) “To embody the principle of the equality of men and women, in their national constitutions or other appropriate legislation.” Thus, it became clear again that the Committee does not consider the States Parties’ national character, culture, tradition or history.

Don’t destroy the country while observing the Recommendations  

My first visit to the United Nations in Geneva was in 2014 when the examination over Japan of the Committee on the Civil and Political Rights was held. My purpose was to convey our view that comfort women were not sexual slaves to the Committee that was led to hold the view that they were sexual slaves. The Committee members are experts chosen across the world. They had been informed one-sidedly by the Japanese leftist groups. We had expected that if we told them the truth backed by the right arguments, they would have better understanding of the issue. After we acted at several other Committees on the conventions, we came to realize that the real issue was the Convention itself. The Committee members’ work is to issue recommendations following the Convention. The members follow liberal feminist thinking. Under the red convention, members of red experts adopt Japanese red NGOs’ views and issue red recommendations. This is how the Committee works. They listen to the counter arguments but are never persuaded to take them into account. Is it a good idea for Japan to remain a State Party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women? If it is not a State Party, a state is not subject to the examination or recommendation. The recommendation related to the revision of the Imperial House Law this time totally lacks any respect or reverence to the Imperial House. I think it a sufficient reason to rescind the Convention. I have experienced the extremely abnormal atmosphere in the conference room where the examination over Japan was held at the United Nations, Geneva. I hope from the bottom of my heart to absolutely avoid such a situation in which Japan is covered up with that eerie atmosphere and ceases to be Japan.

【日本語版】https://i-rich.org/?p=1495

International Research Institute for Controversial Histories

Director

Yamamoto Yumiko

May,2023

A totally unimaginable and unprecedented movement concerning the comfort women issue, which has been the anti-Japan symbol in Korea, is developing now. It is the emergence of South Koreans who clearly respond with, “Lies are lies,” to the lies regarding the Japanese military comfort women which many South Koreans believe to be true. Many Korean women are participating in this movement.

Overseas, on the other hand, “comfort women” are still defined as “sexual slaves” and nothing has changed when it comes to the wrong perception of the Japanese military comfort women. The anti-comfort women education planting lies and hatred in children’s minds remains a grave concern. Initially, it was some Japanese that ignited the comfort women issue. In collaboration with the brave, new movement in South Korea, we must put a period to the comfort women issue.

Widely installed comfort women statues overseas in the 2010s

A comfort woman monument was built for the first time overseas in 2010 in Palisades Park City, New Jersey, USA. It was the outcome of the local Korean American citizens’ movement for the installation. In the following year, 2011, a South Korean organization, the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (presently the Council for Justice), installed the first comfort woman statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Korea. A replica of this statue was first established overseas in 2013 in Glendale City, California, USA. This was also led by local Korean American citizens. At present, there are about 30 comfort women statues or monuments at both public and private sites overseas, in the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany. In Korea alone, there are reportedly more than 140 statues.[i]

The words inscribed on these statues and monuments are objectionable. Japanese military comfort women are described with lies such as “sexual slaves,” “forced abduction,” “comfort girls,” “two hundred thousand or several hundred thousand comfort women,” “the largest-scale human trafficking,” and “most of them were killed during the war.”

The emergence of South Koreans who say, “Lies are lies.”

Then, in 2019, a totally unexpected incident occurred. Koreans who can say, “Lies are lies” appeared. In Korea, in July, the book Anti-Japan Nationalism became a best seller. And in December, a movement started against the demonstration by the Council for Justice that took place every Wednesday in front of the comfort woman statue, asking for the removal of the comfort woman statue. It was simply amazing that South Koreans themselves voiced “No!” against the comfort woman statue.

Brave actions taken by the Korean civil group led by Mr. Kim Byeong Heon and others

One of the leaders of this movement to eliminate the comfort women statues is Mr. Kim Byeong Heon, Representative, Korean History Textbook Research Institute. He led the formation of the “National Action to Abolish the Comfort Women Act” and “The Alliance to End Comfort Women Fraud” and since 2019 he has led the protest movement asking for the elimination of the comfort woman statue for one hundred and fifty or so times. They proclaim, “What’s great about holding up signs of fraudulent claims of ‘Forced abduction! Sexual slaves! War criminals!’ and building comfort women statues everywhere in the world?” It is truly risky, and it can even endanger their lives to say these things aloud in Korea. And yet, the activities of Mr. Kim and his group are not limited only within Korea. They went to Berlin, Nagoya, and Tokyo. They sent a statement of protest to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, where they planned to install a comfort woman statue and made a statement to the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

Mr. Kim Byeong Heon published a book titled Red Wednesday—Lies of Comfort Women Campaign Alive for 30 Years in 2021. The Japanese version of the book was published in 2022 by Bungei Shunju-sha. What is common between the two books, Red Wednesday and Anti-Japan Nationalism, is the assertion that Korea must stop lying in order to become a trustworthy and respectable country.

Serious influence of school textbooks stating lies about the comfort women

Regarding the comfort women issue, the most serious problem are the school textbooks. Mr. Kim Byeong Heon stated during the Japan-Korea symposium held in Tokyo in November 2022[ii]

   In Korea, school textbooks from the elementary to high school state fallacies as established facts, such as abduction, rape and murder of comfort women by the Japanese military, and disseminate, wide and large, these fallacies and teach them to pupils and students. What is written in the textbook for South Korean children about the comfort women are all lies that help them embrace vague hatred against Japan, a friendly neighbor, which is a criminal act. To teach lies and hatred to the future generation yet to grow up is to sow the seed of struggle and conflict between Japan and Korea.

Japanese who ignited the comfort women issue and continue to provoke the Koreans

In the first place, it was Japanese that set fire to the comfort women issue and spread it to Korea, the United States and the international community. In 1992, at the United Nations Human Rights Committee (presently the Human Rights Council), a Japanese lawyer Mr. Totsuka Etsuro dubbed comfort women “sexual slaves” without much consideration. It was “just an idea,” but it was the very beginning of the comfort women fuss.[iii]

In the following year, 1993, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations submitted a statement “Counter Report by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations—Human rights in Japan are questioned,” to the examination meeting of the 49th session of the United Nations Committee of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.[iv] This was supposedly the first NGO statement regarding the comfort women issue submitted to the human rights treaty bodies. According to the statement, the Japanese military “took the policy of ‘Three Annihilation Operations of Kill All, Rob All and Burn All’ and invaded in the beautiful names of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere and the Liberation of Asia,” “forcibly mobilized people in the colonial and occupied regions into the war as soldiers, military employees and comfort women as well as workers at the war industries, causing them enormous pain,” and “as to the military comfort women issue, not only Korean and Chinese women, but also women in the occupied regions in East Asia and civilian women from Netherlands and Australia were forced into sexual slavery, which caused many tragedies totally unforgivable in terms of humanity.” The statement was made by lawyers representing Japan. Who would think what was stated to be a lie?

And in October 2020, nearly 30 years after the event, I participated in the examination meeting concerning Japan of the 136th session of the Committee of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The same discussion went on and Japanese asserted, the same as ever, “Comfort women were Japanese military sexual slaves” and criticized “those who try to deny the history by attempting to erase the description from the textbook and removing the comfort women statue.” Thus, Japanese who had ignited the comfort women issue keep propagating the story of comfort women being sexual slaves even today.

For the future generation, put a period to the comfort women issue

Mr. Kim Byeong Heon concluded his speech during the Korean Conservative Great Talk Rally held in Seoul, in January 2021:

Hopefully, on the day when the Council for Justice that has been consistently lying for thirty years disappear from here, justice will justly stand here and the Korea-Japan relationship, which is on the verge of bankruptcy, will recover and become as solid as an iron wall. For that bright day to come, let us all unite and make efforts together. The future of the Republic of Korea is in our hands.[v]

The comfort women issue is one of the causes of the troubled Japan- Korea relationship. There are brave South Koreans who fight to remove distortion and fabrication related to the comfort women issue. Comparing to the courageous actions taken by Mr. Kim Byeong Heon and others, I cannot help but feel angry at those dishonorable Japanese who gladly work to denigrate their own country. As for this matter, I feel totally sorry for our great ancestors.

Japan and Korea must cooperate in order to stop the lie that “comfort women were sexual slaves.” I believe that it is our generation’s responsibility to do so for our children on whom the future depends. As specific tasks, I am thinking of supporting the Korean civilian activities like Mr. Kim Byeong Heon’s, publishing the Japan-Korea joint study and statement, holding international symposiums at home and abroad and working on the United Nations in our collaborated efforts. 

---

[i] The Sankei News, December 13, 2021. Comfort women statues, 160 statues in 10 years, Conflict over the statues in South Korea.

https://www.sankei.com/article/20211213-NMKYUMBBGFIXBFUWU3SBZLVLGQ/

[ii] Material from “Japan-Korea Joint Symposium” sponsored by the International Research Institute for Controversial Histories on November 16, 2022, at Bunkyo Civic Sky Hall, Tokyo.

https://en.i-rich.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/2022.11.16_Symposium.pdf

[iii] The Lie of “Comfort Women Being Sexual Slaves” Spread to the World by the United Nations—Report by the United Nations, Geneva, delegation, published by Jiyu-sha, May 29, 2016

[iv] The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (counter report to the 3rd session) “Counter Report by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations: Human rights are questioned,” compiled and written by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, published by Kouchi-shobo (sold by Kiri-shobo), 1993.

https://www.nichibenren.or.jp/activity/international/library/human_rights/library_report-3rd_jfba.html

[v] Mr. Kim Byeong Heon’s speech “Only when the Council for Justice and Remembrance disappears, the Korea-Japan relationship will be resumed” at the South Korean Conservative Great Talk Rally

http://nadesiko-action.org/?p=17750