2016年3月22日火曜日

An Introduction to the "Comfort Women Issue" for The New York Times (by Nobuo Ikeda)



 Updated on March 27, 2016

This chapter introduces an article written by a Japanese journalist, Nobuo Ikeda.  His article can explain how Comfort Women Issue has grown into serious international dispute between Japan and South Korea, despite there were no evidences at all indicating that the Japanese military did NOT systematically dragoon young Korean girls and women..  Historical evidences indicate that most of Comfort Women, if they were unwilling to become so,  were sold by their parents to private brokers dealing with sex business because of family's poverty or they were deceived by dishonest brokers.  The brokers who recruited Korean Comfort Women were civilians, and many were Korean men

The following contents were copied from Ikeda's website

An Introduction to the "Comfort Women Issue" for The New York Times

(Minor Update)
Original source by Nobuo Ikeda
Translated by randomyoko
PDF version (143KB)


The Comfort Women Issue Has Been Taken Up by the NY Times

On January 2, 2013, The New York Times digitally published an editorial article entitled, "Another Attempt to Deny Japan’s History." It is odd that The New York Times has commented on this issue, as America has almost nothing to do with Japanese-Korean relations. The article itself is written in a tone so strong that you wouldn't even get to read it in Japanese newspapers.

Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, seems inclined to start his tenure with a serious mistake that would inflame tensions with South Korea and make cooperation harder. He has signaled that he might seek to revise Japan’s apologies for its World War II aggression, including one for using Koreans and other women as sex slaves. 

In 1993, Japan finally acknowledged that the Japanese military had raped and enslaved thousands of Asian and European women in army brothels, and offered its first full apology for those atrocities […] 

It is not clear how Mr. Abe, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, might modify the apologies, but he has previously made no secret of his desire to rewrite his country’s wartime history. Any attempt to deny the crimes and dilute the apologies will outrage South Korea, as well as China and the Philippines, which suffered under Japan’s brutal wartime rule.

Mr. Abe’s shameful impulses could threaten critical cooperation in the region on issues like North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Such revisionism is an embarrassment to a country that should be focused on improving its long-stagnant economy, not whitewashing the past.
(emphasis added)

In Japan, nowadays, there are very few media outlets which insist on discussing the controversial issue of whether or not those women were forced to accompany Japanese soldiers. The Asahi Shimbun, which triggered this whole issue, even withdrew a previous editorial article in which they acknowledged the existence of forced company, expressing that modifying the Kono Statement announced in 1993, in which the government had apologized for the issue of comfort women, is equivalent to "seeing only a branch and not the whole stem." 

In the mean time, the comfort women issue has persistently been taken up in the United States, with such examples as the New York State Legislature submitting a resolution which asks the Japanese government to apologize to former comfort women. Most of the language surrounding the issue features absurd expressions, describing the event as "the biggest instance of human trafficking in the 20th century." It is disappointing that even The New York Times has made claims that the Japanese military raped and enslaved those women.

It is impossible to convince most Koreans on this issue, and America plays a big role in that. It would be ideal if the United States were willing to be the bridge between Japan and Korea, but the Department of State has expressed their opinion that if Japan modified the Kono Statement, it would complicate problems between Japan and Korea. The editorial in The New York Times is most likely a reflection of American government policies like this. 

Politically speaking, this might be a reasonable judgement. On this issue, it is impossible to correct Korea's misunderstanding. However, at least there is a desire on behalf of westerners to understand the issue of comfort women. This is why, even though it may take a long time, we must look back and confirm the facts of which western media is fundamentally unaware, or perhaps, has misinterpreted.

The Disturbance All Started From a Con-man's Lies
 
Since long ago, there has been an urban legend which tells of the Japanese military having served "comfort women", however, even the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea in 1965 doesn't claim any associated reparations. The expression, "military comfort women", was created by a Japanese reporter, and what's more is, there is no proof that such a phrase was ever used during the war.

However, in 1983, a former Japanese army soldier, Seiji Yoshida published a book entitled, "My War Crimes." In his book, Mr. Yoshida claims that he went to Jeju island, and that he went on a "comfort women hunt" to draft a lot of women into the women's volunteer corps and to take them to the battle fields. This was proclaimed by a lot of media outlets as a "courageous testimony," despite the fact that his statements about time and place were vague, and didn't declare who did the hunt and where. Because of this, the local newspaper publishing company of Jeju island went on an investigation and discovered that there was no such village which appeared in the book, nor proof that the Japanese army had ever come to that place.

Since there were no other persons who shared this kind of testimony, there arose suspicion that his statement had been fabricated and he was interrogated by Japanese historians like Ikuhiko Hata. He ended up confessing in 1996 that the story was fictional. Ordinarily, it might be hard to believe that someone would announce that they had committed crimes, but as for war experiences, there are some "con-men" that try to make money with their books and lectures, using an exaggerated account of "repentance" in order to get attention.

Usually, this would be the end of the story, but since the story of Yoshida was taken up by the Korean media was well, in 1990, "The Conference of Countermeasure Against the Volunteer Corps" was formed to ask that Japan pay reparations for the comfort women. In response to this movement, lawyers in Japan such as Kenichi Takagi and Mizuho Fukushima looked for an accuser with the intention of bringing a lawsuit against the Japanese government. The woman who turned up was Kim Hak-sun.

Coming to Japan in August, 1991, she got the attention of the media for being the first case in which one of the legendary "comfort women" brought herself into the public light, as well as for being the accuser in a lawsuit. I was working on a TV program about the anniversary of the end of the war at the NHK TV station in Osaka, but it was Ms. Fukushima who came there to sell Kim out.

Kim testified that she was sold by her parents and became a gisaeng, and that her father-in-law took her to the comfort women brothel of the Japanese military. The military scrip with which she was paid lost its value as soon as the war had ended, and it was this event which prompted her to ask for compensation from the Japanese government for damages.

We decided to go on location to investigate the actual conditions, dividing into two groups. My team interviewed males and the other team was in charge of the comfort women. We were guided by a Korean who was involved in the reparations process, and we ended up interviewing around 50 people in total—both males and females altogether. However, to my surprise, not one person said, "I was captured by the Japanese military," or "I was forced to work."

In those days, it was during the period of Korea's annexation, but the pay was about half that of the interior, which kept the people there poor. Therefore, a lot of them would go to the mainland to work. The mainland is where Korean employment agencies would go to make money by mediating to get such people a job in a coal mine and so on, for its brokerage.

The ships that carried such laborers belonged to the military. As for comfort women, it was often the case that the military conducted hygiene management for the comfort women brothels. There were certainly affairs where comfort women had been deceived and couldn't escape from the business, but it was the traders that would imprison them. It is not a desirable thing, but those were commercial transactions made by traders, and the nation owes no responsibility for that.

No matter how much I investigated, there appeared to be no case of forced conditions, and so the TV program didn't have an impact. It did draw attention to the fact that a comfort woman had come forward for the first time, but it was little more than the story of a licensed prostitute. Afterward, NHK did not chase the story.

The "Forced Company" Was a False Report by Asahi Shimbun

Interestingly, when Kim Hak-sun came forward, Asahi Shimbun published an article of the "scoop" by Takashi Uemura, which reported, "It turns out that one of the 'Military Korean Comfort Women' who were forced to the battle field to engage in prostitution activities with the Japanese soldiers, lives in Seoul."

Following that, in January, 1992, the newspaper published an article that revealed a notification concerning the management of comfort women brothels submitted by the Japanese military, claiming, "The material shows the military's involvement." Since the Asahi explanation of comfort women at this time had claimed that those women were forced to accompany the military as a volunteer corps, the Prime Minister, Kiichi Miyazawa, apologized to the Korean president, Roh Tae-woom, when he visited Korea right after the article had been published.

However, in actuality, that notification was a message to traders: "Do not kidnap the comfort women". In fact, there is no hard evidence, nor any document, which suggests that the military had abducted those women. Though, because the Korean government had asked for reparations from the Japanese government, it became an issue between the two.

In 1992, the Japanese government (Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato) announced the result of an investigation which revealed that the former Japanese military had been directly involved with hygiene management for the comfort women brothels, but that there were no materials to prove the theory that the comfort women were forced to accompany Japanese soldiers. Therefore the problem whether Japanese government was involved or not is agreed by both sides.

However, Korean government didn't stopped criticism demanding Japan to admit the coercion. For this reason, in 1993, the Japanese government announced the so-called Kono Statement. The issue is described as follows in the written statement.

As for the recruitment of comfort women, the traders that received such requests for it were in charge, and in this situation also, there were many cases in which these women were gathered against their will via honeyed words, pressure and so forth. In addition to that, it turns out that government officials had directly assisted in this at times as well. Moreover, it was a painful way of living, to have been forced to be at the comfort women brothels. (emphasis added)

It became the cause of later problems that, for no reason, such nonsense words as, "government officials had directly assisted in this", had been inserted. In regards to this issue, in 2007, Abe's Cabinet had made a cabinet decision over the written answer, which clearly states that among the materials which the government had found at the time of the investigation's announcement, there is no written description to directly show that military or government officials had supposedly forced the women to accompany soldiers. (emphasis added)

Therefore, the government's dictum was that "there was no forced company." However, because the written answer said that the "Chief Cabinet Secretary Statement is right," the government ended up following the Kono Statement, which says that "government officials had directly assisted in this." At this time, the branch manager of The New York Times, Norimitsu Onishi, took up the comfort women issue and reported the testimony of "former comfort women." Due to this publication, Prime Minister Abe was forced into a situation that required him to apologize for Japan when he visited the United States.

Misunderstanding and Confusion Expanded the Problem

As I witnessed the simultaneous process, I got a strong impression that misunderstanding had piled up and the flame spread unexpectedly. First of all, if it is the case that laborers from the Korean Peninsula were exploited, the issue of the male laborers is, by far, a much bigger, more serious problem than that of comfort women.

For example, towards the end of World War II, Chinese laborers had revolted against the severe labor environment of Hanaoka mine in Akita prefecture, which resulted in the death of over 400 people due to violence and slaughter. This case is a testament to the fact that there was forced labor. However, even in this case, as you can see from the family of the deceased asking Kashima for indemnification after the war, it was private-sector corporations that were in charge when it came to forced labor.

Compared to the supposed 600,000 forced male laborers, the tally of comfort women is said to be around tens of thousands of workers, being much smaller in scale. It is also said that they were receiving pay equal to more than twenty times that of private soldiers. The only reason why comfort women received so much attention was because Seiji Yoshida had written of these cases in a manner which presented them as bizarre rapes. It seems that he wrote about such events in order to make extra money, but because Japanese lawyers wanted to take advantage of it by making a class suit out of it, the issue escalated.

When I first heard the story of Kim Hak-sun, she was saying that she was "sold by her parents," and it was written so on the petition as well. Even today, no one knows the process of how her testimony was replaced to reflect that she had been "abducted by the military" after the report by Asahi Shimbun.

There is suspicion that the article of the reporter, Uemura, had been fabricated, as the leader of the plaintiff party was the mother-in-law of Uemura. On the other hand, considering that he had accepted the lies told by Yoshida, of the "women's volunteer corps," he might have simply believed Yoshida's testimony, convinced that he had "gathered the evidence."

It was Yoshiaki Yoshimi, a professor of Chuo University, who cooperated in the interview for Asahi Shimbun. His book, Military Comfort Women (Iwanami Shoten Publishers), has been published in English, and this is another cause for further misunderstanding, as it is the only source of reference for populations overseas.

It was only after the forced company report of Asahi Shimbun that Yoshiaki started to investigate this issue. Therefore, from the beginning, his input on the matter was biased in that it sought to find proof for forced company. Even though the previous notification was meant to prohibit abduction, Mr. Yoshimi had wrongly interpreted the message, reading it as if it had been an order to abduct. This caused more confusion.

Last year, the mayor of Osaka city, Hashimoto, stated that "Mr. Yoshimi has admitted that there was no forced company," and yet in his protest note, he wrote, "Even in those days, it was a crime to sack, abduct, and engage in human trafficking and take women from Japan, Korea and Taiwan. I have said that abduction and human trafficking also mean forced company."

This means that he has acknowledged the fact that in Korea, there were no cases in which the Japanese military had drafted women to be their comfort women, yet he is calling the acts of abduction and human trafficking by non-governmental people "forced company." If he defines such terms in this way, the obvious implication is that there had been forced company, and that the government has admitted to it from the beginning. In this way, Mr. Yoshimi and Asahi Shimbun replaced the issue of the nation's responsibility with women's rights.

The Illmanaged Response of the Japanese Government

It was the ill-managed correspondence of the government that played a crucial role in making what Asahi Shimbun had started, worse. According to the briefing of Mr. Kono, the reason why he wrote in his statement that "government officials had directly assisted in this at times as well," was because of a matter involving violations of military discipline which happened in Indonesia (Pertempuran Lima Hari). This was the case of rape that private soldiers had participated in, and their leaders were executed as class-B and class-C war criminals.

However, there was no clear description of this in the Kono Statement, which resulted in the misunderstanding that government officials forced company even on the Korean Peninsula. Nobuo Ishihara, the Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary at that time, elaborated on the reasons as to why they had chosen to make such a misleading expression in the interview by Sankei Shimbun.

At that time, while the Korean side was persistently appealing for the inclusion of comfort women recruitment and forced company in the statement, they were unofficially proposing that the "comfort women issue is a matter of their fame, and therefore, they won't request compensation at the personal level." The Japanese side had anticipated that if Japan admitted to acts of forced company, the Korean side might lay down their arms. It was this strategy which led the Japanese side to convey to the Korean side that they would admit to the acts forced company before their announcement.

There was no document which proved such enforcement, but by using the vague expression that there might have been some acts of forced company, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs attempted to bring forth a political settlement with the Korean government. As a result, however, this action was taken to mean that "Japan has admitted to the acts of forced company," and the Korean government made a big spectacle of it and spun the issue out of control.

Even after that, the report arranged by Ms. Coomaraswamy, a member of the UN Human Rights Commission, pressured the Japanese government for compensation and the execution of the people involved, defining comfort women as "sex slaves". Her report, however, was based on the Kono Statement.

The Japanese government established an incorporated foundation called, "The National Fund For A Peaceful Asia for Women (The Asian Women's Fund)," and paid about 1.3 billion yen as "indemnification" for former comfort women. Additionally, successive prime ministers sent out "a letter of apology". And thus, the government kept portraying an attitude that said, "There was no forced company, but we are sorry." This repeated message served to firmly establish misunderstanding about the issue all over the world.

This was around the time when the overseas media started to show an interest, but more importantly, it meant that they were not aware of the process by which the issue of comfort women had begun to be regarded as "slave hunting by the military." For them, the issue of comfort women became a issue of women's rights from the beginning, and therefore, the idea of "no forced company" appears to be merely an excuse. Despite there being no proof to support claims by former comfort women, that "I was forced to accompany soldiers," the overseas media continue to believe this statement, something Kim was told to say by her lawyer.

It was surprising that during a conversation I had with a reporter of the Tokyo branch of The New York Times, Hiroko Tabuchi, when I told her that "There is no proof to support the testimony of the former comfort women," she responded with, "So, do you think that they're liars?" For them, comfort women are the victims, and the Japanese military is the criminal, which only leaves them with the belief that such poor victims can't lie.

This type of psychological tendency that causes people to only see those facts which corroborate their prejudice, is called  confirmation bias. It's because the overseas media started to treat this issue with the misunderstanding that "The Japanese military had participated in human trafficking on such a big scale," that they misinterpreted the issue of whether or not it was done by government officials as the issue of the "comfort women = human trafficking = forced company" equation. And so, they kept reporting it in this way.

What's Needed Isn't Criticism But a Cure
 
Thus, depending on what perspective the "comfort women issue" is viewed from, the answer varies. At first, the focus of the issue was on the abductions carried out by the military, the so-called "comfort women hunts". Consider this example: in the last years of World War II, the Nazis are said to have had government managed prostitution facilities for the bodyguards and concentration camp guards. This is what the leader of the bodyguards, Hitler, had founded for the enhancement of a fighting spirit, and it is said that there were such facilities within twelve concentration camps, like Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria.

If Japan had had this type of systematic governmental prostitution, and forced those women to accompany soldiers and be imprisoned, the Japanese government would have to apologize to the Korean government regardless of any indemnity liability provided by law. Since what Asahi Shimbun had first reported was similar to the kind of image portrayed by the Nazis, the issue developed into a major problem.

However, even with the governmental investigation, proof of forced company by the military never seemed to come out. Not only are there no documents, but aside from the stories of the selfprofessed former comfort women—which have changed again and again—no soldiers that were alleged to have participated in the forcing of company, nor any witnesses of that, have ever surfaced. The majority of comfort women were Japanese, but even their testimony has not surfaced.

Recently, Mr. Yoshimi has admitted that he cannot factually confirm that women from Korea and Taiwan, under the control of Japan at the time, were abducted and taken overseas by the military. He says, "There was forced company in China and Eastern Asia," but the only proof of that is the judicial report of Pertempuran Lima Hari. That report was executed in response to a violation of military discipline, which means that this is rather proof of the Japanese military prohibiting forced company.

Thus, at least for Korea, historians have agreed that there is no proof of the Japanese military forcing women from Korea to accompany soldiers. The the problem now is resolving the facts. If you conclude that "the abduction or human trafficking by traders are also considered to be forced company," it is only recognition that such things happened. Yet, those matters are not the responsibility of the Japanese military.

However, in The New York times article, it says, "The Japanese military raped and enslaved thousands of Asian and European women in army brothels." The subject is the Japanese military, but the expressions used are not very clear, and seem to view the matter as the Japanese military having forced Korean women to become their "sex slaves."

At first, according to Yoshida's story, the claim was that there was a "slave hunt" for Korean women. Yet, as soon as this was revealed to be a lie, Asahi Shimbun, Mr. Yoshimi, and others, distorted the issue by reframing the argument with vagueness. This was accomplished by stretching the meaning of the issue by saying that "the human trafficking by the traders is also forced company". In turn, overseas media outlets such as The New York Times followed this movement; this is the source of all this confusion. There are contradictions within the resolutions of the American Congress, which highlight the problem of forced company while criticizing human trafficking. If the Japanese military had abducted women using violence, there would have been no need for human trafficking.

It is an irreparable mistake that the Japanese government has apologized for such events without clarifying where the responsibility lies. It sounds like nothing more than an excuse to say that this was all the "enforcement of narrow sense and broad sense" at this late point, and it's difficult to think that the world will take that explanation seriously. The recognition of the state of affairs by the State Department, in a statement saying, "Japan defending itself won't improve its position," is sad but true.

As a first step in finding a way out of this deadlock, it is essential to have the overseas media understand that this issue was born from lies and misunderstanding. However, if such entities are haunted by the obsessive idea that "the Japanese military is a vicious sex offender," it is no use to criticize by saying, "you're wrong."

What is needed now is a cure which helps the overseas media to become aware of their bias. The first step to a mutual understanding is to explain how the comfort women issue occurred, where the misunderstanding happened, and what kind of misinterpreting has expanded the problem, in order to remove the preconception that's been imprinted in their minds.

Posted 3rd October 2014 by ikedanobuo

2016年3月21日月曜日

Jason Morgan (USA)

will be updated soon...

Oh Seon-hwa (呉善花)


 Oh Seon-hwa (呉善花, born 15 September 1956) is a professor at Takushoku University, also active as an author and journalist in Japan.  Originally from Jeju islands, South Korea, she left for Japan in 1983 and went on to naturalise as a Japanese citizen.  In 1998, she lost her South Korean nationality as she had acquired Japanese nationality in 1991.  In 2007 and 2013, she was refused entry to South Korea.

Prof.  Oh Seon-hwa
 
She told at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan that she was probably denied entry because she is widely regarded as a pro-Japan scholar who strongly criticizes South Korea.
The press interview and the corresponding Youtube video1 and video2.  


Publication 

She has been actively published her books regarding the Japan-South Korean relation.  Here, only two are introduced from her many books.


 



The tile of the book means that Korea won’t open good future due to their anti-Japan policy.

According to her book, she was born in South Korea in 1956 and grew up there till her age 26.  However, she had never heard about Korean wowen who had been taken away against their will (or abducted) by Imperial Japanese military or government authorities during WW2.  She also interviewed older South Koreans who experienced Japan-Korea annexation era and reported that any of them had neither seen nor heard such misbehavior of Japan. 

She described that it was obvious that left-wing activists in Japan incited anti-Japanese nationalists in South Korea to create a malicious made-up story.  The story has been escalating worse and worse something like the following changes from “It might happen” through “It must happen” and finally to “It was the fact”.  


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Getting Over It! Why Korea Needs to Stop BashingJapan (Japanese)

 

 

Top Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars at Amazon.com
But Japan also had painful experience by the atomic bombard
By Michael Chung on August 25, 2015

The World has badly experienced through the War. One of them was Korea under the Imperial Japanese occupation. But Japan also had painful experience by the atomic bombard, all over the country during the World War II and after the War too.

Now, we in 21 century have been trying to achieve the world peace. But Korean peninsula is seriously troubled under the war situation even if they are under a cease- fire. So the peninsular is still one of the symbolic remains of the Cold War. Then the world has been watching carefully about the provocative acts of North Korea, Kim, Jung-Eun.

The neighborhood, Japan that is a liberal democracy and with the sense of the same culture between Korea has helped Korean economy, modern technics, and national security which rendered great services to foreign trade, and national modernization to become one of the OECD after the World War II.

However, Korea has been bashing Japan with the past-affairs which was like the water under the bridge, and renders few services to the friendship between two nations, In spite of North Korea’s invasion menace. In this case, in the near future, Korea will be destroyed helplessly by North’s invasion and disappeared in the world maps.

The author, who has worried about Korean bashing Japan, has been chronologically studying of Korean problems through the history between two countries. Today, at the time of the 70th anniversary of the end of the 2nd World War, this book is suggesting how to achieve the World Peace and the stability of Korean peninsula. So I like to recommend this is a good book for reading once.


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5.0 out of 5 stars   
An excellent book!!  At Amazon.com
By Hyung-Sung Kim on January 23, 2016

As a Korean, I swear that this book is based on facts. Unfortunately, Professor Oh is hated in South Korea because she tells the inconvenient truth. The following links confirm Professor Oh is right on the mark with this book.

http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.jp/2014/10/i-am-91-years-old-and-i-want-to-tell.html
http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.jp/2014/10/the-new-korea-by-alleyne-ireland.html
http://www.mimuw.edu.pl/~akoz/History/JapanandGermany.pdf


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5.0 out of 5 stars 
Historical facts laid down on the Korea-Japan relation, old and recent.
By Amazon Customer on February 10, 2016

This book lays out historical facts about the Korea-Japan relationship over the years. Highly recommended to students at high schools and colleges, particularly Koreans who think Oh Sonfa is a traitor for Korea.

2016年3月20日日曜日

CHUNGHEE SARAH SOH

Updated on April 10, 2016

CHUNGHEE SARAH SOH (South Korea > U.S.A.)

1, Introduction of Prof. C. Sarah Soh
2, Book review of her book entitled "The Comfort Women"
3, Excerpt from her book (cited from external blog)
4, Testimonies of former Comfort Women whom Prof. Soh interviewed. 
5, Testimonies of former Comfort Women whom other scholars interviewed

1. Introduction
Chunghee Sarah Soh or C. Sarah Soh is a Korean-American professor of Anthropology at San Francisco State University.  She is a sociocultural anthropologist who specializes in issues of women, gender, sexuality. She graduated from Sogang University in Seoul and earned master's degree and then Ph.D from the University of Hawaii in 1987. She taught cultural anthropology at universities in Hawaii in 1990, Arizona from 1990-2001 and Texas from 1991-94. She joined San Francisco State University in 1994.



Her book (see above) The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan delivers new insight into the nature of the comfort women issue.   


2, Book review of her book entitled "The Comfort Women"

Continuing controversy of ‘comfort women’
by Jeff Kingston
C. Sarah Soh explains how the comfort women system emerged from the nexus of patriarchy, colonialism, capitalism and militarism, placing it in an ongoing continuum of women’s subjugation and exploitation. Controversially, she asserts that it is inaccurate to depict the comfort women as sex slaves and the system as a war crime.

Soh’s main target is the Korean Council, an umbrella organization of activist groups involved in the redress movement, arguing that it has sensationalized the story, imposing a misleading narrative of victimization while brooking no dissent. She contends that “the canonized story of police or the military forcibly dragging them away from loving parents” is a shibboleth and accuses the redress movement of employing “strategic exaggerations that have effectively impeded deeper understanding of the comfort women issue and any real progress toward its resolution.” In her view, the onus is on Korean society to repudiate victimization, admit its complicity in the comfort women’s trauma, and accept that the entire system was not criminal.

Soh accuses the Korean Council of making life difficult for those comfort women who chose to accept compensation from the Japanese government under the auspices of the Asian Women’s Fund (AWF). Unwilling to let the Japanese off the hook of history, the Korean Council pressured former comfort women to renounce the AWF’s gesture of contrition while the Korean government offered them compensation provided they refused the Japanese money. Those who accepted faced a traumatic ostracism. One suspects that Soh faces a similar fate for bravely challenging the cult of victimization and spreading responsibility.

“The Comfort Women” argues that the dominant narrative is misleading because it makes sweeping generalizations that don’t tally with the wide variations in recruitment and conditions reported by former comfort women and incorrectly conflates comfort women’s recruitment with the “volunteer corps,” a separate system for mobilizing women’s labor introduced during wartime. In addition, by vilifying, the Koreans avert their gaze from their own collaboration. She maintains that compatriots recruited a majority of the Korean comfort women and some were sold to traffickers by indigent parents. Moreover, after the war Korean society stigmatized these women, compounding their tragedy.

Soh laments that Korean nationalism has tainted the redress movement, one that shades the truth while demanding justice. She admits, however, that, “There can be no denial of the tragic victimization of forcibly recruited women who suffered slavery-like conditions.” Yet, she quibbles a great deal about this very issue.

For Japan’s quartermasters, we learn, comfort women and condoms were essential supplies for the imperial troops. Chaste teenage virgins, mostly from destitute families, were seen as desirable, morale-boosting “gifts” to the warriors, ones symbolically “wrapped” with assigned Japanese names. Soh further acknowledges that official documents implicate the Japanese government in the establishment and maintenance of the comfort women system.

Oddly, Soh takes redress advocates to task far more than conservative Japanese who deny or minimize what happened. She concurs with Japanese apologists that the comfort women system was akin to the existing system of licensed prostitution, but then admits it was not typical because non-Japanese comfort women were much more likely to suffer physical violence. She also argues that it is misleading to refer to the military brothels as “rape centers,” but is the term “comfort stations” any less misleading?

Soh often veers so close to the views of conservative Japanese apologists that she warns them against appropriating her arguments. She is far harsher on Korean redress activists than Japanese minimizers because her agenda is to indict patriarchy and force Koreans to acknowledge their complicity and indifference. In her view, the prevailing victim’s narrative impedes this self-reflection.

There were very different types of comfort facilities, what Soh terms the “concessionary, the paramilitary and the criminal.” Respectively, these are the facilities run by private entrepreneurs for profit, those run by the military as “not-for-profit recreational centers” and those improvised by soldiers on the battlefield involving sexual enslavement. This criminal type she calls an anomaly quite distinct from the “state-endorsed and regulated” facilities. One wonders why official sanction rendered them any less criminal and to what degree this endorsement consoled the young women.

While Soh’s analysis is compelling in many respects, her strategic equivocations detract from the book. If, as Soh writes, the comfort women were sex objects and working in slavelike conditions, why reject calling them sex slaves? Anticipating criticism, she portrays herself as a target of raving ethno-nationalists and guardians of politically correct views, but her analysis does suffer from some logical lapses.

Overall, this is a brave and impressive book that usefully complicates and adds layers to our understanding of a sordid system. Alas, it offers little hope for reconciliation.

Jeff Kingston is director of Asian Studies at Temple University, Japan campus.


Book review by the Author of the blog: The Comfort Women" by Professor C. Sarah Soh

In this book, Professor Soh criticizes the South Korean activist group "Korean Council" (also known as Chong Dae Hyup 정대협 挺対協 in Korean) for spreading North Korean propaganda and using the comfort women issue to block reconciliation between Japan and South Korea. She insists that Korean society must repudiate victimization, admit its complicity and accept that the system was not criminal. She also argues that the case of a small number of Dutch and Filipino women who were coerced by lower ranked Japanese soldiers in the battlefields was an anomaly, and that most women (Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese) were recruited and employed by prostitution brokers.


3, Excerpt from her book (from the blog: 
The Comfort Women" by Professor C. Sarah Soh)

The following is an excerpt from her book "The Comfort Women." (Pages 10 - 11)



4, Testimonies from former Comfort Women whom Prof. Soh interviewed. 
(copied from the blog: The Comfort Women" by Professor C. Sarah Soh)
                  
In an interview with Professor Chunghee Sarah Soh of San Francisco State University, a former Korean comfort woman Kim Sun-ok said that she was sold by her parents four times.

Yet she testified in front of UN interrogator Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.


Kim Sun-ok


                  
A former Korean comfort woman Mun Oku-chu said in her memoir:

"I was recruited by a Korean comfort station owner. I saved a considerable amount of money from tips, so I opened a saving account. I could not believe that I could have so much money in my saving account. One of my friends collected many jewels, so I went and bought a diamond.  I often went to see Japanese movies and Kabuki plays in which players came from the mainland Japan. I became a popular woman in Rangoon. There were a lot more officers in Rangoon than near the frontlines, so I was invited to many parties. I sang songs at parties and received lots of tips. I put on a pair of high heels, a green coat and carried an alligator leather handbag. I swaggered about in a fashionable dress. No one in town could guess that I was a comfort woman. I felt very happy and proud. I received permission to return home, but I didn't want to go back to Korea. I wanted to stay in Rangoon."

According to Professor Chunghee Sarah Soh's book, Mun Oku-chu continued to work as a prostitute in Korea after the war.

Yet she testified in front of UN interrogator Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

Mun Ok-chu

                  
In an interview with Korean newspaper The Hankyoreh (the artcile was published on May 15th, 1991)  a former Korean comfort woman Kim Hak-sun said that she was sold by her mother.

In an interview with Professor Chunghee Sarah Soh of San Francisco State University, Kim Hak-sun said that her mother sent her to train as a Geisha in Pyongyang before she sold her.

Yet she testified in front of UN interrogator Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.
Kim Hak-sun

                  
In an interview with Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University, a former Korean comfort woman Lee Yong-soo said that she and her friend Kim Pun-sun were recruited by a Korean comfort station owner's agent.

In an interview with Professor Chunghee Sarah Soh of San Francisco State University, Lee Yong-soo said, "At the time I was shabbily dressed and wretched. On the day I left home with my friend Pun-sun without telling my mother, I was wearing a black skirt, a cotton shirt and wooden clogs on my feet. You don't know how pleased I was when I received a red dress and a pair of leather shoes from a Korean recruiter."

Yet she testified in front of UN interrogator Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

Lee Yong-soo also testified in front of United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 2007. She was told that she had five minutes to speak. She ignored the instruction and went on for over one hour putting on a performance of crying and screaming. Her false testimony resulted in the passage of United States House of Representatives House Resolution 121.
Lee Yong-soo

                  
In an interview with Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University, a former Korean comfort woman Kim Ok-sil said that she was sold by her father.

In an interview with Professor Chunghee Sarah Soh of San Francisco State University, Kim Ok-sil said that her father sent her to train as a Geisha in Pyongyang before he sold her.

Yet she testified in front of UN interrogator Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

                  

In an interview with Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University, a former Korean comfort woman Kil Won-ok said that she was sold by her parents.

In an interview with Professor Chunghee Sarah Soh of San Francisco State University, Kil Won-ok said that her parents sent her to train as a Geisha in Pyongyang before they sold her.

Yet she testified in front of UN interrogator Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.
Kil Won-ok


5, Testimonies of former Comfort Women whom other scholars interviewed
(copied from the blog:  The Comfort Women" by Professor C. Sarah Soh)
 
In an interview with Professor Park Yuha of Sejong University in South Korea, a former Korean comfort woman Bae Chun-hee said that she hated her father who sold her.

Yet she testified in front of UN interrogator Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military. 


Bae Chun-hee

                  

In an interview with Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University, a former Korean comfort woman Kim Gun-ja said that she was sold by her foster father.

Yet she testified in front of UN interrogator Radhika Coomaraswamy that she was abducted by the Japanese military.

Kim Gun-ja also testified in front of United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 2007 and said she was abducted by the Japanese military.


Kim Gun-ja

                  
 
Several people had witnessed the scenes in which Chong Dae Hyup (anti-Japan lobby with close ties to North Korea) coached women to say "I was abducted by the Japanese military."

Professor Ahn Byong Jik of Seoul University who interviewed former Korean comfort women says, "When I first interviewed them, none of them had anything bad to say about the Japanese military. They hated their parents who sold them and the Korean comfort station owners who beat and sometimes raped them. But after Chong Dae Hyup confined them, their testimonies had completely changed."

                  


The Japanese military was guilty because its invasion into China and Southeast Asia did create the demand for comfort women. But the Korean narrative "The Japanese military showed up at the doors and abducted young Korean women" just didn't happen. The Korean businessmen (comfort station owners) capitalized on the demand, recruited Korean women, operated comfort stations and made lots of money. Japan has apologized for its part. South Korea should admit its complicity and stop demanding Japan for more apologies.