Sunday, April 8, 2007

A public betrayed--Who is actually betrayed? (2)

I noticed one thing after I post the first post.
Another strange thing one notices regarding the book, "a public betrayed" is that in the five case studies, only Shukan Shincho and Bunshun are criticized. Check it out for yourself.

Isn't it strange? From the first place, magazines like these are outside of Kisha Club, the very thing the book is criticizing. Secondly, two of the other four cases, Nanjing incident and comfort women are most heavily criticized by Shokun, Sapio, Seiron or these days by Will. Why did the authors pick only Shukan Shincho and Bunshun?

Takasaki Ryuji, a critique and sympathizer of Soka, is quoted in a book as follows.

 〈今でこそ『学会バッシング』の中心は新潮社の雑誌ですが、かつては文藝春秋の雑誌が中心でした。私が研究者として文春の雑誌の『戦争責任』を追及し闘ってきたのも、一つには『文春と闘うことで学会を守りたい』という思いがあったからです〉
My translation of the above:
These days the main "(Soka) Gakkai-bashing" magazine comes from Shincho, but in old days, it was those from Bungei Shunju. This is one of the reason why I fought and pursued "war responsibility" of Bunshun** in my research career; I wanted to "defend (Soka) Gakkai by fighting a war with Bunshun."
**Bunshun is abbreviation of Bungei Shunju

The whole picture is clear: these guys are using Nanjing and comfort women for the promotion of their religious master: Ikeda Daisaku, and not the other way around as they make it appear to be. In other words, now that Komei Party is a part of the Japanese government, it is this type of propaganda that we have to pay attention to: the book itself is a living proof of one of the sickest part of the Japanese media.

A public betrayed--Who actually is betrayed?

This is a response to Leslie in AMPONTAN blog.
I could not post the article, so I post it here.

Leslie:

I can understand that your have minimal capability of understanding the Japanese media. Most likely you are serious and sincere, I assume, unless you are a member of Soka gakkai. At least I can safely say that you had better check the background of what they say.

If you read the web site of the book, you will find that one part is very strange to a no-Soka Gakkai person like me. Why did they include the rape trial of Ikeda Daisaku in the five case studies that are suppose to represent the Japanese media? As to an outsiders of Soka Gakkai, Ikeda Daisaku is nobody. He looks fat and disgusting, he might have raped many women, but reports of those do not represent the way the Japanese media behaves. And I know how Soka Gakkai can be really sickening because the restaurant I used to visit was run by a Gakkai believer, and the newspapers (Seikyo Shinbun, sacred religion news paper) are full of nauseating slanders against their brother buddhist monk, Nikken. If you do not know Nikken, you should not be involved in Soka Gakkai.

Briefly, Adam Gamble (Arthur Gamble according to Financial Times) is a writer related to Soka Gakkai publisher in Boston. The FT article and the book are published by the same people, I guess, unless Arther Gamble and Adam Gamble are two different persons.

Watanabe Takesato is a professor at Doshisha University in Kyoto, and a sympathiser or perhaps could be a member of Soka Gakkai. At least he is actively involved in their propaganda as in this or that. The FT article is also posted on his web.

And the usual suspect Kimura Aiji of Akukan Tsushin has a trouble with this book. Kimura wrote:
上記の共著者、Takesato Watanabe(渡辺武達)は、同志社大学のメディア論の教授であるが、同時に、創価学会系雑誌の常連執筆者でもある。彼のメディア批判は、何のことは ない。池田大作の強姦事件を報道する週刊新潮などを、口を極めて罵倒するのが目的なのである。
My translation of the above:
One of the co-author, Watanabe Takesato is a professor majoring in mass media at Doshisha University, and at the same time, he is constantly contributing to magazines related to Soka Gakkai. His criticism of mass media is, in essence, badmouthing of magazines, including Shukan Shincho, which report the rape comitted by Ikeda Daisaku.
Of course Shukan Shincho fights back. This reports the death of the husband of the rape victim, and ordeal they suffered during their fight against Soka Gakkai.

The victims of Soka Gakkai have their say:
http://www.toride.org/81/rape.htm#eimi053707

The critics of Soka Gakkai criticize the court was unjustly influenced by the cult, and discuss the international propaganda of Soka Gakki:
http://www.forum21.jp/2006/07/post_26.htm
http://www.forum21.jp/contents/contents2-2.html

After you read all these, who do you believe? I feel Watanaben Takesato's behavior is highly suspicious. This is most likely religio-political propaganda by the Buddhist cult. And you are the one swallowing all of them without a doubt.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Why does Jan Ruff O'Herne have to be a comfort woman (2) --Dutch war tribunal in Semarang, Indonesia

This is the second post regarding BBC4 program published here and its audio here. The audio contains the voice of Jan Ruff O’Herne, the Dutch-Australian woman, probably a victim of Semarang incident.


O'Herne is not a typical comfort woman because her story can be backed up by records of Semarang Incident and BC class Dutch war tribunal in Batavia, Java.


A war crime of Japanese military men is recorded in Java, Indonesia: they forced some female Dutch internees into prostitution. In November 1943, Japan completed the internment of Dutch colonialists in Indonesia that had been ruled by the Dutch for three hundred years. The Indonesian and the Eurasian (mixed Dutch-Indonesians) were not subject to this internment. The 16th military division that supervised Java permitted the establishment of military brothels on the condition that women should not be coerced and they should sign a consent form. Which probably were not obeyed by some military officials. In February 1944, Dutch women were rounded up and put into brothels, which were closed two months later (three months according to O'Herne and Ploeg) by the order of the headquarter of 16th military division. (Hata ibid pp216-221) In 1947 Dutch military tribunal sentenced Major Okada Yoshiharu to death, 6 military officers to 2 to 15 years in prison, and 4 civilians who operated the brothels to 7 to 20 years. One civilian governor Mitsuhashi Hiroshi was acquitted. Colonel Ikeda Shozo, who was sentenced to 15 years, became insane, and Colonel Okubo killed himself (Hata ibid p219). This Batavia tribunal ruling states that 25 out of 35 were forced prostitutes. 1994 Dutch report describes at least 65 out of 200~300 were victims of forced prostitution (Hata ibid p218).

If O'Herne's story is correct, she is most likely a victim of Semarang incident. There are two women publicly known to be such victims from the former Dutch colony: one is O'Herne, the other is Elly Corry van der Ploeg, both of whom were participants of VAWW-net organized Women's Tribunal 2000 , a kangaroo trial that convicted already deceased Emperor Hirohito. O'Herne made her experience public in 1992 (Hata ibid, p217). Since the stories of both corroborate well with the record of Batavia tribunal, and manuscripts of Major Okada who claimed that the women in "officer's club" were now lying and testifying against him (Hata ibid, p220), it is safe to say their stories are based on real facts.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Why does Jan Ruff O'Herne have to be a comfort woman (1)--BBC4 woman's hour

BBC4 published a comfort woman story in their woman's hour.
You can listen to the audio. The audio contains the voice of Jan Ruff O’Herne, the Dutch-Australian woman, probably a victim of Semarang incident. The program has four parts:

  1. Jan Ruff O'Herne's real voice. She is demanding that if you break a window, you pay for it.
  2. Matsui Hideko, an anthoropologist, a Japanese female commentator.
  3. Jeff Kingson, Director of Asian Studies, at the Temple University in Tokyo
  4. Taniguchi Tomohiko, Deputy Press Secretary of Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Japan
  • I really do not know this Matsui Hideko. Anybody care to tell me who she is?
  • Jeff Kingston is a typical "corpse-maximizer," as you can see in this or that. It is amazing that this much of knowledge can guarantee a position in Asian studies. I might write about him someday.
  • Taniguchi Tomohiko is keeping the official line and accepting 1993 Kono statement. In my opinion, he is doing a good job here at BBC, but he fails to mention that Germany has no bilateral treaties with any country to settle the war. On the contrary Japan settled all war-related claims. Otherwise, listeners can not understand why Japan does not pay reparations to the already settled war.

My problem here is why Jan Ruff O'Herne had to be included here. Yes, her story sounds vivid, real and tragic, of course, but is that the only reason? A typical summary of "sex slaves" goes like this as in this BBC program.

Comfort Women - Sexual Slavery in WWII? 28 March 2007

Japan's ongoing row with its neighbours over its wartime use of sex slaves deepened earlier this month. It is estimated that as many as 200,000 women, mainly from China and South Korea, were made to work in about 2,000 "comfort stations" - a euphemism for brothels - across Asia from the early 1930s until Japan's defeat in 1945. Less than three weeks ago the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, appeared to distance his government from Japan’s 1993 unofficial apology to these women.
A typical explanation of comfort women is that they are euphemism of "sex slaves," "as many as 200,000 women," mainly from "Korea," who were abducted and forced to work in wartime brothels for Imperial Japanese Army (this article adds Chinese, which is a interesting development to me). But there is a problem here: O'Herne is not Korean. Why she was included here when she is not a typical figure of "sex slaves"?

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Where are other comfort stations?

This is the fourth post regarding this article (via AMPONTAN).

The article says:

Did other military forces have a similar system?

According to both Hata and Yoshimi, Nazi Germany had frontline brothels during the war, using women, even by force, in Eastern Europe.


Hata lists similar comfort stations used in other cases (Hata ibid, pp145-173)
  1. Allied forces used Axis comfort stations in Sicily (Italy), Burma, Singapore, Hanzhou (China), Okinawa.
  2. Germany maintained 500 comfort stations during the war time. Germany had also comfort stations in concentration camps.
  3. Soviet Russians used rape instead of comfort stations in Germany and Manchuria at the end of the war. Similar thing happened in Bangladesh war (1971) and Cambodia-Vietnam war (1970).
  4. US used RAA, comfort stations set up in Japan during the occupation era.
  5. French used moving brothels (Bordel Mobile de Campagne) made up of North African women during the first Indochina war.
  6. US maintained "recreation center" during Vietnam war (circa1966).
  7. US uses comfort stations around US bases in Japan and in South Korea.
Hata says:
The most famous one is Dongducheon Base close to 38 parallel, which boasted 6,500 prostitutes at its peak. The numbers declined since, but 60 something whorehouses with 1,500 prostitutes are servicing US soldiers still these days. They have compulsory venereal disease check, and women are required to carry safety cards. This is indistinguishable from what happened in Japanese army comfort stations. (Hata ibid, p173)
It is very ironic that there is no outcry for the women working in the sex industry now.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Washington post: a sloppy journalism?

The Washingtonpost article on March 23, distributed by AP, shows the regular ignorance of Tokyo news reporters who cannot back up what they say, and it also shows inability of Washington post to check what they are fed. Are they swallowing anything they are told? This reminds me of Steven Colbert, who told the journalists that their only job is "type what we say and publish and go home," (or words to that effect; you can check it by yourself on the video).

For one thing, I am not a fan of Nakasone Yasuhiro, even though I think most of his policies were okay. But he is a politician, and politicians' job is to sell words and make things look better than they are, or in other words, lie.

Of course if he has written in 1978 that he set up a comfort station in Borneo, then he set up a comfort station in Borneo. It could contain other family-oriented "go" activity center, but the main attraction should have the nature of adult industry. His book is known for years, and before 1991 when Kim Hak Sun (金学順) the first protesting prostitute came forward, comfort stations had no shadow of sins. Other Japanese narratives had similar flavors: they are parts of the real world and real war, they had lived such a life and accepted their lives. I will comment on this aspect, later.

"I never had personal knowledge of the matter," Nakasone told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan when asked about wartime sex slaves, euphemistically known in Japan as "comfort women."

"I only knew about it from what I read in the newspaper," he said, adding that such enslavement was "deplorable" and that he supported the Japanese government's 1993 apology to victims.

When Nakasone Yasuhiro says like this, probably he meant it. Because the story in newspapers are totally different from what he himself experienced in setting up comfort stations in Borneo, he only "knew about it from what I (Nakasone Yasuhiro) read in the newspaper." He has first-hand knowledge of how the prostitutes lived in the comfort stations, but he did not want to indulge in war of words because Nakasone would like to support Abe Shinzo for the greater good. That's it, and its is very simple.

My take on this article is not Nakasone Yasuhiro as a naval officer (海軍主計将校), but as a target of another hate speech Yasukuni Shrine (靖国神社). WP writes:

The former prime minister is known in Japan for his nationalist stance. In 1985, he was the first Japanese prime minister to visit a Tokyo war shrine after it began honoring executed war criminals. Visits to the shrine by Japanese leaders incense its neighbors, such as China.

This is a blatant lie.
Yasukuni enshrined "A class war criminal convicts" in 1978, and the fact became public in 1979. "BC class war criminal convicts" had already been being enshrined since 1959, by the way. PM Ohira Yoshimasa, PM Suzuki Zenko had already paid their tributes to Yasukuni after 1979. Nakasone Yasuhiro is the third PM who did the same thing after the A class enshrinement became publicly known. This is why critics of China claim that the "de-shrinement" of enshrined people does not help the diplomatic relationship between China and Japan: China's behavior does not correlate to events in history. Their behavior is not motivated by history and facts, but by Chinese internal/international political game. Perhaps everybody has to come to the conclusion that in China, everything is politics, even human rights or history.


Above is the reason why I seriously doubt the linguistic ability of JOSEPH COLEMAN, the writer: 5 minutes background check in Japanese literature would have saved him from becoming an illiterate or a liar.

washingtonpost.com
Ex-Japanese PM Denies Setting Up Brothel

By JOSEPH COLEMAN
The Associated Press
Friday, March 23, 2007; 3:51 AM

TOKYO -- A former Japanese prime minister and elder statesman on Friday denied setting up a military brothel staffed by sex slaves during World War II, despite writing a memoir that critics say shows he did so while in the navy.

Yasuhiro Nakasone, who served as prime minister from 1982 to 1987 and was known for his friendship with then-President Reagan, described the facility he set up as a place for civilian engineers to relax and play Japanese chess.

"I never had personal knowledge of the matter," Nakasone told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan when asked about wartime sex slaves, euphemistically known in Japan as "comfort women."

"I only knew about it from what I read in the newspaper," he said, adding that such enslavement was "deplorable" and that he supported the Japanese government's 1993 apology to victims.

Historians say as many as 200,000 women _ most from Korea and China _ worked in the frontline brothels. Victims say they were forced into the brothels by the Japanese military and were held against their will.

The U.S. House of Representatives is considering a resolution that calls on Japan to make a full apology for the brothels, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stirred criticism earlier this month when he denied there was evidence the women were forced into service.

A Nakasone memoir published in 1978 said that when he was a sub-lieutenant in the navy, members of his 3,000-man navy unit in wartime Philippines and Borneo "began attacking women, while others took to gambling."

"At one point, I went to great pains to set up a comfort station" to keep them under control, he wrote. The essay was in an anthology of war accounts, "The Eternal Navy _ Stories to Hand Down to the Younger Generation."

In the 1990s, former Philippine sex slaves cited the memoir as further proof Nakasone was involved with enslavement, bolstering their demands that Tokyo compensate the victims. The Japanese government in 1995 set up a private fund for the women, but never offered direct government compensation.

A Nakasone spokesman in 1997 told The Associated Press that the brothel was operated by local business people and that the prostitutes worked there voluntarily and had not been forced into sexual slavery.

But on Friday, Nakasone was vague about the activities at the facility, skirting a question about whether prostitutes were active there.

"The engineers ... wanted to have a facility to relax and play `go,' so we simply established a place so they could have that," Nakasone said, explaining that the men _ civilian engineers _ needed someplace for rest and entertainment.

Nakasone's government, as all Japanese governments until the 1990s, denied any official involvement with the wartime brothels.

The former prime minister is known in Japan for his nationalist stance. In 1985, he was the first Japanese prime minister to visit a Tokyo war shrine after it began honoring executed war criminals. Visits to the shrine by Japanese leaders incense its neighbors, such as China.

© 2007 The Associated Press

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Who are those comfort women, Japanese or Korean?

This post is the third one on this article regarding comfort women (via AMPONTAN).

My comments are in bold.

The article says:

Where did the women come from?

They came from Japanese-occupied Korea, Taiwan, French Indochina (now Vietnam), the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Burma (Myanmar) and even Japan, according to Yoshimi. He believes the majority were Korean, followed by Chinese, Taiwanese and Filipinos. But there were also Vietnamese and Dutch women, and he said roughly 10 percent were Japanese.

Hata, however, figures about 40 percent of the women may have been Japanese while 20 percent were Koreans and the remainder included Chinese and Filipinos.


This is also the difference of their guess work, because invariably the evidence is circumstantial and partial. Yoshimi used in his 1994 testimony the number of 1940 medical statistics of venereal diseases. The women who gave Japanese soldiers their VD were constituted of 52 % Korean, 36% Chinese and 12 %. He guessed that these women should be "comfort women," then he further guessed these number must be proportional to the total number of them. This is why he concluded there were 10 % Japanese prostitutes.

一 つの資料がある。1940年大本営の研究班が性病罹患について調査。相手女性の調査結果は、朝鮮人52%、中国人36%、日本人12%。すべてが「慰安 婦」ではないだろうが、比率から相手は「慰安婦」と考えられる。朝鮮人、中国人の比率が高かった。(1994 testimony)
Of course, there are problems in his assumptions.
Does the VD statistics represent the entire VD of whole military?
Do the women who gave VD to the soldiers are "comfort women" ?
Do the different ethnic groups of women equally carry VD?
It is safe to say that his claim is based on a circumstantial evidence at best.

Yoshimi Yoshiaki says in above quoted testimony:
Probably not all (of the women) are "comfort women," but the ratio suggests the women are "comfort women." Therefore, Koreans and Chinese are majority among them.
He is trying to prove
(A) Koreans and Chinese were the majority of comfort women
by
(B) Koreans and Chinese were the major source of VD disease in one study
because
(C) He thinks VD sources are likely to be comfort women
because
(D) Koreans and Chinese were the majority of VD sources

This sounds like a circular logic to me.


Then what did Hata Ikuhiko do? He acknowledges that the information is sketchy. He points out that there are lists of registered Japanese residents in Manchuria and parts of China. At that time, Koreans and Taiwanese had Japanese citizenship, so they were also registered. He assumes that Japanese residents who worked in "service industry" are roughly proportional to one sector of the industry -- sex workers. Then, the number goes like this (Hata ibid, p399)


1940 Northern-Middle-Southern China
Japanese: Women 16,004 (including 14,378 between ages 15-39), Men 5,472 (including 2,420 business owners)
Korean: Women 7,141 (including 7,019 between ages 15-39), Men 2,423 (including 1,164 business owners)
Taiwanese: Women 299

1938 Manchuria
Japanese: Women 14,743
Korean: Women 3,870
Taiwanese: no record

Of course not all of them are "comfort women," since these includes the male workers and business owners and those who worked in "restaurants." However, if one assumes that female number represents (or proportional to) the ratio (or number) of sex workers, then the Japanese-Korean ratio is always 2:1 or 3:1 throughout Manchuria or China. This is not surprising because the Japanese population has been always roughly 3 times of that of Korean peninsula. With other sketchy records of Japanese occupied territories during the war, Hata estimates comfort women were consisted of 40% Japanese, 30% natives of the area, 20% Korean and 10% other.

Their estimates are largely different, but they share one thing in common: Presence of Japanese comfort women. Not a single Japanese women proclaimed themselves as "sex slaves," so far. There were stories of Japanese comfort women before 1991. Most probable answer to that contradiction seems to me that the Japanese comfort women did not think themselves as "sex slaves."


Saturday, March 24, 2007

Norimitsu Onishi on Aso Taro

March 23, 2007 Norimitsu Onishi tries to tarnish Aso Taro, the minster of foreign affairs of Japan.

Norimitsu Onishi wrote:
Foreign Minister Taro Aso said “yellow-faced” Japanese could play a more constructive role in Middle East diplomacy than Americans. Japan is doing what Americans can’t do,” he said, according to the newspaper Nikkei. “Japanese are trusted. If you have blue eyes and blond hair, it’s probably no good.” Mr. Aso is often mentioned as a successor to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
His point is that Aso Taro is racist. Onish started the long long term negative campaign against Aso because Aso is likely to be a next prime minister.

I could not find the original in Nikkei. Perhaps it went through Jiji,
2007/03/21-19:50 中東外交「青い目、金髪は駄目」=人種引き合いに日本の貢献強調−麻生外相発言
2007/03/21-19:50 中東外交「青い目、金髪は駄目」=人種引き合いに日本の貢献強調−麻生外相発言  麻生太郎外相は21日午後、長崎県時津町で講演。日本独自の中東和平外交として、ヨルダン渓谷の開発を進める「平和と繁栄の回廊」構想に触れ、「米国人にできないことを日本がやっている。日本人というのは信用がある。青い目で金髪だったら多分駄目よ」と述べた。
  外相は「われわれは幸いにして黄色い顔をしている。そこ(中東)で搾取をしてきたとか、ドンパチ、機関銃撃ったとか一回もない」と語った。中東での日本の 貢献を強調するのが真意とみられるが、外交と人種や外見を重ね合わせた表現には欧米などから批判を受ける可能性がある。

Aso Taro stressed "It is fortunate that we have yellow face. There (in the middle east), we have not a single incidence of exploitation (of the middle eastern people), fighting wars, or machine-gunning." His point is not how he perceives races, but how people of middle east perceive races. Based on that reality, he claims Japan can play a different role than what America does.

The origin of the "indisputable number: 200,000"

This post is the second one on this article regarding comfort women (via AMPONTAN).

The article says:

How many women served soldiers at the brothels?

No official figures have been provided, as there are few documents discovered. Historians have calculated the numbers by tallying how many soldiers were in the field and consulting documents on the ratio of women to soldiers. They also made assumptions about the "replacement rates" of women at the brothels.

Hata has estimated there were up to 20,000 "comfort women," while Yoshimi says the figure was between 50,000 and over 200,000.

The number circulated in the media 200,000 is the upper limit that Yoshimi supplied, and it could be lower. However, that is not the point.

Surprisingly, there is no documents underlying the "indisputable number: 200,000," or any other numbers. They are all, well, guesses. Since the prostitutes were not the official member of the military, there were no name lists of prostitutes serving the military. Besides, they often used "stage names," which makes name lists meaningless any way.

There are five ways to do this guess work (Hata ibid, pp397-406),

  1. guessing from total numbers of soldiers and guessing "appropriate ratio"
  2. extrapolating from the information of a small area
  3. guessing from the numbers of comfort stations
  4. guessing from economic standpoint
  5. guessing from number of condoms distributed
Above numbers of Yoshimi and Hata are using the first method. The difference lies in how you imagine the "average rate of appropriate prostitutes per given number of soldiers."

In Yoshimi Yoshiaki's case:

3.0 million soldiers/sailors (1944: 2.8 million Army, 0.2 million Navy)
divided by
30 (one prostitutes per 30 soldiers)
multiplied by
2 (2 prostitutes took turns)
equals
200,000 = indisputable number in the media

Hata's estimate:

2.5 million soldiers/sailors (0.5 million were thrown into battlefields)
divided by
150 (one prostitutes per 150 soldiers)
multiplied by
1.5~1 (1.5~1 prostitutes took turns)
equals
16,000 or maybe more.


Furthermore, these estimates are number of "prostitutes," not the number of "abducted women forced into sex slavery." If one has to imagine "the appropriate ratio" for "sex slaves", nobody has any evidence with which to calculate the number.

Japan times, coined a word, and ask why others are not following them

In this article regarding comfort women (via AMPONTAN), Japan times tries hard to make them look neutral but they are not.

The most extensive research on Comfort Women that I know is "Ianfu to senjou no sei (Comfort Women and Sex in Battle Fields)," written by Hata Ikuhiko, published by Shinchosha (1999). Hata Ikuhiko is the very historian quoted below. This book is very good because it addresses almost all issues regarding comfort women with the help of original documents as much as possible. I do not have Yoshimi Yoshiaki's book (published by Iwanami) at hand, but I read it years ago.

Here are some of my comments (in bold).

The article says:

Leading historians with conflicting views -- Ikuhiko Hata, a lecturer at Nihon University who denies there were any sex slaves, and Yoshiaki Yoshimi, a Chuo University professor

Lecturer Hata looks inferior to professor Yoshimi, doesn't he?
Actually, Hata is a retired professor of Nihon University. He retired in 2003.

The article says:

Why do some Japanese call them "comfort women" and not sex slaves?

A conservative segment is trying to euphemize Japan's wartime deeds as well as erase Japan's war-making from school history texts.

Hata, for example, refers to comfort women and refuses to say sex slaves because he claims the women, and according to historians, girls, were not forced into the frontline brothels. Hata claims the women were trading sex for money.

Yoshimi explicitly refers to them as sex slaves. He says the military forced them into sexual slavery, imprisoning them in brothels.


Even in 1997 testimony in Tokyo local court, Yoshimi called them "comfort women." Yoshimi stated in his testimony that they were in a "sex slavery" situation. Yoshimi's 1995 book published by Iwanami is entitled "Juugun Ianfu (military comfort women)". He did not categorically use the term "sex slaves." According to Hata, it is the Japan Times itself that coined the word "sex slave/sex slavery," since as early as 1994 (Hata, ibid, p338). The prostitutes who worked for military had been "Ianfu (comfort women)" all the time before the invention of the term "sex slavery," in early 1990s. It is hypocritical for the Japan Times to change the term for their agenda, and ask others why they are using the old term.




HOME


The Japan Times Printer Friendly Articles
FYI

COMFORT WOMEN

Were they teen-rape slaves or paid pros?

By AKEMI NAKAMURA

Staff writer

An international outcry has flared again after members of the U.S. House of Representatives submitted a resolution in January urging Japan to formally apologize for forcing young females across Asia into sexual slavery during the war.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly said he stands by the government's 1993 statement of apology to the "comfort women" that admitted the Imperial forces' involvement -- directly and indirectly via agents -- in forcing young females into frontline brothels. But Abe also claimed no official document ever surfaced to prove the military coerced them.

Leading historians with conflicting views -- Ikuhiko Hata, a lecturer at Nihon University who denies there were any sex slaves, and Yoshiaki Yoshimi, a Chuo University professor who played a central role in bringing the dark episode in Japan's history out into the open, offer the following:

Where does the term "comfort women" come from?

That is how the military referred to women who worked in its frontline brothels, or "comfort stations."

There were four main reasons for the brothels, according to Hata and Yoshimi. The military reckoned it would prevent soldiers from raping women in the areas they invaded, would prevent venereal disease, would stop soldiers from leaking military secrets to the civilian population by limiting exposure with locals, and the women would bring "comfort" to the soldiers, away from their families.

Why do some Japanese call them "comfort women" and not sex slaves?

A conservative segment is trying to euphemize Japan's wartime deeds as well as erase Japan's war-making from school history texts.

Hata, for example, refers to comfort women and refuses to say sex slaves because he claims the women, and according to historians, girls, were not forced into the frontline brothels. Hata claims the women were trading sex for money.

Yoshimi explicitly refers to them as sex slaves. He says the military forced them into sexual slavery, imprisoning them in brothels.

How many women served soldiers at the brothels?

No official figures have been provided, as there are few documents discovered. Historians have calculated the numbers by tallying how many soldiers were in the field and consulting documents on the ratio of women to soldiers. They also made assumptions about the "replacement rates" of women at the brothels.

Hata has estimated there were up to 20,000 "comfort women," while Yoshimi says the figure was between 50,000 and over 200,000.

Where did the women come from?

They came from Japanese-occupied Korea, Taiwan, French Indochina (now Vietnam), the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Burma (Myanmar) and even Japan, according to Yoshimi. He believes the majority were Korean, followed by Chinese, Taiwanese and Filipinos. But there were also Vietnamese and Dutch women, and he said roughly 10 percent were Japanese.

Hata, however, figures about 40 percent of the women may have been Japanese while 20 percent were Koreans and the remainder included Chinese and Filipinos.

How were the frontline brothels run?

According to Yoshimi, the government and military played a major role in operating the brothels. Although private agents were commissioned to round up the women, the military brought the women to frontline brothels and controlled their operations, he said.

But Hata claimed the agents took the initiative because it was their business. The military only played a secondary role, he said, offering facilities for brothels. He also emphasized the business side of it, saying the women had contracts with the agents, not the military.

How did the "comfort women" live?

According to media reports and books by the two scholars, one sex slave, from what is now South Korea, recalled being forced to serve several soldiers a day at a frontline brothel in China when she was 17. Meanwhile, a Filipino testified that at age 14, she was gang-raped by Japanese soldiers and forced to work at a "comfort station" at age 15, where soldiers kept them at gunpoint.

A 1944 U.S. document on 20 Korean "comfort women" and two Japanese civilians in Burma shows the women were given sufficient food and goods while they took part in sports events and picnics with officers and could refuse "customers." Although the women received pay, "the 'house master' received 50 percent to 60 percent of the girls' gross earnings, depending on how much of a debt each girl had incurred when she signed her contract." The master charged high prices for food and other articles, which made life very difficult for the girls, it said.

Hata figured the situation was similar to prostitutes at regular brothels, which were legal those days. However, Yoshimi says the sex slaves were that by definition -- they did not have freedom to leave or refuse sex with soldiers.

Since the early 1990s, some former sex slaves have filed lawsuits demanding the government make an apology and pay compensation. Their suits have been dismissed at the district, high and even the Supreme Court level, usually by a statute of limitations being trotted out.

But the Tokyo High Court acknowledged in a 2003 ruling that the government had failed in its obligation to provide security for South Korean plaintiffs and in another verdict in 2004 that Japanese soldiers kidnapped Chinese women and repeatedly raped them, describing it as a "comfort women" situation.

Did the military or government forcibly take women to frontline brothels?

Yoshimi said the military knew private agents sometimes cheated, kidnapped, traded or forcibly took some women to frontline brothels. Some former sex slaves testified that the military and Japanese police were involved in the coercion, he added. Because the victims were forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers against their will, the "comfort women" system was obviously sex slavery.

But Hata noted no documentary evidence of systematic state or military coercion has been provided, although police and soldiers took it upon themselves to force victims into the brothels. He claimed the "comfort women" at the brothels engaged in the same acts as prostitutes at privately run whorehouses, which were legal. He said criticizing the "comfort women" system by today's standards is unfair.

What steps did the government take after the 1993 apology statement?

After the 1993 statement of apology by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, in 1994, then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama issued a statement expressing his profound and sincere remorse and apologies to the "comfort women."

In 1995, the semigovernmental Asian Women's Fund was created and has delivered compensation to 364 former sex slaves in the Netherlands, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan. Letters of apology signed by the serving prime minister were also sent to them. But many ex-sex slaves refused the money because the "atonement" funds were technically not from the government and the apology was not convincing.

On March 11, Prime Minister Abe on an NHK program offered what was reported as a sincere apology to the comfort women for their hardships and incurable scars, although his comments were largely taken as an attempt to douse the ongoing ire.

Did other military forces have a similar system?

According to both Hata and Yoshimi, Nazi Germany had frontline brothels during the war, using women, even by force, in Eastern Europe.

The Weekly Q&A appears Tuesdays (Wednesday in some areas). Readers are encouraged to send ideas, questions and opinions to National News Desk
The Japan Times: Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Go back to The Japan Times Online Close window