第二次大戦終結から70年。日本は戦後、廃墟から見事に復興して発展を遂げ、いわゆる先進国の一員として、人権保障を含む国連の活動への分担金支払い、途上国への開発援助を含め多方面で国際的に多大な貢献をしてきた。紛争解決の手段として武力を使わないことを謳った憲法の下、専守防衛に徹し、武器輸出三原則により原則として他国に武器を輸出してこなかったことも、平和主義国家として高い評価を得てきた。
しかし、このような戦後日本の美点は、残念ながら2000年代に入って大きく揺らいでいる。日本はもともと、中東では植民地主義で手を汚しておらず、戦後の平和国家のイメージや経済発展で好感を持たれる国だったが、小泉政権時の2003年、対米関係を重視するあまり、国際法上何の根拠もないイラク攻撃にもろ手を挙げて賛同。米軍に莫大な後方支援をしたほか、日本と極東の平和維持のために駐留しているはずの在日米軍が沖縄はじめ各地から出撃するのを黙認し、その後は、破壊されたイラクの「復興」支援と称して、対米支援のため自衛隊を派遣した。
イラク戦争による国の秩序破壊とその後のイラク政権によるスンニ派迫害は、イラクと周辺国での宗派対立を激化させ、スンニ派過激組織「イラクのアルカイダ」を源流とする今日の「イスラム国」勃興の要因となった。ファルージャなどイラク各地での民間人殺戮、アブグレイブ収容所での拷問・虐待、アルカイダとのつながりを疑われた人が片端から収容されたグアンタナモ米軍基地での拷問・虐待も、米軍とそれに協力する国に対するイスラム教徒の激しい怒りの元になっている。「イスラム国」の人質とされた後藤健二さんと湯川遥菜さんが着せられていたのは、グアンタナモ収容所で被収容者が着せられている服を模したものだ。「イスラム国」の行っている数々の非道な行為は糾弾されて当然だが、そもそも「イスラム国」の勃興には、2003年のイラク戦争支持に遡る日本の政策も大きく一役買っているという事実にも、私たちは目を向けなければならない。
日本は、自国も大きく関与しているこの混迷状況を目のあたりにして、対米追随の政策を再考しなければならないはずだが、現実は全く逆方向に進みつつある。武器輸出禁止三原則を事実上廃止して、武器輸出を原則可とする方向に転換したのはその一つ。「積極的平和主義」を掲げる安倍政権は、日本の憲法上許されない集団的自衛権の行使容認を閣議決定し、米国が地球上どこで展開する軍事行動にも日本の自衛隊を送れるよう準備している。安倍首相は今回、後藤さんと湯川さんが拘束されていることを知りながら、中東を訪問し、「イスラム国」と闘う国への財政支援を発表した上、よりにもよってイスラエル（パレスチナ自治区への度重なる爆撃で、子どもを含むアラブ人民を多数殺害している）のネタニエフ首相と並んで「テロとの闘い」を宣言した。人質を取って脅迫・殺害する卑劣な行為が許されないことは言うまでもないが、安倍首相の中東外遊とその言動が結果的に、「イスラム国」を無駄に刺激することになったのは明らかだ。 後藤さんと湯川さんの不幸な事件を受け、安倍政権は「積極的平和主義」「テロとの闘い」を錦の御旗として、国外の自国民を救出するために自衛隊を派遣する可能性を含め、自衛隊の海外派遣の道を広げることを画策している。しかし、軍隊が出て行って人質を奪還するということは、アメリカすら成功していない難事であって、日本の自衛隊にそれができるとは思われないし、自衛隊にそれを命じることも、隊員の命を顧みない愚策と言わざるを得ない。
そして何よりも、そのような軍事力の行使は、事態をますます悪化させ、かつ自衛隊員、ひいては日本国民全員が国内外で報復の標的になる危険を増幅させるということが、最も恐ろしい点である。2001 年の 9・11 テロ事件以降、アメリカは「テロとの闘い」を掲げ、グアンタナモでの拷問・虐待、こじつけのイラク戦争、無人機による殺害など、なりふり構わず武力・実力行使に頼るテロ対策を展開してきたが、それからすでに十数年、「テロとの闘い」に勝利するどころか、家族を無残に殺され米国に激しい恨みをもつ（そして、復讐のためなら自分が自爆しても構わないと考える）人々を確実に増加させて、事態はどうしようもなく泥沼化しつつある。オサマ・ビンラディンがいなくなっても、今や、世界中からイスラム原理主義者が集まってアメリカとその同盟国・国民を狙う時代になってしまったのである。「積極的平和主義」「テロとの闘い」と言うが、このような現実を見ずに、日本は、米国の轍を踏んで「軍事でたたく」路線に足を突っ込み、自衛隊員を、そして日本国民全員をテロの危険にさらそうと言うのだろうか。
日本が自衛隊を海外に出すという政策転換はまた、過去に日本の植民地支配や侵略を受けたアジア諸国との関係で多大な緊張をもたらす。日本が戦後平和国家になったといっても、アジア諸国が日本に警戒の念をもたざるを得ないのは、歴代の自民党政権、とりわけ現在の安倍政権のもつ歴史認識のゆえである。国際法上「侵略」の定義は存在しないと言い、あたかも日本が侵略戦争をした事実を曖昧にしたいかのような言動をする。戦後の日本の主権回復は、極東国際軍事裁判を受け入れることを含むサンフランシスコ平和条約の受諾を出発点としていたはずだが、同裁判で A 級戦犯として裁かれ有罪となった戦争指導者が一般兵士とともに英霊として祀られている靖国神社に、閣僚がこぞって参拝を続ける。慰安婦の人々には気の毒であったと言いつつ、強制連行はしていないと強弁する。これらはすべて、過去に被害を受けた国々／人々にとっては、日本はいつまで自国の加害事実を認めず、都合よく否定・歪曲しようとするのか、過去を克服して近隣国と和解するつもりがないのかという疑念を抱かせる挑発的な言動にしか見えないのだ。
慰安婦問題についてみてみよう。安倍首相は、第一次安倍内閣の 2007 年当時から一貫して、「人さらいのような強制連行はなかった」と述べ、女性が慰安婦とされた事実はあったが徴集は強制連行ではなかったという立場を取り続けている。しかし、「慰安婦」の徴集形態は多岐にわたる（日本軍や日本軍支配下の官憲による拉致・誘拐・脅迫のほか、植民地であった朝鮮半島では工場で働く等の甘言で騙して徴集したケースが多い）ものの、騙されてついて行き、着いてみたら仕事とは慰安婦だったという場合でも、女性は慰安婦とされることに同意して行ったのではないのだから、強制的に慰安婦とされた点では変わりがない。徴集の形態にかかわらず、慰安所では身体を拘束され、拒否する自由はなく連日性暴力を受け続けたのであるから、性的奴隷状態そのものであった。日本政府は、朝鮮民主主義人民共和国による日本人拉致被害者については、暴力的に連行されたか、甘言によって連行されたかの区別なく共に「拉致」と認定し、かつ、強制連行されたという公文書なしに、証言などに基づいて被害を認定しており（日本の戦争責任資料センター「日本軍『慰安婦』問題に関する声明」2013 年 6 月 9 日もこれを指摘する）、「人さらいのような強制連行」だけに狭く限定して強制性を否定する安倍首相の立場はなおさら説得力を欠く。
2014 年 8 月の朝日新聞による誤報訂正をきっかけに、今日本では、慰安婦問題全体が虚構であったかのような言説が、大手を振って繰り広げられている。しかし、少しでも冷静にものを考えることができる人間なら、済州島での自らの経験を述べた吉田清治氏の証言に裏付けがなかったからといって、慰安婦問題がすべてなかったことになるわけではないことくらいは分かるはずだ。慰安所は中国、フィリピン、ビルマ、インドネシアなど、戦時中日本軍が進駐したアジア地域の至る所に作られ、現地の女性のほか、植民地であった朝鮮半島や台湾から女性・少女が駆り出され海路・陸路で輸送されて慰安婦とされた。1990 年代に慰安婦問題が国際的に表面化した際、日本政府自らが調査してまとめた記録（「アジア女性基金デジタル記念館」http://www.awf.or.jp/6/document.html 参照）によっても明らかなように、「慰安婦」制度は、慰安所の設置、女性の徴集や輸送、慰安所の管理等にわたって全面的に日本軍が監督・統制していた。朝日の誤報問題は、政府が調査して認めたこの事実関係に何ら影響するものではない。吉田証言などと関係なく、政府自らがまとめたこの調査結果こそが、日本の責任を考える際の前提になるべきで、この到達点を無視して、慰安婦問題の発端がまるで朝日新聞にあるかのように主張することは、常軌を逸した責任の押し付けと言わざるを得ない。
「吉田証言」が国連人権委員会特別報告者クマラスワミ氏の報告書で取り上げられたことが国際社会に日本に対する「誤解」を広めることになった、との声もあるが、そのような声に対しては、クマラスワミ報告書を本当に読みましたか、と問いたい。同報告書は吉田氏の著書に言及してはいるが、そのすぐ後に、吉田氏の証言には疑問も提示されていることに言及している。そして、吉田証言ではなく、クマラスワミ氏が行った各国の被害者への聴き取り調査を主な証拠としているのである。「人さらいのように連れて行った証拠はない」と言うが、日本人拉致被害者の場合同様、人が拉致されるときには文書での証拠は残りにくいのであって、被害者の証言こそが重要な意味をもつ。1990 年以降、被害者が名乗り出て日本の裁判所に提訴した訴訟では、結果的には被害者の請求が退けられる事案がほとんどだが、それは法的な論点によるもの（主に、日本政府の責任はすでに二国間条約で解決済みであるとの理由。但し、それ自体も、現在の国際法の考え方に照らせば疑問がありうる）であって、事実の問題としては、多くの事案で裁判所は、被害者が暴力や脅迫によって連行され人身の自由を奪われたことを、争いのない事実として認めているのである（海南島慰安婦事件に関する 2009 年 3 月 26 日東京高裁判決など。慰安婦問題に関する裁判でなされた事実認定の例をまとめたものとして、坪川宏子・大森典子『司法が認定した日本軍「慰安婦」―被害・加害事実は消せない』かもがわブックレット、2011 年が有益である）。
誤報騒動の中、日本は強制連行をしていないということを国際社会に訴えるための広報努力をしようという動きがあり、現に巨額の国の予算が投入されている。しかし、そのような無益で本質を外れたことをしている限りは、慰安婦問題が日本にとって過去のものになってくれることはないだろう。「人さらいのような強制連行でなかった場合にしても、女性を監禁して強かんしたことには変わりはないではないか」「日本は慰安所を国策として作り、運営したではないか」という疑問が依然として問われ続けるからである。過去に自国が踏みにじった女性の人権の問題を矮小化し、日本は悪くなかったと訴え続ける安倍政権の姿勢が続く限り、「女性が輝く社会」というスローガンもただ虚しく響くばかりである。
平和国家としての戦後日本の歩みは誇るべきものだが、その誇るべき国が、慰安婦問題をめぐり、この期に及んで躍起になって火消しに立ち回ろうとする姿は、あまりにも見苦しくまた非生産的である。自国の過去に直面することは辛いかもしれないが、しかし、それを通して過去を教訓とし乗り越えていくことこそが、日本がアジアの諸国・人々と和解し共に前に進んでいくために必要だと考える。
戦後 70 年という節目にあって、テレビではアウシュヴィッツ収容所の生存者の証言など、ナチスによるホロコーストの歴史を特集する番組もしばしば放送されている。しかし、翻って、日本が戦時に行った加害行為、例えば南京虐殺については、正面から取り上げるような番組はほぼ皆無だという現状がある。日本の加害にかかわる事実を扱った映画作品（最近では、アンジェリーナ・ジョリー監督の“Unbroken”）も、「反日」のレッテルを貼られ、日本での公開は困難となることが多い。日本の学校教育ではそもそも現代史をあまり扱わず、また教科書の記述にも、慰安婦問題を削除するなど様々な問題がある中で、テレビや映画もそのような現状であるとすれば、ますます、自国の歴史について日本人だけが何も知らないという状態が加速していくだけではないだろうか。
安倍首相はイスラエル訪問時にホロコースト記念館を見学し、人種差別がもたらす悲惨な結果を実感されたそうだが、日本も実は、関東大震災時の朝鮮人・中国人虐殺や、侵略戦争による他民族虐殺の過去をもっている。そうした事実は日本ではあまり教えられず、語られないことが、昨今の「朝鮮人殺せ」といったヘイトスピーチの横行にもつながっている。安倍首相には、ここアジアで、日本が過去に悲惨な被害を与えたアジア諸国・人々に対してこそ、今回のホロコースト記念館訪問で得たような歴史感覚を発揮してほしい。かつて 1970 年に西ドイツ（当時）のブラント首相がポーランドのワルシャワを訪問してナチスの犠牲者の追悼碑の前で跪いて謝罪し、ドイツが過去を繰り返さないことを誓う象徴的な行為として評価されたように、私は、日本の首相が、南京虐殺紀念館を訪問して真摯に謝罪の言葉を述べるような、勇気ある行動をとってくれることを期待している。それができる日本の首相は、歴史に残る評価を受けるはずだ。そして、戦後日本が営々と築き上げてきた平和国家としての美点こそ、真に日本の国益に適うものと再認識した上で、軍事力と武器輸出に頼る国とは
一線を画した現実的で賢明な経済・外交政策を展開してもらいたい。
申 惠丰（HRN理事／青山学院大学法学部教授、国際法・国際人権法）
韓国語版はこちら[PDF]
英語版はこちら[PDF]
Peace in Asia and the world and the choice facing Japan: The importance of reflecting on the past and present with humility
Seventy years have passed since the end of World War II. In that time, Japan has risen from the ashes of war to become an advanced nation that has made important international contributions in many areas, including the provision of funds to support the United Nations’ human rights protection and other activities, and the provision of development aid to developing countries. Under its Constitution, which renounces the use of force as a means of resolving disputes, Japan has also pursued an exclusively defensive security policy and refrained from exporting weapons to other countries in accordance with its Three Principles on Arms Exports, actions that have won it acclaim as a pacifist country.
However, these laudable aspects of Japan in the postwar period have been fundamentally eroded since the start of the new millennium. Japan previously enjoyed a positive reputation in the Middle East due to its image as a pacifist and economically advanced country that had never attempted to colonize the region, but in 2003 the Koizumi administration, prioritizing Japan’s relations with the U.S. above all else, fully backed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an invasion that had no basis in international law. As well as providing it with substantial logistical assistance, the Japanese government also permitted the U.S. military, which is supposed to be stationed in Japan to maintain peace in Japan and the Far East, to launch attacks against Iraq from its bases in Okinawa and other parts of Japan. Later, Japan also assisted the U.S. by dispatching members of Japan’s Self-Defence Forces (SDF) to Iraq in the name of “reconstruction” aid.
The destruction of public order in Iraq caused by the war and the subsequent persecution of Sunnis by the new Iraqi government intensified religious conflict in Iraq and neighboring countries, and were factors in the rise of Islamic State, which has its roots in the Sunni extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq. The massacre of civilians in Fallujah and other parts of Iraq, torture and abuse in Abu Ghraib prison, and torture and abuse in the Guantanamo Bay detention center, where many people have been interned on the mere suspicion of ties to al-Qaeda, have caused many Muslims to feel hatred towards the U.S. military and countries that have supported it. The orange clothing worn by Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa after their capture by Islamic State is modeled after the orange jumpsuits worn by inmates at Guantanamo Bay. While the inhuman acts of Islamic State deserve the strongest condemnation, we must also be aware of the fact that Japanese government policies dating back to support for the war in Iraq in 2003 have contributed in no small way to the rise of Islamic State.
Japan ought to be looking squarely at this chaotic situation that it has helped create and rethinking its policy of following the lead of the U.S., but in fact it is doing completely the opposite. For example, it has done an about-face to permit in principle the export of weapons, in effect abolishing the Three Principles on Weapons Exports. Further, the Abe administration, which advocates “proactive pacifism,” has laid the groundwork to make it possible to dispatch SDF troops to participate in U.S. military actions anywhere in the world, by approving the exercise of collective defense, which is not permitted under the Constitution of Japan, via a Cabinet decision. Most recently, while fully aware that Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa were being held by Islamic State, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the Middle East. After announcing the provision of financial aid to countries fighting Islamic State, Abe proclaimed Japan’s intention to fight terrorism standing alongside Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel (a country that has killed many Arabs, including children, in its repeated bombing of the Palestinian Autonomous Areas). It goes without saying that taking hostages, making threats and carrying out executions are contemptible acts, but it is clear that
Prime Minister Abe’s visit to the Middle East and his subsequent words and actions simply provoked Islamic State to no productive end.
Taking advantage of the tragic kidnap and execution of Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa, and under the banners of “proactive pacifism” and the “war on terror”, the Abe administration is working to increase the scenarios under which the SDF could be sent overseas, including scenarios involving the rescue of Japanese nationals abroad. However, using troops to rescue hostages being held in other countries is a difficult undertaking. The U.S. has not succeeded in carrying out such missions, and it is highly unlikely that the SDF would be able to do so. Ordering the SDF to engage in such missions would be a foolish act demonstrating no concern for the lives of SDF troops.
Further, and even more crucially, such uses of military force would only make the current situation worse, and increase the danger of SDF troops, and in turn all Japanese citizens, becoming the target of revenge attacks in Japan and abroad. Since the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on September 11, 2001, the U.S. has proclaimed a “war on terror” in which it has pursued an anti-terror policy relying on the use of military and other kinds of force, involving torture and abuse in Guantanamo Bay prison, the war in Iraq (despite the lack of any convincing link between the 9.11 attacks and the regime of Saddam Hussein), and killing via drones. However, far from winning the “war on terror,” the U.S. has succeeded only in increasing the number of people whose families have been horribly killed and as a result harbor strong feelings of hatred toward the United States (and who are willing to blow themselves up to achieve revenge), and the situation has bogged down with no sign of improvement. Osama Bin Laden may be dead, but we are now in an age in which Islamic extremists from around the world are joining together to attack the U.S. and its allies (and the nationals of these countries). The Japanese government talks about “proactive peace” and the “war on terror”: Does it intend to ignore the reality described above and plunge down the path already well-trodden by the U.S. of reacting with military force, thus placing SDF troops and the Japanese public as a whole at greater risk of terrorism?
The change in policy to enable SDF troops to be sent overseas will also greatly increase tensions with Asian countries that were colonized or invaded by Japan in the past. Even if we say that Japan has become a peaceful country in the postwar era, the historical views held by successive Liberal Democratic Party administrations, particularly the current Abe administration, leave Asian countries with no choice but to be wary of Japan. Through his words and actions, such as arguing that there is no definition of “aggression” in international law, Prime Minister Abe has given the impression that he wishes to create ambiguity over whether or not Japan actually engaged in a war of aggression. The acceptance by Japan of the Treaty of San Francisco, which included a clause that stated that Japan accepted the judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, was the starting point of Japan regaining sovereignty after the war. However, Cabinet ministers have continued to visit Yasukuni Shrine, where the souls of war leaders convicted as Class A war criminals are enshrined along with the souls of ordinary soldiers. While expressing pity for Japanese military sex slaves, or “comfort women,” they obstinately insist that these women were not forcibly recruited. For countries and individuals victimized by Japan in the past, these are provocative words and actions that make them feel that Japan will never recognize the facts about its past acts and is attempting to deny or distort the facts at its own convenience, and cause them to question whether Japan really has the intention to overcome the past and reconcile with neighboring countries.
Let us look at the question of the “comfort women.” Since the first Abe administration in 2007, Prime Minister Abe has consistently taken the position that the comfort women were not “coerced” in the sense of being “kidnapped,” and that while it is true that there were comfort women, they were not forcibly recruited. The comfort women were in fact recruited in a variety of ways; in addition to cases of abduction, kidnapping and intimidation by the Japanese military or by authorities under the control of the Japanese military, there were also many cases on the Korean Peninsula, which had been colonized by Japan, of recruitment by deception, for example telling women that they would be working in a factory. However, there is no difference between cases of forcible recruitment and cases in which the victims were recruited by deception and only learned that they would be serving as comfort women after arriving at their destination, because in neither case did the women consent at any point to becoming comfort women. Regardless of how the women were recruited, the situation in which they were all eventually placed was one of sexual slavery: confined in comfort stations and subjected to sexual violence on a daily basis with no freedom to refuse. With regard to the abduction of Japanese nationals by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), the Japanese government does not distinguish between cases in which people were taken by force and cases in which they were tricked into going along with their abductors, recognizing both as cases of abduction (the Center for Research and Documentation on Japan’s War
Responsibility also points this out, in its “Statement on the Japanese Military ‘Comfort Women’ Issue” of June 9, 2013). Further, it recognizes these people as victims of abduction on the basis of testimony, etc, regardless of whether there are any official documents proving that they were taken by force. We can thus see that the stance of Prime Minister Abe in rejecting the coercive nature of the experiences of the comfort women and narrowly defining coercion as a situation in which a person is forcibly kidnapped cannot be considered convincing or persuasive.
At present, the idea that the comfort women issue is pure fiction is being confidently disseminated in Japan, taking advantage of the Asahi Shimbun’s admission in August 2014 that some of its reporting on the comfort women had contained erroneous information. However, it should be immediately obvious that the fact that Seiji Yoshida provided false testimony about his experiences on Jeju Island does not mean that all other cases of women being enslaved as comfort women are fake. Comfort stations were established in all parts of Asia occupied by the Japanese military, including China, the Philippines, Burma and Indonesia, and the comfort women included women recruited and transported by sea and land from the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan, both Japanese colonies at the time, as well as those recruited from the local population. After the comfort women issue came to light at the international level in the 1990s, the Japanese government carried out its own investigation into the issue. The results of this investigation showed that the comfort women system was overseen and controlled by the Japanese military, from the establishment of comfort stations, through the recruitment and transportation of women, to the management of comfort stations
(see the Digital Museum established by the Asian Women’s Fund, at http://www. awf.or.jp/e6/document.html). The erroneous reporting by the Asahi Shimbun does not change these findings of fact by the Japanese government in any way. Any consideration of Japan’s responsibility should take the results of this investigation, which was carried out by the Japanese government itself, as the starting point, not the testimony of Yoshida. Ignoring these findings and arguing as if the comfort women issue originated in the reporting of the Asahi Shimbun is nothing more than an attempt to shift responsibility from where it belongs.
The Yoshida testimony is included in the report on the comfort women issue by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy, and some people claim that this has resulted in “misunderstandings” on the part of the international community towards Japan. However, it is questionable whether people making such claims have actually read the report. The report does refer to Yoshida’s book, but immediately afterwards states that doubts have also been presented with regards to his testimony. Further, the main evidence upon which the report is based is not Yoshida’s testimony, but the interviews that Coomaraswamy herself carried out in different countries with former comfort women. Some people argue that there is no evidence that the comfort women were “coerced” in the sense of being “kidnapped,” but it is not typical for abductions to be accompanied by documentary evidence (as can be seen in the cases of Japanese victims of abductions by the DPRK), so victim testimony carries a particular importance in this kind of crime. While Japanese courts have rejected claims for redress made by former comfort women since 1990 in nearly all instances, the reasons for the claims being rejected have been legal, not factual (the central legal reason being that Japan has already fulfilled its legal responsibilities through bilateral treaties; although it should be pointed out that doubts can be raised about this position in light of current international law). In most cases the courts recognized that the victims had been taken away by violence or threats and had been stripped of their physical liberty, as facts that were not in dispute in the case (for example, the March 26, 2009, judgment of the Tokyo High Court in the Hainan Island comfort women case; examples of factual findings by Japanese courts in cases brought by former comfort women are collected in the 2011 booklet “Shihou ga Nintei Shita Nihon Gun ‘Ianfu’: Higai・Kagai
Jijitsu wa Kesenai [Japanese Military ‘Comfort Women’ Recognized by the Courts: Facts of Victimization and Perpetration Cannot Be Erased]” by Tsubokawa Hiroko and Oomori Noriko).
In the commotion over the misreporting by the Asahi Shimbun, some have advocated carrying out a PR effort to try to persuade the international community that Japan did not forcibly recruit comfort women, and huge amounts of government funds have in fact been used for this purpose. However, so long as the government continues to carry out futile and meaningless activities of this kind, which do not address the crux of the issue, the question of the comfort women will never become an issue of the past, as people will continue to point out that even if the comfort women were not “coerced” in the sense of being “kidnapped,” this does not change the fact that the victims were confined and raped, and that Japan established and ran comfort stations as a national policy. So long as the Abe administration continues to try to minimize the fact that women’s rights were trampled on by Japan in the past and to claim that Japan is not to blame, the administration’s slogan of promoting “a society in which women can shine” will ring hollow.
While Japan can justifiably be proud of its record as a peaceful country in the postwar period, its current conduct with regard to the comfort women issue is unbecoming and unproductive. It may be difficult to confront the past of one’s country, but learning from and overcoming the past is necessary for Japan to fully reconcile with Asian countries and their people and make it possible to move forward together.
On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, a number of programs focusing on the history of the Nazi Holocaust, such as programs presenting testimony from survivors of Auschwitz, have been shown on Japanese television. However, there have been virtually no programs dealing squarely with crimes committed by Japan during the war, such as the Nanjing Massacre. Films dealing with the facts of Japanese crimes (such as, recently, the movie “Unbroken,” directed by Angelina Jolie) have been branded “anti-Japanese,” and in many cases it has been difficult to show them in Japan. Modern history has never received much emphasis in Japanese school education, and given various problems such as references to the comfort women being deleted from school textbooks, if it is not possible for Japanese people to learn about the past from television programs and movies, the current situation in which Japanese are the only ones who know nothing about their own country’s history will only continue to worsen.
Prime Minister Abe visited the Holocaust History Museum on his recent trip to Israel, and reportedly felt the reality of the terrible results that come from racial discrimination. However, Japan also has a history in which Koreans and Chinese were massacred after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 and people of other ethnicities were massacred during Japan’s war of aggression. The fact that this history is not properly taught or discussed in Japan is a cause of the hate speech that is rampant these days, in which people declare things such as “Kill Koreans.” Prime Minister Abe should communicate the historical realization he apparently gained from visiting the Holocaust History Museum to the countries and people of Asia on which Japan inflicted such terrible harm in the past. In 1970, when the then West German Chancellor Willy Brandt visited Warsaw in Poland, he knelt before a memorial to victims of the Nazis and apologized, vowing that Germany would not repeat its past crimes, and was praised for carrying out this symbolic act. It is my hope that the Japanese Prime Minister will carry out a similarly courageous act, such as visiting the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall in China and making a sincere apology. A Japanese prime minister who could carry out such an act would receive acclaim that would go down in history. I also call on Prime Minister Abe to recognize once again that the positive reputation as a pacifist nation that Japan has so assiduously built up in the postwar period is what will serve Japan’s national interests best, and to carry out realistic and wise economic and diplomatic policies that make it clear that Japan is not a country that relies on military force or weapons exports.
(Translated by Stephanie Coop, Associate Professor at Aoyama Gakuin University)
SHIN Hae Bong
(Human Rights Now board member and
professor of international law and international human rights law at Aoyama Gakuin University)
Message (Korean)[PDF]
Message (Japanese)[PDF]