Truth: last casualty of Japan's war

Abe ignores evidence, say Australia's 'comfort women'

Stephen Moynihan
March 3, 2007 TheAge

THE association representing "comfort women" living in Australia has launched an attack on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Co-ordinator Anna Song told The Age that Mr Abe's comments were surprising.
"Mr Abe is not only denying his own government's previous statements, but also ignoring the evidence researched by UN bodies and international human rights organisations such as Amnesty International," she said.

Last month Australian Jan O'Herne travelled to Washington to tell her story before a US Congressional hearing.

In 1944, when Mrs O'Herne was 21 and interned in Java with her family, she and nine other young women were taken to a house used as a brothel by the Japanese military. For the next three months, they were raped repeatedly.

Next week, Friends of Comfort Women in Australia will rally at the Japanese consulate in Sydney. Mrs O'Herne and two other women will tell their stories.

"If the Prime Minister and the members of his Government have yet to hear the evidence, we sincerely invite them to listen to the testimonials of three comfort women survivors from Australia, Taiwan and Korea," Ms Song said.

"We believe the Japanese Government is capable of seeing the facts in its history and, as a result, providing a sincere and official apology to the survivors.

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/abe-ignores-evidence-say-australias-comfort-women/2007/03/02/1172338881441.html



Jan Ruff-O'Herne

The Forgotten Ones

"It's something that you'd love to tell, to scream about. But you could never talk about it because the shame was too great. It's something that nobody can imagine, to live with this for fifty years. Something so terrible. It is unspeakable."

Don't sign treaty unless war crimes admitted, PM told

Penelope Debelle
March 14, 2007 The Age

A WOMEN'S support group has warned Prime Minister John Howard against signing a military treaty with Japan because of its failure to admit war crimes.

"We are concerned that Australia's actions today are another step towards the international community allowing Japan to remilitarise while they still refuse to acknowledge some of the wartime atrocities committed by the Japanese military in World War II against women," Friends of Comfort Women in Australia spokeswoman Anna Song said.

The group is concerned that the history taught in Japan's schools and museums is almost entirely restricted to the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

It makes no mention of the conduct of Japanese captors at prisoner-of-war camps, the enforced sexual slavery of women prisoners, such as Adelaide woman Jan Ruff O'Herne, and other atrocities including the use of forced labour on the Burma railway.

"It is not at all about Japan being a former enemy, it's not that kind of dynamic at all," Ms Song said. "It is about having a state which is a member of the UN Human Rights Council but which has not acknowledged or taken full responsibility for its war crimes."

She said Mr Howard's enthusiasm for a new security pact was endorsing Japan's failure to face its history.

"The partner of that treaty is a state that refuses to recognise its own human rights violations and war crimes. In that sense, it is a great step backwards," she said.

"In their war museums and history books, the rhetoric is geared towards making Japan the victim of Hiroshima and the nuclear bombs that were dropped to stop the war."
Ms Song, a Melbourne-based former Amnesty International activist, is a co-founder of Friends of Comfort Women.

The group is the Australian link to a network of organisations seeking justice for between 100,000 and 200,000 women forced into wartime sexual slavery by the Japanese.

While most comfort women were from Korea, Taiwan and China, Ms O'Herne was taken from a prison camp in Indonesia in 1944 and sent to a Japanese military brothel where she was repeatedly raped.

AN ADELAIDE woman forced into sexual slavery by Japanese forces during World War II is disappointed and saddened that her story has been denied.

Jan Ruff O'Herne, 84, said she was one of the thousands of women interned in brothels as prostitutes, known as "comfort women", for Japanese soldiers during the war.

Last month, she testified at a U.S. House of Representatives hearing in Washington that she had been raped "day and night" for three months by soldiers.

Yesterday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Parliament in Tokyo that there was no evidence the military coerced women in the strict sense - such as kidnapping -into serving in the brothels.

Mr Abe said none of the testimony in the U.S. hearings offered any solid proof of abuse, and his government would not apologise even if the U.S. demanded it.

Ms O'Herne accused the Japanese Government of failing to take responsibility for their crimes. She said the Japanese did not want to pay compensation to victims and rewrite history.

"I am terribly disappointed that they are trying to deny it all - it is unbelievable," she said.

"I always had hope and trust in the honour of the Japanese Government to own up to what they did and teach the next generation. But now they deny it."

Ms O'Herne, a Netherlands-born Australian, said she was 19 when she was seized from a prisoner of war camp in Indonesia and forced into a brothel to become a prostitute.

She said many high-ranking Japanese military officers had admitted to her that they had used the military brothels during the war.

"Everyone knows that it happened - but they are denying it," Ms O'Herne said. "I find it a little difficult to understand."

Ms O'Herne, from Adelaide, said she was "raped day and night" by Japanese soldiers for three months during the war.

She has been campaigning for justice for herself and other comfort women for 15 years, after keeping silent about her experiences for 50 years.

Ms O'Herne said a formal apology would help the healing process to begin.

"An apology will give us back our dignity," she said.

"You can't imagine the shame that we have lived with.

"After you've experienced those things, those atrocities, you feel dirty, you feel ashamed, you feel soiled, and we carry that shame all our life."

The Netherlands-born Australian, who was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and spent three and a half years in prisoner of war camps, said she hoped the Congressional hearing would put pressure on Japan to finally act on the matter.

"After 60 years a lot of us are already dead," she said.

"I'm 84 and it's about time that we want Japan to acknowledge their wartime atrocity."

Japan won't expand on sex slaves apology

March 7, 2007 SMH

Japan, under fire for appearing to sidestep responsibility for forcing women to act as wartime sex slaves for its soldiers, says the government stands by a 1993 apology acknowledging coercion.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stirred anger around the world with remarks last week appearing to question the nation's role in forcing women to act as prostitutes during World War II, although he also said the earlier apology stood.

The apology, known as the "Kono Statement" after then-chief cabinet secretary Yohei Kono, in whose name it was issued, acknowledged the Japanese military's role in setting up and running wartime brothels as well as the fact that many of the women were taken to and kept in the brothels against their will.

"The government stands by the Kono Statement, including its recognition of coercion," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki told a news conference on Wednesday. "Recent comments by the prime minister show this stance will not change."

Abe touched off additional protests when he told parliament on Monday that Japan would not apologise again over the sex slave issue even if US politicians adopt a resolution calling for an apology.

The non-binding resolution introduced by US Congressman Michael Honda, a California Democrat, calls on Japan to unambiguously apologise for the tragedy that thousands of women, many Korean, endured at the hands of its Imperial Army.

An Australian woman forced into sexual slavery by Japanese forces said on Monday she was disappointed and saddened that her story of abuse had been denied.

Eighty-four-year-old Jan Ruff O'Herne said she was one of the thousands of women interned in brothels as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during the war.

The Adelaide woman testified last month at a US House of Representatives hearing in Washington that she had been raped "day and night" for three months by soldiers when she was just 19.

On Wednesday about 30 women gathered in Sydney to protest, waving red paper butterflies with the words "Break the silence. Bring justice to comfort women."

Elderly South Korean women who served as "comfort women" - Japan's euphemism for wartime sex slaves - also protested in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, while in Tokyo members of a women's group gathered near parliament to lambast Abe's remarks and show solidarity with the victims.

South Korea had expressed outrage over Abe's remarks and Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing urged Japan to confront its past on the topic and accept responsibility while Taiwan called on Japan to apologise and compensate the women.

US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, visiting Seoul on Tuesday, noted that Japan had apologised in the past.

But an editorial in the New York Times blasted Tokyo for what it termed "efforts to contort the truth" - an attack that was featured on Japanese news programs.

Shiozaki sought to allay concern that Abe's refusal to apologise again contradicted the spirit of the 1993 statement.

"Parts of the resolution are not based on objective fact, and it does not include what the government has done up to now, so that's why the prime minister has said Japan will not apologise again - a view that does not contradict the statement at all," he said, adding that the intensifying debate was not constructive.

"The longer this discussion goes on, the more misunderstandings there are likely to be," Shiozaki said.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Japan-wont-expand-on-sex-slaves-apology/2007/03/07/1173166791725.html