NGO members boycott Japanese Products

`The Headquarters for Rectification of Japanese Textbooks` formed by over 80 NGOs, including The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan and the National Teachers Unions, held a rally to censure the Japanese rejection to revise the distorted historical textbooks.

The Headquarters announced that ``it is outrageous that the Japanese government ignored the desire of the Korean people to create an appropriate relationship between the two countries. Since the Korean government`s request is rejected, now Korean citizens is set for the movement to urge the Japanese citizens for the rejection of the distorted historical textbooks.``

The Headquarters decided the three countermeasures, that are, the adoption of the resolutions of the local governments against the sister local governments in Japan and the protesting visit to the sister institutions, a pan-national movement to run ads in the Japanese newspapers to persuade directly the Japanese people not to accept the distorted historical textbooks, and the boycott the products of the companies that have supported the Society for History Textbook Reform.

The Headquarters provided a good example made by the Chuncheon city assembly, which had adopted a resolution and delivered it to the sister city in Japan. The resolution read ``when the distorted textbooks are accepted, the friendly relationship, including the Joint Host of the World Cup 2002, between the two local governments will be seriously damaged.``

The Headquarters also requested for the national participation in the fund raising and the boycott movement through the Headquarters` homepage (www.japantext.net), indicating that, since the Japanese local education committees will mostly select their textbooks this month, the intensified advertisement has to be made by mid-July.

The targets of the boycott are 106 companies including auto companies, cigarette, film, shipbuilding, and stationary companies.

During the rally, Painter Im Ok-Sang drew a Korean national flag on a Japanese national flag to express the reconciliation, overcoming the distrust and enmity of the two countries.

After the rally, the Headquarters delivered 47 boxes of the protesting letters endorsed by 400 thousand Koreans to the Japanese embassy, requesting the delivery of the letters to the 47 education committees in Japan.

Soh Young-A sya@donga.com