Pres. Lee must press Japan again on sex slave issue

Korea and Japan are showing starkly different responses to President Lee Myung-bak`s surprise visit to the disputed Dokdo islets in the East Sea. The prevailing sentiment in Korea is that an absolutely natural act by the chief executive was to visit Dokdo as president for the first time and pet the stone sign reading “Korean territory” to confirm Korean sovereignty over the rocky outcroppings.

In Japan, however, the media reported on the visit by saying President Lee “landed on Takeshima (Japan`s name for the islets) of Shimane Prefecture” as if he visited foreign territory. Tokyo then said, “A grave situation will occur,” and “There is no consideration given in relations between Korea and Japan,” as Japan was highly keen on learning the reason behind the unexpected visit.

The reason lies in none other than the Japanese side. Japan has effectively caused President Lee to take the hard-line action of making a surprise visit to Dokdo due to Japan`s national forgetfulness given Tokyo`s refusal to apologize and give compensation for Korean women forced to provide sex to the Japanese military in the Second World War as well as fail to atone for its past. Instead, Tokyo has insisted its sovereignty over Dokdo in still apparently reeling from the fantasy of its imperialist era.

The best example of Japan’s failure to come clean with its past history is its failure to make an apology for and compensate the sex slaves.

President Lee urged Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to strive to resolve the matter in a bilateral summit in Kyoto in December last year. The Korea leader also reiterated his call in a joint interview with seven media organizations in Korea and overseas in March this year. Nevertheless, Japan has remained silent and inattentive to his recommendations over the past eight months, which constitutes a diplomatic gaffe.

Tokyo has claimed that the apology and compensation for comfort women were resolved through the settlement of past history as part of the 1965 Korea-Japan treaty on claims for wartime damages, and Seoul has intentionally avoided discussing this matter. But the comfort women issue was never mentioned in the treaty on basic relations or a supplementary deal on damages, and has remained buried over the course of history in the process of normalizing Korean-Japanese ties.

In the 1990s, the sex slave victims made a string of testimonies and the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan started a campaign to seek an official apology and compensation from Japan.

In response, then Japanese Chief Cabinet Minister Yohei Kono issued in 1993 a statement admitting to the Japanese military’s involvement in the atrocities and apologizing. Timed with the release of the statement, Tokyo planned to compensate the victims through an Asia Women’s Fund, but the victims and the council demanded that Japan enact a law admitting the Japanese government’s involvement in the war crime and compensation. Since then, 20 years have passed without action.

Japan has sternly rejected the demand for a law to resolve the issue, saying, “It is out of the question.”

Yet an apology is by no means impossible. Three opposition lawmakers in Japan, including Rep. Tomiko Okazaki of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, submitted several times in the 2000s a bill on a law on the accelerated resolution of victims of forced sex in wartime. The bill remains on the website of the legislative bureau under Japan’s House of Counselors.

The ruling Democratic Party of Japan must revisit the spirit of this bill and enact a special law to resolve the sex slave issue, thereby make an official apology and compensation. By doing so, it should exert efforts to normalize bilateral ties, which have deteriorated to their lowest point.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the San Francisco Treaty of Peace with Japan, which enabled Tokyo to return to the world as a nation that lost the Second World War. Japan cannot be proud and confident as a member of the international community if it remains obsessed with Dokdo, a symbol of its imperialism, and drags its feet in resolving the sex slave issue at a time when a new global order is being pursued 12 years into the 21st century.

President Lee has been keen on stabilizing bilateral ties that he has never mentioned issues on past history over the past four-plus years. Seoul’s failed bid to forge a military intelligence protection treaty with Tokyo, which came under harsh public criticism due to procedural problems, was a reflection of his strong commitment to do what is needed to improve Korean-Japanese relations. Unilateral efforts can hardly create results in diplomacy, however.

In his commemorative Liberation Day speech to be made Wednesday, the last of his term in office, President Lee should urge Japan anew to resolve the sex slave issue with a determination to seek a "second round" of damage claims for Japan’s aggression into Korea.