CHAPTER 3: COMFORT WOMEN
3.2 RESPONSE
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government, cited lack of documentary evidence (Edwards 2013: 110). In 1990, leaders of these organizations sent a letter to then Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki demanding an admission, an apology and financial compensation. Japan asserted the women were prostitutes who had worked voluntarily for private contractors, so the government and military couldn’t be held responsible (Soh 2009: 63).
By this time, Korea had transitioned from dictatorship into a democracy. As a result of new political freedoms and civil rights, many people began organizing advocacy groups around different issues, including advocating on behalf of former comfort women. The most prominent such organization is the Korean Council which was established in 1990. The Korea Council issued a list of demands to the Japanese government that, according to their website, includes financial reparations, official apology and acknowledgement, construction of a memorial and the inclusion of comfort women system into Japanese history textbooks.
In particular, former Korean comfort woman Kim Hak Sun is well noted for bringing the issue into the political spotlight when in 1991, she publicly testified about her past experience as part of a lawsuit against the Japanese government demanding compensation for forced prostitution. Motivated by her efforts, other former comfort women soon filed lawsuits against Japan too. The following year, many of these women testified at the United Nations, bringing the world’s attention on the issue and increased international pressure on Japan. No longer insulated from public opinion as in the pre-democratic era, Korea’s elected leaders have been forced by growing domestic outrage and advocacy groups to address the issue.
3.2 Response
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I intend to highlight the response of the South Korean government to this issue by highlighting notable actions and statements by each presidential administration, beginning with the Roh Tae-woo administration - when middle power first entered political dialogue - and ending with the Park Geun-hye administration. Responses from current President Moon Jae-in are not included because he has been in office less than a year, so it is too recent to consider.
3.2.1 Roh Tae-woo (1988-1993)
Roh Tae-woo served as President of South Korea from 1988 to 1993, just when awareness of the comfort women issue was beginning to gain traction in Korean society.
The problem caused by Japan’s use of Korean women as sex workers was first formally raised in June 1990, after the state visit by Roh Tae-woo, whose official inquiry into the matter was instigated by the demands for apology and compensation by democratic South Korea’s new advocacy groups, particularly the Korean Council (Soh 2009: 63). In the meeting, Roh requested a list of draftees, which the Japanese provided but only names were included without any other information (Stetz 2001: 15). With public pressure growing, Roh again requested that relevant facts be brought to light during Japanese Prime Minister Miyazawa's state visit to Korea in January 1992 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, 1993). Importantly, after a 1992 investigation performed by the Japanese government itself revealed that it was indeed complicit in organizing the comfort women system, Miyazawa again visited South Korea and apologized to President Roh (Jameson 1992).
3.2.2 Kim Young-sam (1993-1998)
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In response to these revelations, LDP Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono issued an official apology in 1993 for Imperial Japan’s abuse of women as sex slaves, which came to be known as the Kono Statement (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, 1993). This was followed by an official apology delivered in 1995 by Prime Minister Murayama for Japan’s aggressive role in WWII. Known as the Murayama Statement, it apologized for Japan’s colonial rule, war of aggression, and for the various other atrocities committed by Japan’s Imperial forces (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, 1995).
In the same year, the Japanese government also established the Asia Women's Fund (AWF) to provide further apologies and compensation for the former comfort women. However civil society organizations in South Korea opposed this action because they insisted that since the payments were funded by Japanese citizens rather than the national government, it was merely an attempt to evade full legal responsibility. Activist groups therefore called on individuals to reject both the payments and the apology.
In contrast, the Kim Young-sam administration seemed to eager to work with Japan.
Records of the negotiations between the ROK and Japan indicate extensive negotiations between the two countries leading up to the Kono Statement and establishment of the Asian Women’s Fund, despite an acknowledgement from the ROK itself that it “would not be able to exert pressure domestically in order to try to control the situation.” (Tadaki, Akizuki, Arima, Kawano, Hata 2014: 8).
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The day before the official issuance of the Kono Statement, Kim Yong-sam furthermore stated that he “appreciated” the final draft presented by Japan and “communicated to Japan that the Government of South Korea accepted the wording of the draft” (Tadaki et al., 2014: 17).
3.2.3 Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003)
In 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung made a state visit with Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. During the visit, the two signed the Joint Declaration of a New Japan-Republic of Korea Partnership Towards the Twenty-First Century, also known as the Obuchi Declaration, in which Kim stressed the importance of building future-oriented relations by overcoming their unpleasant history (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, 1998). Likewise, Obuchi expressed Japan's apology for having inflicted pain and suffering on the Korean people.
Their joint declaration was heralded as “groundbreaking” and the beginning of “a new era in partnership” (Dudden 2014: 45).
The following year the two leaders celebrated the six-month anniversary of the Obuchi Declaration by staging a live TV broadcast in which they touted a policy of “cultural sharing.”
(Dudden 2014: 47). Under the new policy, the Kim Dae-jung administration lifted the ban on Japanese movies, music and television which had been in place for over fifty years. Japan returned the gesture by boosting tourism to South Korea.
But despite the expanded political, security, cultural and people-to-people exchanges that Kim Dae-jung’s policies enabled, the South Korean public was still outraged over the comfort women issue. Between 1996 and 1997, comfort women activist groups led fundraising campaigns in order to prevent the surviving women from accepting money from the Japanese AWF. At the urging of the Korean Council, the Kim Dae Jung administration was instead forced in 1998 to pay out 31.5 million won in support money to about 140 survivors, who were required
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to pledge not to accept Japanese AWF money (Soh 2003: 209-233). The seven Korean survivors who did accept AWF money faced extreme outrage and violent criticism by the wider public, especially activist groups (Lu 2017: 136).
3.2.4 Roh Moo-hyun (2003-2008)
On one hand, some have pointed out Roh Moo-hyun’s strong anti-Japanese attitude. For instance, in his first meeting with United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Roh government proposed defining Japan as “hypothetical enemy” (Dong-A Ilbo 2012). In 2006, Roh even went so far as to appoint an investigation commission to identify the descendants of Koreans who collaborated with the Japanese during the colonial era. In 2010, the commission concluded its report, and 168 South Korean citizens' properties were seized by the government (Ryall 2010).
Yet on the other hand, it is repeatedly said that Roh initially took a passive stance in his first year in office by not raising the comfort women issue. In fact, he entered office hoping to improve ROK- Japan as part of a broader strategy to have Korea facilitate the economic and cultural integration of Northeast Asia (Pastreich 2005: 12). To that end, both Tokyo and Seoul recognized 2005 as a “Year of Friendship” to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and South Korea.
In any case, from 2003 onward, Roh Moo-hyun put greater international spotlight on Japan over the comfort women than any previous administration.
To begin with, the Roh Moo-hyun administration was the first one to assert that the comfort women issue had not been resolved by the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations with Japan, and that the Japanese government was still legally liable for this matter (Okuzono 2015: 3).
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At the same time, he also introduced a new campaign to raise Japan-related historical issues within the international community. In September 2006 the Roh Moo-hyun administration established a government-funded international research institute called the Northeast Asian History Foundation to advocate for nationalist issues (e.g., Dokdo Island, the East Sea, and Comfort Women disputes with Japan, and other historical disputes with China). The foundation has continued to disseminate information related to these topics.
In a 2007 speech marking the 88th anniversary of Korea’s March 1st Independence Movement, Roh argued that ROK-Japan bilateral disputes, like “distortions in Japanese textbooks” and “compensation for Korean comfort women,” can only be resolved by Japan (Chosun Ilbo 2007). It has been noted however, that this activity grew out of pressure from activist groups, like the Korean Council, for the Korean government to settle the issue (Ku 2015).
3.2.5 Lee Myung-bak (2008-2013)
Like Roh at the beginning of his administration, Lee Myung-bak’s government initially took a soft stance on the comfort women problem. Although Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s message of apology on the 100th anniversary of Japanese annexation of Korea didn’t reference the comfort women issue (Kan 2010), Seoul nevertheless welcomed Japan’s effort to improve bilateral ties (MBC News 2010).
In August 2011 a South Korean constitutional court called out the South Korean government for not doing enough to seek redress from Japan on behalf of South Korean comfort women; the court ruled the government’s inaction was unconstitutional because it violated the women’s human rights (Yonhap 2011). Interestingly, even after this court ruling, the issue was
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still not raised at ROK-Japan summit-level meetings that followed in September and November 2011 (Panda 2011).
However, just as with Roh, it was public pressure, along with the court ruling, that forced Lee to take the issue more seriously. Just as the Korean Council’s 1000th weekly protest took place in front of the Japanese embassy, along with their unveiling of the first comfort women monument, President Lee for the first time in his term demanded apologies and reparation at a summit with Japan in December 2011 (YTN 2011).
Soon after, South Korea for the first time raised the issue at the United Nations Third Committee, demanding that Japan take “legal responsibility” for its use of comfort women during WWII (Glionna 2011.) The pressure kept up and in 2012, Lee continued to call for Japan to resolve the comfort women issue, even to the extent of telling the Japanese emperor to apologize if he ever wants to visit Korea (Japan Times 2012).
In effect, the Lee Myung-bak Administration had left this issue untouched and had brought it up in its diplomatic exchange with Japan only after the Constitutional Court decision and heightened public pressure that followed it (Okuzono 2015: 2).
3.2.5 Park Geun-hye (2013-2017)
Amid decades of these ongoing grievances, a deal was suddenly announced between the foreign ministers of Korea and Japan on December 28th 2015 that “finally and irreversibly resolved” the issue. According to the agreement, Japanese Prime Minister Abe and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida phoned President Park Geun-hye to issue a new formal apology.
Furthermore, each surviving comfort woman received $90,000, and each their families $18,000 directly from the Japanese government. Meanwhile, the Foundation for Reconciliation and
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Healing, a Korean governmental organization designed to support surviving comfort women and their living relatives, also received 1 billion yen (roughly $8 million) from the Japanese government. In exchange, Seoul promised to refrain from criticising Japan over the issue and work to relocate the comfort women memorial in front of the Japanese Embassy (South China Morning Post 8/2/2016). The Japanese and Korean governments celebrated the move to improve bilateral ties by cooperating to solve a long-standing point of diplomatic tension. But yet again the media, civil society and activist groups led by the Korean Council collectively rejected their government’s cooperation with Japan.
Surviving comfort women rejected the disbursements from the foundation, and then filed a lawsuit against the Park Geun-hye government for initiating the agreement without consulting them (South China Morning Post 8/31/2016).
Other civil society groups immediately rejected the deal, issuing a statement in which they called it a “diplomatic humiliation” (jtbc 2016). Since then, activist groups led by the Korean Council have put up dozens more memorial statues, both in South Korea and abroad. In 2016, a statue appeared outside the Japanese consulate in the southern city of Busan. The city government attempted to remove it, but quickly bowed to public pressure. Public support for memorial statues is so strong that the South Korean government says it is powerless to prevent campaigners from erecting them (Park 2017).
Campaigners continue to be active even outside of Korea. In 2013 the Korean American Forum of California together with the Korea-Glendale Sister City Assn. unveiled a comfort women memorial statue in Glendale, California and according to their website, they have also recently launched a campaign to have California students at public high schools learn about the comfort women as part of the school curriculum beginning in 2017. The Korean Council,
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together with the local Korean community, erected a similar monument in Sydney, Australia in 2016. The unveiling ceremony was attended by Korean Council co-representative Yoon Mee-hyang and Seongnam City Mayor Lee Jae-myung (Lee 2016). Memorial statues continue to grow in number around the world wherever Korean communities exist.