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Former PM reconfirms Japan's culpability in 'comfort women' issue
Date: March 22, 2007







Amid mounting criticism from worldwide media over the Japanese prime minister’s denial that imperial Japanese forces coerced women into sex slavery in World War II, a former Japanese leader said on Monday (March 19) that the debate over the degree of official involvement is meaningless.

Tomiichi Murayama who was elected Japan’s prime minister in 1994 said in an interview with Reuters, “There is no point in debating the degree. There is no mistake that the military had set up and managed the brothels. In that sense, the government was responsible.”

In 1995, one year after his election, then-prime minister Murayama made a formal apology for Japan’s wartime actions. In addition, he began work to provide compensation for the women out of the feeling that government’s apology was not enough from a moral standpoint.

In the same year, a government-sponsored Asian Women’s Fund was set up following the Japanese government’s official apology to the comfort women in 1993. The fund was headed by Murayama and has provided the comfort women 2 million yen each in compensation and medical support, along with a letter of apology.

However, many of the women refused to accept the money and asked for compensation directly from the Japanese government rather than a charitable fund. In Korea, a campaign was launched to oppose receiving the money. The campaigners said the Japanese government was trying to avoid its responsibility.

Murayama said in the interview that Shinzo Abe might have made the situation worse by saying he would not apologize even if U.S. lawmakers pass a resolution calling for an unambiguous apology.

Around 70,000 Korean people in the U.S. have signed a petition to show public support for the proposed bipartisan resolution coming before the U.S. Congress.

In regards to Abe’s pledge to revise Japan’s pacifist Constitution, the former minister said, “We couldn’t even bring up the idea of revising the Constitution during my time. Now they’re talking about it in parliament. People in Asia are worried Japan may go back to the past.”

The Christian Science Monitor a U.S. international daily in its March 20 editorial advised Japan to honestly admit its historical wrongdoing.

It said, “Abe’s bigger concern may be that young Japanese are losing pride in their country. He may believe that character is inherited and to admit the sins of one’s fathers is to admit one’s own.”

The daily went on to say that an honest look at history could help Japan, as it did Germany, to move forward in becoming a global leader.

at least this man has the courage to speak the truth unlike majority of piece of shyt scum japanese politicians and the rest of the brainwashed population