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Mock trial forces Japan to confront wartime past
By Suvendrini Kakuchi
December 13, 2000
Tokyo - A mock trial in the Japanese capital, which looks into sexual slavery
used by Japanese troops during World War II, is putting public pressure on the
country to look once again into its wartime record.
From the first testimonies given on Friday, the start of the five- day
tribunal, it is clear that the wounds of more than five decades old are no less
painful for the 200,000 Asian women who were forced into Japan's system of
using "comfort women" for its troops that occupied the region.
"We demand justice for the victims of this military system that abused and even
murdered young women conscripted into the 'comfort women' system in the name of
the Japanese Emperor," South Korean prosecutor Park Woon-soon told the court.
"We are not seeking revenge but believe that by seeking a guilty verdict for
the perpetrators we are laying the foundation for peace in the 21st century,"
Park added.
The tribunal is not legally binding, and the Japanese government has kept
silent on the event. A ruling will be handed down on Tuesday with a full
"judgement" to be released in March 2001.
But the team of experts and aging survivors from countries like the
Philippines, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia and East Timor aims to put
pressure on the Japanese government to render full and complete restitution to
the women victims, and end what it calls the cycle of impunity where
perpetrators are glorified as war heroes.
Organizer Yayori Matsui pointed out that sexual violence committed by the
Japanese Imperial Army was hardly touched by the 1945-1948 International
Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo set by the Allied Forces after the
war. Thus, Matsui says, the women's tribunal (modeled after the 1967
International War Crime Tribunal on the Vietnam War by the British philiosopher
Bertrand Russell) is expected to clarify the nature and extent of both
individual and state responsibilities over the issue.
Details about the wartime "comfort women" system emerged only in the Nineties,
and suits in court against the Japanese government have progressed slowly.
Japanese officials have made verbal apologies for wartime atrocities. In 1995,
Japan set up a fund for private money to be used as compensation for the
victims, but this remains controversial as many former sex slaves, most of them
in their elderly years, want an official apology.
The first day of the tribunal opened with a strong lobby by South and North
Korean prosecutors and survivors to find responsible for the abuse of Korean
women the Japanese state and six high officials including Emperor Hirohito, who
was Japan's wartime divine head of state.
Ten Korean lawyers, history professors and other academics supported their
statements with verbal, video and documentary evidence, such as memoirs kept by
senior military officials and historical research. Koreans are estimated to
make up 80 percent of the Asian women forced into sexual slavery.
More than 1,200 people filled the hall to hear the tribunal, and viewed
shocking videos documenting injuries inflicted on the women by Japanese
soldiers who reacted violently if the women disobeyed them. Likewise, survivors
appeared before the tribunal issuing tearful statements and calling for justice
to restore their dignity.
Seventy-eight-year-old Kang Jon-suk, dressed in Korean national costume, told
the judges how she was taken away to Manchuria by the police when she was 15
years old. Her father was told his daughter was going away to work. "The
soldiers kicked and beat me. I served more than a dozen men each day and they
made me work even when I was menstruating. There were many rooms where girls
like me were locked up," recounted Kang.
South Korean prosecutor Kang Jeong-sook added that the girls were abandoned by
the Japanese army after Japan's defeat by Allied forces in 1945. Many of them,
left penniless, had to find their way home where they were discriminated
against and not accepted by their relatives. She said 1,988 survivors have come
forward with their stories, with 65 going public. More than 90 percent continue
to suffer both physically and psychologically from their experiences. They also
live alone and depend on state support, Kang added.
Prosecutors also asked the judges in the mock tribunal to base their judgments
on the fact current proceedings are hampered by lack of evidence, as most of
the documentary evidence was destroyed by the Japanese government after their
defeat in World War II. The four judges in the trial include Gabrielle Kirk
McDonald, former president of the War Crimes Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia.
The organizer of the tribunal, Violence Against Women in War Network, had sent
an invitation to the Japanese government requesting a defense team. But the
group says it has received no answer.
Instead, lawyer Tsugio Imamaura, representing the Japanese government's
argument, pointed out that all the accused are now dead. Imamaura added that as
stated in the Japanese legal system, the statute of limitations state that
survivors lose their right to file a suit 50 years after the incidents
occurred.
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