The findings from evidence submitted at the 1946-48 Tokyo war crimes tribunal
contradict Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's recent denial that the military coerced
women to be prostitutes for its troops -- remarks that triggered outrage in
South Korea and China.
In a March 13, 1946, document unearthed last year by Kanto Gakuin University
historian Hirofumi Hayashi, Dutch prosecutors quote an Imperial Navy employee
as saying women in occupied Indonesia were rounded up on phony charges so they
could be forced into brothels.
"I admit to have slapped these women with the flat of my hand; I also ordered
them to undress," the document quotes Shuichi Hayashi as saying. "I do not
think these women were actually punishable, but their arrest.. ..was only a
pretext to put them in a brothel."
The main verdict at the Tokyo tribunal -- accepted by Japan's government in the
peace treaty between Japan and the Allied Powers that took effect in 1952 --
says Japan's military forced women to have sex with troops.
"These are clear cases of women being coerced into brothels," Hayashi said at a
news conference attended by other historians. "These documents have been long
known to the Japanese government. I don't know how they can ignore these."
Historians say hundreds of thousands of women, mainly from Korea, the
Philippines and China, were forced into Japanese front-line brothels in the
1930s and '40s.
After decades of denial, the Japanese government acknowledged its role in
wartime prostitution after another historian, Yoshiaki Yoshimi, discovered
documents showing government involvement.
That led to an official, though carefully worded, apology in 1993. But
right-wing politicians, who make up an important part of Abe's base, have
renewed efforts to roll back the apology. They contend the women were
professional, paid prostitutes and say Japanese commanders were not directly
responsible for setting up brothels.
Associate Press
