Bernstein writes: "Grandma Lee denounced the current agreement as soon as
she was informed of the details. 'This agreement seems to have been made
without having the victims in mind. I dismiss it in its entirety,' she said,
and she rejected the Korean foreign minister as an outright traitor."
'Grandma' Lee Yong-Soo, who was forced into sexual slavery serving Japan's
war-time imperial army. (photo: YouTube)
88 Year Old Survivor of Japanese Sex-Slave Camp Rejects Agreement With Japan
By Dennis J Bernstein, Reader Supported News
07 January 16
In the waning days of December, foreign ministers from Japan and South Korea
announced with great fanfare a "resolution" to the so-called "comfort women"
issue. According to historical documents and extensive testimony, some
200,000 people, mostly Asian women and girls from Japanese colonies, some as
young as 10, were captured or lured with false promises of factory work or
other types of employment. They were then sent to brothels to provide sex to
Japanese soldiers. There they were held captive as sexual slaves and raped
dozens of times a day. Some were held captive for many months or even years;
the majority did not survive their enslavement.
This atrocity was first revealed publicly in 1991, when a Korean survivor of
the rape camps, Kim Hak Sun, disclosed her experience. The Japanese
government denied it at first, then offered a weak apology and donated a
pittance as hush money, filtered to South Korea through private sources. The
majority of "comfort women" refused both the apology and the bribe.
The current agreement was hailed globally as a major breakthrough in
relations between the governments of Japan and South Korea and is expected
to pave the way for a new century of cooperation between the two countries.
In the US, major news outlets reported the agreement as a victory for the
women and their supporters, who have been protesting non-stop since 1991.
The report in USA Today is typical of what made it into the US corporate
press: "Japan and South Korea reached a landmark agreement Monday to end a
long-running dispute over Korean women used as sex slaves by the Japanese
military during World War II. The issue disrupted relations between the two
key U.S. allies for decades and hindered U.S. diplomatic and security goals
in the region. Under the agreement, Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will
issue a formal apology to the women - known as "comfort women" - who were
recruited or coerced into providing sex for Japanese soldiers. Tokyo will
also provide about 1 billion yen ($8.3 million) to a compensation fund that
will support the remaining victims."
In October of 2015, I spoke with 88-year-old "Grandma" Yong Soo Lee, a
former comfort woman and unrelenting activist, who had traveled to San
Francisco to testify before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She came
in support of a memorial to the extreme violence suffered by hundreds of
thousands of women who were kidnapped and abused during the Japanese Empire.
("Grandma" is an honorary title given to these women; most were never able
to have children due to the psychological and physical abuse they suffered.)
Grandma Lee denounced the current agreement as soon as she was informed of
the details. "This agreement seems to have been made without having the
victims in mind. I dismiss it in its entirety," she said, and she rejected
the Korean foreign minister as an outright traitor.
When we spoke in Oakland in October, the 88-year-old honorary Grandmother
was strong, forthright, and unrelenting in her demands for real justice for
the women who were so terribly abused. In her own case, Yong Soo Lee had
been lured out of her family's arms, taken by the Japanese, and forced into
sexual slavery. She has spent most of the past 23 years trying to convince
the Japanese government to admit guilt and render an official apology. At
one point, Grandma Lee attempted to take her own life, during a protest in
front of the Japanese Embassy in South Korea to call attention to plight of
the women. She told me she is compelled to do this work, to "speak out" for
all the women who did not survive their ordeal. In fact, some 75% of all the
women forced into sexual slavery died during their enslavement, a higher
rate of death than frontline combat troops. Grandma Lee told me it was
still, after so many years, difficult to tell her story.
"When I tell my story to people," she said, "it's like I am talking to my
mom about what happened to me, so it makes me cry. For 23 years we have been
demonstrating in front of the Japanese Embassy, rain or snow. I sometimes
feel like why do we have to keep doing this? We are human beings. We are not
animals roaming around the streets. When we started, I was still young. Now
I am old," she said, "and it makes me wonder why I keep doing this. The
reason is that it was the difficult times our people went through, because
of the war Japan started. Why were Korea's daughters taken away and abused?"
she asks.
Grandma Soo says she doesn't feel comfortable using the phrase "comfort
women," because it's a deceptive misnomer and a way of mitigating the level
of violence perpetrated on thousands of mothers and sisters and daughters, a
name imposed on these victims of mass state-sponsored rape. "When I go to
Japan, I tell them I am not a comfort woman. I am Yong Soo Lee. That is the
name my parents gave me. I tell them it was you, the Japanese, who took us
away, took away our names, and made us into the comfort women, so you have
to take responsibility for it," she said. "When they call us the comfort
women, it means we volunteered to go and give comfort to the soldiers. But
Japanese authorities have already confessed that it was the Japanese
government that created the system of comfort stations. Because it was you,
Japan, that made us the comfort women, you must be responsible and
officially apologize and make legal reparations. Be responsible. That is
what I am saying."
After the agreement was signed Seoul in December, the South Korean Vice
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sung-Nam Lim, met with Grandma Yong Soo Lee
and several other survivors. Captured on video tape, the confrontation seems
to catch the vice minister off guard, as Grandma Yong Soo Lee refuses to sit
down and instead opens up with a barrage of angry questions.
"Who are you? Who are you? What do you do? Are you the person who settled
this?" Grandma Yong Soo Lee asks. "You're here to report to us that you have
this settled now? What are you doing? Why are you trying to kill us twice?
For what? Are you going to live this life for me?"
The minister repeatedly urges Yong Soo Lee to take a seat, but she refuses
to be placated or polite in the face of what she considers the total
abandonment of the women she represents. "Please take a seat," says the
Minister. Yong Soo Lee refuses and continues standing, her outrage clear
even without a translation. "Shouldn't you have met with the victims first
before you agreed on a settlement? Isn't it only right that you should tell
us what you're agreeing to? Did you exclude us because we're not educated,
because I'm too old? Because you think I don't know anything? What have you
done? Which country's foreign ministry are you part of?"
"Of course I'm from the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs," replies the
Minister.
Yong Soo Lee continues to press him: "What does the Korean Ministry of
Foreign Affairs do? Is that a Japanese entity? Are you their collaborator?
Shouldn't you have told us first? We suffered because we had no country, our
country was too weak to protect us. We suffered as part of the nation's
suffering. Why are you killing us twice? For what? Are you going to live
this life for me? You should have told us first. How could you do this, when
we are alive as witnesses and evidence of history? What kind of work have
you done? Do you not have parents? I am a rightful citizen of Korea. I am
the daughter of this country. Why are you not trying to understand us? You
do not care about us at all?"
In our interview in October, the 88-year-old survivor of mass rape and
torture elaborated on her global mission to attain justice for the women,
many of whom have already passed on without an apology or acknowledgement
for their suffering.
"The victims have been shouting in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul
for 23 years. I did that as a living witness to this history. We kept
shouting, for 23 years, and all we were demanding was an official apology
and legal reparations. If you said the same thing for 23 years, you would
have heard, even if you were deaf. You would have seen, even if you were
blind. I started out as a victim," she said, "but now, as an activist for
women's human rights, I decided to go around the world and talk to the
people in order to resolve this problem. I came to San Francisco because I
heard that good people are trying to build a memorial. I also heard that
Japan is paying lobbyists in order to block the effort. That doesn't make
sense, so I came here to express my love and respect for the people of San
Francisco, and to plead with the people of San Francisco to please, please,
erect the memorial, as an activist who works for women's rights around the
world."
Grandma Yong Soo Lee said it is crucial for her to communicate with young
people about what happened in order to prevent it from happening again. "I
always emphasize my story to the students, and especially the younger
people, because they are our future and are going to protect the country and
society. That's why I believe the younger people are so important," she
said.
She is outraged at how much money the Japanese government has spent to
undermine the truth of the comfort women. It's been reported that the
Japanese government has created a budget of $500,000,000 to whitewash this
history. At the SF City Hall meeting where Yong Soo Lee testified in
October, there were hecklers accusing her and others of being willing
prostitutes, in it for the money. "The Japanese government is spending so
much money to sabotage the plans to establish memorials in the US," she
said. "That is very low, very bad behavior. They must be straightforward and
accept responsibility. That is the only way they will regain their honor. I
want them to stop harassing the good, respectful people in San Francisco and
cooperate with their plan to erect the memorial. More importantly, to teach
and tell the young people in their own country, as well as the young people
here in California, that what they did was wrong and they should work
together to resolve this."
Activists working on the issue have expressed outrage at the agreement. They
have been quick to condemn it as nothing more than a political sell-out to
bolster the US "Pacific Pivot." The "Pivot to Asia" refers specifically to
the professed US policy to deploy 60% of all military forces to Asia and the
Pacific Rim. The policy is meant to counter the rising influence of China.
It also involves cyber-warfare, information & cultural warfare, legal
warfare, as well as a plan to isolate China economically through the Trans
Pacific Partnership, the twelve-nation "trade" deal that excludes China. The
lynchpin of the pivot is the building of multilateral military alliances
with all of China's regional neighbors and the projection of military force
to threaten and coerce China. South Korea and Japan are the key players in
this clearly delineated US policy.
Phyllis Kim is the director of the Korean American Forum of California,
which sponsored Grandma Yong Soo Lee's visit to San Francisco in October. In
a recent radio interview, Kim told me the group rejects the agreement out of
hand. "We denounced the agreement that came out yesterday from a meeting
between the Korean and Japanese foreign ministers," she said. "The victims
also immediately rejected the agreement. If the two governments wanted to
actually resolve the issue they should have listened to the victims. These
victims didn't just sit and wait around for some kind of magic to happen.
They have been active for the past 25 years, actively demanding an official
government apology and legal reparations from the government of Japan, which
they did not get," Kim said. She said the victims' voices should have been
included in any negotiations, "but that did not happen."
In addition, Kim said, "There were victims from eleven different countries.
South Korea is just one of the eleven countries. Some estimate that as many
as 400,000 women were victimized by the institutionalized system of sexual
slavery from 1932 until the end of WWII. These victims are scattered among
these eleven countries, including South and North Korea, China, Taiwan and
Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, some Dutch women, Philippines, Vietnam and East
Timor. These victims also deserve to be part of any kind of negotiation or
settlement made with the Japanese government, but these women outside South
Korea were completely excluded from these negotiations.
Finally, Kim questioned the sincerity of Japan's recent apology. "The
apology offered by Prime Minister Abe sounds sincere on paper," she said,
"but the reasons the victims were not able to accept the previous apology
was because the Japanese government has been relentlessly working to
downplay, whitewash, and eradicate any responsibility the government of
Japan bears for these war crimes. Even in the US, there was an attempt to
lobby against passage of House Resolution 1021 urging Japan to make amends
in 2007. There were numerous attempts and lobbies against installation of
comfort women memorials in the US," said Kim. "Japanese diplomats raised
objections against McGraw Hill, the textbook publisher, for including a
passage about comfort women in its history textbook." And she was quick to
add, "If the Japanese government is sincere about its will to resolve this
issue once and for all, there needs to be an official government apology,
which means the apology needs to be approved by the Japanese cabinet, which
never happened."
________________________________________
Dennis J. Bernstein is the executive producer of Flashpoints, syndicated on
Pacifica Radio, and is the recipient of a 2015 Pillar Award for his work as
a journalist whistleblower. He is most recently the author of Special Ed:
Voices from a Hidden Classroom.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
'Grandma' Lee Yong-Soo, who was forced into sexual slavery serving Japan's
war-time imperial army. (photo: YouTube)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
88 Year Old Survivor of Japanese Sex-Slave Camp Rejects Agreement With Japan
By Dennis J Bernstein, Reader Supported News
07 January 16
n the waning days of December, foreign ministers from Japan and South Korea
announced with great fanfare a "resolution" to the so-called "comfort women"
issue. According to historical documents and extensive testimony, some
200,000 people, mostly Asian women and girls from Japanese colonies, some as
young as 10, were captured or lured with false promises of factory work or
other types of employment. They were then sent to brothels to provide sex to
Japanese soldiers. There they were held captive as sexual slaves and raped
dozens of times a day. Some were held captive for many months or even years;
the majority did not survive their enslavement.
This atrocity was first revealed publicly in 1991, when a Korean survivor of
the rape camps, Kim Hak Sun, disclosed her experience. The Japanese
government denied it at first, then offered a weak apology and donated a
pittance as hush money, filtered to South Korea through private sources. The
majority of "comfort women" refused both the apology and the bribe.
The current agreement was hailed globally as a major breakthrough in
relations between the governments of Japan and South Korea and is expected
to pave the way for a new century of cooperation between the two countries.
In the US, major news outlets reported the agreement as a victory for the
women and their supporters, who have been protesting non-stop since 1991.
The report in USA Today is typical of what made it into the US corporate
press: "Japan and South Korea reached a landmark agreement Monday to end a
long-running dispute over Korean women used as sex slaves by the Japanese
military during World War II. The issue disrupted relations between the two
key U.S. allies for decades and hindered U.S. diplomatic and security goals
in the region. Under the agreement, Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will
issue a formal apology to the women - known as "comfort women" - who were
recruited or coerced into providing sex for Japanese soldiers. Tokyo will
also provide about 1 billion yen ($8.3 million) to a compensation fund that
will support the remaining victims."
In October of 2015, I spoke with 88-year-old "Grandma" Yong Soo Lee, a
former comfort woman and unrelenting activist, who had traveled to San
Francisco to testify before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She came
in support of a memorial to the extreme violence suffered by hundreds of
thousands of women who were kidnapped and abused during the Japanese Empire.
("Grandma" is an honorary title given to these women; most were never able
to have children due to the psychological and physical abuse they suffered.)
Grandma Lee denounced the current agreement as soon as she was informed of
the details. "This agreement seems to have been made without having the
victims in mind. I dismiss it in its entirety," she said, and she rejected
the Korean foreign minister as an outright traitor.
When we spoke in Oakland in October, the 88-year-old honorary Grandmother
was strong, forthright, and unrelenting in her demands for real justice for
the women who were so terribly abused. In her own case, Yong Soo Lee had
been lured out of her family's arms, taken by the Japanese, and forced into
sexual slavery. She has spent most of the past 23 years trying to convince
the Japanese government to admit guilt and render an official apology. At
one point, Grandma Lee attempted to take her own life, during a protest in
front of the Japanese Embassy in South Korea to call attention to plight of
the women. She told me she is compelled to do this work, to "speak out" for
all the women who did not survive their ordeal. In fact, some 75% of all the
women forced into sexual slavery died during their enslavement, a higher
rate of death than frontline combat troops. Grandma Lee told me it was
still, after so many years, difficult to tell her story.
"When I tell my story to people," she said, "it's like I am talking to my
mom about what happened to me, so it makes me cry. For 23 years we have been
demonstrating in front of the Japanese Embassy, rain or snow. I sometimes
feel like why do we have to keep doing this? We are human beings. We are not
animals roaming around the streets. When we started, I was still young. Now
I am old," she said, "and it makes me wonder why I keep doing this. The
reason is that it was the difficult times our people went through, because
of the war Japan started. Why were Korea's daughters taken away and abused?"
she asks.
Grandma Soo says she doesn't feel comfortable using the phrase "comfort
women," because it's a deceptive misnomer and a way of mitigating the level
of violence perpetrated on thousands of mothers and sisters and daughters, a
name imposed on these victims of mass state-sponsored rape. "When I go to
Japan, I tell them I am not a comfort woman. I am Yong Soo Lee. That is the
name my parents gave me. I tell them it was you, the Japanese, who took us
away, took away our names, and made us into the comfort women, so you have
to take responsibility for it," she said. "When they call us the comfort
women, it means we volunteered to go and give comfort to the soldiers. But
Japanese authorities have already confessed that it was the Japanese
government that created the system of comfort stations. Because it was you,
Japan, that made us the comfort women, you must be responsible and
officially apologize and make legal reparations. Be responsible. That is
what I am saying."
After the agreement was signed Seoul in December, the South Korean Vice
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sung-Nam Lim, met with Grandma Yong Soo Lee
and several other survivors. Captured on video tape, the confrontation seems
to catch the vice minister off guard, as Grandma Yong Soo Lee refuses to sit
down and instead opens up with a barrage of angry questions.
"Who are you? Who are you? What do you do? Are you the person who settled
this?" Grandma Yong Soo Lee asks. "You're here to report to us that you have
this settled now? What are you doing? Why are you trying to kill us twice?
For what? Are you going to live this life for me?"
The minister repeatedly urges Yong Soo Lee to take a seat, but she refuses
to be placated or polite in the face of what she considers the total
abandonment of the women she represents. "Please take a seat," says the
Minister. Yong Soo Lee refuses and continues standing, her outrage clear
even without a translation. "Shouldn't you have met with the victims first
before you agreed on a settlement? Isn't it only right that you should tell
us what you're agreeing to? Did you exclude us because we're not educated,
because I'm too old? Because you think I don't know anything? What have you
done? Which country's foreign ministry are you part of?"
"Of course I'm from the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs," replies the
Minister.
Yong Soo Lee continues to press him: "What does the Korean Ministry of
Foreign Affairs do? Is that a Japanese entity? Are you their collaborator?
Shouldn't you have told us first? We suffered because we had no country, our
country was too weak to protect us. We suffered as part of the nation's
suffering. Why are you killing us twice? For what? Are you going to live
this life for me? You should have told us first. How could you do this, when
we are alive as witnesses and evidence of history? What kind of work have
you done? Do you not have parents? I am a rightful citizen of Korea. I am
the daughter of this country. Why are you not trying to understand us? You
do not care about us at all?"
In our interview in October, the 88-year-old survivor of mass rape and
torture elaborated on her global mission to attain justice for the women,
many of whom have already passed on without an apology or acknowledgement
for their suffering.
"The victims have been shouting in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul
for 23 years. I did that as a living witness to this history. We kept
shouting, for 23 years, and all we were demanding was an official apology
and legal reparations. If you said the same thing for 23 years, you would
have heard, even if you were deaf. You would have seen, even if you were
blind. I started out as a victim," she said, "but now, as an activist for
women's human rights, I decided to go around the world and talk to the
people in order to resolve this problem. I came to San Francisco because I
heard that good people are trying to build a memorial. I also heard that
Japan is paying lobbyists in order to block the effort. That doesn't make
sense, so I came here to express my love and respect for the people of San
Francisco, and to plead with the people of San Francisco to please, please,
erect the memorial, as an activist who works for women's rights around the
world."
Grandma Yong Soo Lee said it is crucial for her to communicate with young
people about what happened in order to prevent it from happening again. "I
always emphasize my story to the students, and especially the younger
people, because they are our future and are going to protect the country and
society. That's why I believe the younger people are so important," she
said.
She is outraged at how much money the Japanese government has spent to
undermine the truth of the comfort women. It's been reported that the
Japanese government has created a budget of $500,000,000 to whitewash this
history. At the SF City Hall meeting where Yong Soo Lee testified in
October, there were hecklers accusing her and others of being willing
prostitutes, in it for the money. "The Japanese government is spending so
much money to sabotage the plans to establish memorials in the US," she
said. "That is very low, very bad behavior. They must be straightforward and
accept responsibility. That is the only way they will regain their honor. I
want them to stop harassing the good, respectful people in San Francisco and
cooperate with their plan to erect the memorial. More importantly, to teach
and tell the young people in their own country, as well as the young people
here in California, that what they did was wrong and they should work
together to resolve this."
Activists working on the issue have expressed outrage at the agreement. They
have been quick to condemn it as nothing more than a political sell-out to
bolster the US "Pacific Pivot." The "Pivot to Asia" refers specifically to
the professed US policy to deploy 60% of all military forces to Asia and the
Pacific Rim. The policy is meant to counter the rising influence of China.
It also involves cyber-warfare, information & cultural warfare, legal
warfare, as well as a plan to isolate China economically through the Trans
Pacific Partnership, the twelve-nation "trade" deal that excludes China. The
lynchpin of the pivot is the building of multilateral military alliances
with all of China's regional neighbors and the projection of military force
to threaten and coerce China. South Korea and Japan are the key players in
this clearly delineated US policy.
Phyllis Kim is the director of the Korean American Forum of California,
which sponsored Grandma Yong Soo Lee's visit to San Francisco in October. In
a recent radio interview, Kim told me the group rejects the agreement out of
hand. "We denounced the agreement that came out yesterday from a meeting
between the Korean and Japanese foreign ministers," she said. "The victims
also immediately rejected the agreement. If the two governments wanted to
actually resolve the issue they should have listened to the victims. These
victims didn't just sit and wait around for some kind of magic to happen.
They have been active for the past 25 years, actively demanding an official
government apology and legal reparations from the government of Japan, which
they did not get," Kim said. She said the victims' voices should have been
included in any negotiations, "but that did not happen."
In addition, Kim said, "There were victims from eleven different countries.
South Korea is just one of the eleven countries. Some estimate that as many
as 400,000 women were victimized by the institutionalized system of sexual
slavery from 1932 until the end of WWII. These victims are scattered among
these eleven countries, including South and North Korea, China, Taiwan and
Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, some Dutch women, Philippines, Vietnam and East
Timor. These victims also deserve to be part of any kind of negotiation or
settlement made with the Japanese government, but these women outside South
Korea were completely excluded from these negotiations.
Finally, Kim questioned the sincerity of Japan's recent apology. "The
apology offered by Prime Minister Abe sounds sincere on paper," she said,
"but the reasons the victims were not able to accept the previous apology
was because the Japanese government has been relentlessly working to
downplay, whitewash, and eradicate any responsibility the government of
Japan bears for these war crimes. Even in the US, there was an attempt to
lobby against passage of House Resolution 1021 urging Japan to make amends
in 2007. There were numerous attempts and lobbies against installation of
comfort women memorials in the US," said Kim. "Japanese diplomats raised
objections against McGraw Hill, the textbook publisher, for including a
passage about comfort women in its history textbook." And she was quick to
add, "If the Japanese government is sincere about its will to resolve this
issue once and for all, there needs to be an official government apology,
which means the apology needs to be approved by the Japanese cabinet, which
never happened."
Dennis J. Bernstein is the executive producer of Flashpoints, syndicated on
Pacifica Radio, and is the recipient of a 2015 Pillar Award for his work as
a journalist whistleblower. He is most recently the author of Special Ed:
Voices from a Hidden Classroom.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
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