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Japan must face up to history, say women's NGOs

Japan should not be given a permanent seat on the UN Security Council until it faces up to its wartime atrocities against women, activists said yesterday.

On the final day of a preparatory meeting for the Tokyo women's tribunal in December women activists from Japan, Korea, China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, and Indonesia, made a concerted request that Japan's obtaining permanent membership of the UN Security Council should be conditional upon its first prosecuting the perpetrators and compensating the victims of wartime sexual slavery.

Meeting attendees decided yesterday to submit reports on atrocities by Japanese soldiers under a sexual slavery system during World War II to the UN Human Rights Commission.

Henry Chuang (莊國明), chairman of the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation (婦援基金會), said Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) proposed the idea when she gave a speech during a closing ceremony of the preparatory meeting yesterday.

"It struck national delegates as a brilliant idea and was unanimously agreed to," Chuang said.

In a protest against Japanese government inaction, women's organizations from that country and victims of sexual slavery during World War II from other countries have united to form a women's tribunal to restore justice and dignity to the so-called "comfort women."

The Taipei meeting was the seventh held to hammer out differences concerning indictments brought by the countries, and the last preparatory meeting to be held prior to the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery, to be held in Tokyo this coming December.

The tribunal, which takes place between Dec. 8 and Dec. 10, will be co-hosted by Asian victims' countries.

At the meeting which ended yesterday, country delegates resolved to charge the state of Japan and other co-defendants of high ranking Japanese officials with crimes against humanity at the tribunal. Wartime Japanese Emperor Hirohito will also be one of the defendants.

In addition, the delegates decided the prosecution of other responsible individuals would not be waived in this Tokyo tribunal and would be pursued in the future when sufficient evidence has been gathered for their indictment.

A main purpose of the tribunal is to clarify that sexual slavery constitutes a war crime against humanity and also to pressure the Japanese government to accept legal responsibility.

The delegates also hope that the UN will grant jurisdictional power to the tribunal, which currently is a symbolic, rather than judicial body. The extra powers would allow the body to actually prosecute those accised of sexual slavery and make its rulings binding for offending countries, such as Japan.

The country delegates also specified at the Taipei meeting what would constitute reparations in cases of wartime sexual slavery. These included acknowledgment of wrongdoing, issuing of apologies, the setting up of a truth and reconciliation commission and the provision of compensation, as well as the correction of historical records.

To maintain due process and the credibility of the tribunal, the country delegates agreed to allow presentation of a symbolic defense on behalf of the Japanese state, which has resisted acting on the comfort women issue and is opposed to the holding of the tribunal. One of the lawyers for comfort women cases in Japan will be asked to make the presentation for Japan.

The December tribunal is to be presided by three international judges from the UN. The cases of the comfort women will be tried mainly under the framework of international law as it stood before 1945.
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