Japan will not apologize again for its World War II military brothels, even if the US Congress passes a resolution demanding it, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told parliament yesterday.
Abe, elaborating on his denial last week that women were forced to serve as frontline prostitutes, said none of the testimony in hearings last month by the US House of Representatives offered any solid proof of abuse.
"We will not apologize even if there's a resolution," Abe told lawmakers in a lengthy debate, during which he also said he stood by Japan's landmark 1993 apology on the brothels.
Historians say that up to 200,000 women -- mostly from Korea and China -- served in Japanese military brothels throughout Asia in the 1930s and 1940s.
Accounts of abuse by the military -- including kidnapping of women and girls for use in the brothels -- have been backed up by witnesses, victims and even former Japanese soldiers.
But prominent Japanese historians and politicians routinely deny direct military involvement or the use of force in rounding up the women, blaming private contractors for the abuses.
Last week Abe sided with the critics, saying there was no proof that the women were coerced into prostitution, prompting criticism from South Korea and other countries where the women came from.
Yesterday, he said there was no evidence of coercion in the strict sense -- such as kidnapping -- but he acknowledged that brokers procuring women otherwise forced the victims to work as prostitutes.
The US House is considering a nonbinding resolution that would demand a formal acknowledgment and apology from the Japanese government for the brothels.
A House committee heard testimony last month from women who described how Japanese authorities took them captive and repeatedly raped them as so-called "comfort women."
Abe said such testimony did not constitute conclusive evidence.
"There was no testimony that was based on any proof," he told lawmakers yesterday.
The prime minister was accused by the opposition of endangering Japan's international standing as a nation supporting human rights.
"Unless Japan offers an apology ... I am afraid the international community will think Japan has not learned the lesson on human rights or from the war, which Japan started," Democratic Party lawmaker Toshio Ogawa said.
The issue could also disturb a recent rapprochement between Japan and its neighbors.
Relations with China and South Korea have been tense in recent years, in part because of disagreements over Japan's conquest of East Asia in the 1930s and 1940s.
His remarks last week stirred angry responses in South Korea and the Philippines. In Seoul, the Foreign Ministry accused Abe of "glossing over the historical truth."
The 1993 apology was made by then-chief cabinet secretary Yohei Kono, but was not approved by the parliament. It came after a Japanese journalist uncovered official defense documents showing the military had a direct hand in running the brothels, a role Tokyo until that point had denied.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
INFLUTENTIAL THEORIST: Habermas was particularly critical of the ‘limited interest’ shown by German politicians in ‘shaping a politically effective Europe Jurgen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96. Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of
RSS