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.
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