The Kim Jong Il Statement

There is a reason why I call The Yomiuri Shimbun "Pravda-by-the-Palace."

I know that I should not because the Yomiuri organization employs the husband of a dear friend. The YS has also made, through its Japan News, a concerted effort to force The Japan Times to figure out the mechanics and purpose of an English-language newspaper.

However, my prejudices, suspicions and disdain for the editors of the Yomiuri all get bolstered by the publication of pieces like this:

Kono remark twisted 'comfort women' issue

The Yomiuri ShimbunA statement in 1993 by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono that suggested the government admitted forced recruitment of so-called comfort women aggravated what had already become a diplomatic problem between Japan and South Korea.

The Asahi Shimbun in 1992 published an article on the issue of comfort women that included some misinterpretations. The story reported that the Imperial Japanese Army had controlled and supervised the establishment of comfort stations, as well as the recruitment of women.

It also said the military mainly recruited Korean women under the name of Teishin Tai (volunteer labor force) in a forcible manner. It misleadingly labeled the “Jyoshi Teishin Tai” (women’s volunteer corps) under the wartime labor mobilization system as “comfort women hunting.”

The major focus of the problem was thus whether the comfort women were forcibly recruited.

The Cabinet of then Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa announced in July that year results of an investigation into the issue, in which it said there was no evidence that women were recruited against their will by the military.

Since then, however, criticism against Japan in South Korea has not let up. In an effort to politically settle the issue, Kono made the statement in August 1993, saying the government admitted the military was directly or indirectly involved in establishing and managing comfort stations and transferring comfort women. It also apologized and expressed remorse to former comfort women.

However, as the misunderstanding that the government admitted the defunct Imperial army forcefully recruited comfort women has spread, the first Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved a written answer to Diet questions on the matter at a cabinet meeting in March 2007.

In it, the government said there were no descriptions in any documents the government found that directly pointed to forced recruitment of women by the military or government authorities.

(Link)

The Japanese version of the above can be found here.

There are false narratives whose origins can be traced back errors in one newspaper story printed long ago. However, it is the height of absurdity to trace the negative view of Japan's Imperial Age system of military brothels to a vocabulary mistake, if there even was one, by the cross-town rival The Asahi Shimbun.

As for the lack-of-documentation argument, I wish someone would stand up to it with a simple parallel:

"You know, Kim Jong-il's verbal apology of 17 September 2002 was only him talking. There exist no official government documents actually proving that Japan's so-called abductees were taken against their wills. Sure they say they were abducted -- but where is the documentary evidence for this?"

And before turning away, thinking "MTC, you are just being vulgar" consider how much of the abductee movement's pull depends the stories of Soga Hitomi and Yokota Megumi -- who, being minors just going about their daily lives at the time of their disappearance, clearly fit the definition of abduction.  Less is said about the disappearances of adults like Arimoto Keiko, who as a student studying English in Europe made the unfortunate mistake of befriending members of the Red Army Faction Japan Red Army terrorist organization...

[For the record it is Arimoto's story that is the most compelling, with her, her husband and infant being murdered after their betrayal by Japan's Socialist Party.]

...where the non-issue over use or non-use of physical force in abduction, where there is illusion of choice, whether to be lured or not be lured, has its clearest parallel.

As for the applause line in the above for the Abe Cabinet's 2007 revision of the Kono Statement, what can one say? Sycophancy is unbecoming to anyone, but least of all to a purported news organization.


Later - My thanks to the readers who pointed out the incorrect terrorist group name.

The Trafficking of Human Beings

In my heart of hearts, I believe the DPRK government was not lying in September 2002. One way or another, eight of the 13 Japanese citizens believed kidnapped by North Korean agents in the 1970s died long ago. Intellectually, I can accept the possibility that one or two may still be alive, either in a reeducation camp or a mental facility. However, my heart tells me it is unlikely to be so.

I am also not sure whether or not the DPRK turned over the remains of Yokota Megumi. However, I am fairly sure that running DNA tests on cremated bits of bone and ash was a futile exercise (hence my problems with this report).

Ever since Kim Jong-il tossed caution to the winds and not only confessed to the kidnappings but also, incomprehensibly, let the kidnapped and their families leave the DPRK (the marked, inexcusable exception being the daughter of Yokota Megumi, of course) the families and their ultra-right defenders have been overstaying their welcome as the nation's official sufferers-in-chief. The Japanese government's shift to a hardline, intransigent stance over the abductees crippled efforts to rein in the DPRK's nuclear program--with predictable results.

[Not that Japanese intransigence would have mattered much in the long run. In the long run, the the DPRK regime could not shake itself of the belief it needed an atomic capability as a deterrent. Somehow possessing tens of thousands of fanatical commandos trained in guerilla warfare techniques and enough artillery tubes to flatten Seoul under a hailstorm of fire and steel were not deterrent enough. ]

A reopened investigation into the fates of the abductees holds risks. At best, it will not find much in addition to what has already presented. At worst, new information will be "discovered," the facts of which will likely be so awful as to send the relationship spiraling back into the abyss.

The "reinvestigation-for-loosened-sactions" deal is nevertheless a good start -- one that perhaps only a deeply wounded Fukuda Administration could have ever accepted.

What is more intriguing is the possibility that the DPRK may have offered to hand over

1) the surviving Yodo hijackers and

2) their spouses who lured Ishioka Tōru (yes, it's the mind-bending Spain photo) and Arimoto Keiko to their doom.

[An aside - The press and the government are Yokota Megumi freaks--practically by statute. The Ishioka-Arimoto tragedy is the more compelling one, however. Leftist idealism and naiveté made the victims complicit in their own capture and stupidity made their families possibly complicit in what one must assume were their murders and the murder of their infant. ]

Apart from the still-at-large perpetrators of the 20 March 1995 Sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway system (oh where oh where did they go?) the Yodo hijackers plus Mori Junko and Wakabayashi Sakiko are the National Police Agency's most wanted criminals. There is nothing the NPA would love so much as the chance to put them all behind bars for the rest of their natural lives.

That there is serious talk about the DPRK and Japan cutting a deal over the Yodo hijackers demonstrates that both sides are willing to place huge bets on the future.

And that is a very, very interesting development indeed.