#22: Apology and Atonement (PART 2)

【Heartbroken】
The current sorry state of disarray surrounding the Comfort Women issue is, first and foremost, a direct consequence of the South Korean government’s negligence to maintain sufficient level of communication with the surviving Comfort Women and their families. As the government of the victims, it has the responsibility for deep empathy and wholehearted connection with its heartbroken citizens, especially as it reaches a sensitive settlement with the perpetrators’ government.
 
And this isn’t the first time for the Korean government to invite such tragic disarray due to its own negligence. Two decades after the end of World War II, Japan-Korea Basic Relations Treaty was signed in 1965. As part of this treaty, the two governments “settled” the issue surrounding Koreans residing in Japan. This issue is also that of human rights violation, in which Koreans were forcibly mobilized to provide labor in Japan under cruel conditions while enduring the agony of discrimination, primarily during the period in which Japan colonized Korea between 1910 and 1945. The Korean government financially settled and “permanently resolved” this issue with the Japanese government, while the heartbroken people were left behind in the dark.
 
The current disarray surrounding the Comfort Women issue dismally proves that no lessons were learned from the past tragedy. As such, the Korean government showcases not only its imprudence, but also senseless absence of compassion.
 
On the other hand, the Japanese government isn’t quite off the hooks for the present state of the Comfort Women issue, as it once again attempted to “permanently resolve” broken hearts and emotions by dishing out cash. It’s a harrowing reality that the Japanese government and military systematically violated the human rights of the women coerced into sexual slavery during the war. As the government of the perpetrators, it has the undeniable responsibility to continue to face squarely its past unspeakable crimes as well as the victims’ unbearable sorrows and trauma. You simply can’t just pay your way out of human rights abuses.
 
Nevertheless, the Japanese government once again signed a settlement by seemingly exploiting the imprudence of the victims’ government, just as it did in the past tragedy. Moreover, the Japanese government now insists that its responsibility as the perpetrator has already been fully met, so all future responsibilities belong solely to the victims and their government. As such, the Japanese government showcases not only its disingenuity, but also senseless absence of compassion.
 
If you and your loved one were indeed the victim, would you consent to a “permanent resolution” in an unconsulted financial settlement? At the root of the problem are the repeated attempts by the governments and rulers to “permanently resolve” broken hearts and raw emotions by money, while leaving the heartbroken people behind in the dark.
 
And if you find yourself having made the choice to sympathize with these governments and rulers instead of with the heartbroken people, then you have likely already become part of the problem.
 
“After receiving cash, how could they have the nerve to complain?” some may ask. To be sure, the Korean government showcased startling imprudence and insensitivity by accepting money from the government of the perpetrators in exchange for a “permanent resolution,” all the while leaving the heartbroken people behind in the dark. Nonetheless, we must all remember that the governments and rulers are the actual parties who decided to go for such a foolish settlement. And we must not forget that while they were busy counting the bills, the heartbroken people were, yet again, victimized.
 
And even if a portion of that money is allocated to compensate some of the victims, human rights abuses can’t be resolved with money in the first place. Cash can’t heal the broken hearts and raw emotions, and it can’t wash away the heartbreaking cries of the abused.
 
If financial compensations are to follow the truly sincere, heart healing apologies and atonements, and if the victims seek such compensation, then there shall be no need for any hesitation. Yet, both settlements – one for Comfort Women and another for Koreans residing in Japan – lack empathy and compassion in the truest sense. As a result, they’ve been diminished to not much more than a mere exchange of cash between the governments. And there lies the fundamental insincerity in these settlements.
 
So then, what should have been done instead? How can we bring about a truly sincere, heart healing resolution for the victims? To that end, we must first begin by learning the facts and understanding the realities of the Comfort Women.
 
Amid the blazing flames and raining bullets, so many lives were taken away in the war. And with them, lost forever are their voices of what they had witnessed with their own eyes and heard with their own ears. Countless air raids and fire bombs obliterated the cities, burning troves of revealing documents into ashes. What’s more, as imminent defeat approached closer, the Japanese government destroyed evidence and incinerated truckloads of official documents in an attempt to escape impending prosecution by the Allies.

​As if that’s not enough, the Japanese government continues, even to this day, to withhold most of its wartime documents from the public. These documents were officially examined by the government in 1992 – taking them 47 years from the end of the war, to begin facing the darkest hours of its history. This investigation uncovered the long-denied truth, that the Japanese government and military systematically violated the human rights of the women coerced into sexual slavery during the war. Despite such revelation, the Japanese government called off the investigation in just one year.
 
Notwithstanding the foregoing, troves of factual evidence have been unearthed from the limited public documents made available by the Japanese government; public documents belonging to other governments including the US, Netherlands and Australia; and testimonies, memoirs and wartime diaries of Japanese veterans, physicians who were stationed in war zones, and politicians. Some people are quick to dismiss these as “Fake evidence fabricated by rogue scholars from Korea and China.” However, in all fairness, we can’t deny the fact that these evidence have been uncovered through numerous studies carried out by scholars from around the world including Japan, US, Netherlands and Australia.
 
And these factual evidence reveal the undeniable truth that Comfort Women were young women and girls forced into sexual slavery by soldiers at war. Estimates vary as to how many women were systematically abused by the Japanese government and military, with numbers ranging from 50 thousand to 200 thousand from at least 11 countries. Most of the victims were Asian women from Korea, China and Japan, however, Caucasian women from Netherlands were preyed on as well.
 
The vast majority of these young women were forcibly seized against their will, violently abducted, lured with false promises of cooking and cleaning jobs, or sold into slavery by their cruel parents. Then, they were incarcerated under inconceivably hideous condition. Some of them were still children, not even 14 years of age. And a few others – who no longer could endure the extreme poverty – found no better choice than to join.
 
Imagine as if this is about you.
 
Your livelihood confined to a tiny room about the size of two small bathtubs. You live in that room, and you’re raped by strangers in that same room, day and night. Some of these rooms are so foul that they’re referred to as public toilets by the soldiers. You’re not allowed to freely go outside – you’re a slave. Nor is it safe to go outside – you live in a combat zone. You’re not even free to go for a walk. You’re raped every day of the week. Perhaps, you might get one day off a month. Intense life or death anxiety puts soldiers' psyche on the extreme edge that if you refuse, then they’ll threaten you with swords and guns, or viciously beat you till you obey. Sometimes, they’ll heartlessly break your wrist with brute force or stab your chest with a bayonet. Out of fear for your life, you can’t refuse even if your genitals are swollen, bleeding or infected in torturous pain.  Out of fear, you can’t refuse whether you’re raped on average by 7 soldiers a day or, on worst days, by 60 of them. You don’t know when such gruesome cruelty will end, nor do you know if you’ll ever be free again. All you can do is just brace yourself and endure the heinous and grotesquely repulsive cruelty so heartlessly carried out by humans.
 
Amid this unspeakable despair, many of these young women succumbed to physical and mental illness, doused themselves with drugs to endure, died of illness, were killed in battles, or took their own lives to end the hopeless misery.
 
How else do we call this unspeakable despair – without calling it a sexual slavery?
 
And what should we – as people who live here today – make of the denials of this despair, the refusals to investigate, the withholding of the documents, and the choice deliberately made not to educate the future generations about these past atrocities?

Read Next: Apology and Atonement (3)【Admit It】
Read Previous: Apology and Atonement (1)【Left Behind】

Complete Series: Apology and Atonement (1)～(6)
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Read Theme: Violence/Peace