Japan Press Weekly

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2012 October 17 - 23 TOP3 [HISTORY]

JCP Kasai meets ex-‘comfort women’ in Korea

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Kasai Akira met with Korean people involved in various fields in South Korea and handed over a Korean-translated-version of the JCP view on the Takeshima (Dokdo) issue in order to exchange opinions with them.

He also visited the “House of Sharing” to meet with former “comfort women.”

He is visiting South Korea to meet the people he got to know through his efforts to have the Joseon Wangsil Uigwe, a collection of Royal Protocols of the Korean Dynasty plundered by Japan during Japan’s colonial rule, returned to Korea.

On October 19, he met Rep. Kim Jae-won of the ruling Saeinuri Party in Seoul and conveyed the opinion that the JCP recommends that it is essential for Japan to truly reflect on and settle its past colonial rule before sitting at a negotiating table to work for a resolution of the Takeshima question in a calm manner.

He in particular stated the need for the Japanese government to admit to having illegally and unfairly annexed the Korean Peninsula in 1910 and added that Japan should also apologize and compensate for the crimes it had committed under colonial rule.

‘House of Sharing’

Kasai on October 18 visited the “House of Sharing” in Gwangiu-si in Gyunggi-do, a home for the living former “comfort women” who had been forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during WWII.

He went there with Yi Won, a great grandchild of Korean Dynasty king, whom Kasai keeps in touch with in regards to the return of the Korean cultural assets.

Kasai at the “House of Sharing” offered flowers at a stone memorial and met with the six women. Listening to their testimonies, he said, “I will do my utmost to press the Japanese government to apologize to you and compensate you while you are alive.”

Kasai said, “Japan should sincerely apologize and settle its past deeds. This is the way to relieve your suffering and grief and to solve problems lying between Japan and South Korea, I believe.”

The “House of Sharing” staff explained that they invited all the Japanese Dietmembers to the home after repeated remarks denying the coercion of the “comfort women” being made among Japanese politicians. Kasai is the only who actually visited the home so far.

Rep. Kim Jae-won of the Saeinuri Party who Kasai met on the next day also mentioned the shift of the Japanese political world to the right.