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2007 March 7 - 13 TOP3 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Shii criticizes Abe for his remarks on wartime sex slavery

In his report to a meeting at Japanese Communist Party headquarters on March 9, JCP Executive Committee Chair Shii Kazuo made the following comment criticizing the foreign minister and the prime minister for their recent remarks on the wartime “comfort women” issue.

When the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs began to discuss a draft resolution to request the Japanese government to make an unambiguous apology on the wartime “comfort women” issue, Foreign Minister Aso Taro criticized this resolution, saying, “It is totally unsubstantiated by the objective facts.” Prime Minister Abe Shinzo said, “There was no evidence to support the claim of forced recruitment of comfort women.” These remarks, denying the historical facts, have drawn severe criticism both at home and abroad.

At issues is the historical fact that the Japanese military kidnapped a number of women in regions where Japan colonized or occupied, confined them in “comfort stations” that the military established in the battlefields, and forced them to have sex with soldiers.

It goes without question that this inhumane action would not have been possible without the large-scale coercion used by the state and the military of Japan. Innumerable evidence backs this up.

Even Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party government could not deny this. The government, therefore, in the Kono Statement (made by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei in 1993), acknowledged that many “comfort women” were recruited “against their own will” -- meaning coerced into -- and that, “They lived in misery at comfort stations under a coercive atmosphere,” and thereby apologized.

The Japanese Communist Party strongly urges Prime Minister Abe to retract his remarks that revoke his promise to uphold the Kono Statement and immediately break with such words and deeds that distort the historical facts.

The JCP also strongly calls on him to seriously work to share the basic historical recognition as agreed upon in the Japan-China and Japan-South Korea summit meetings.