전체메뉴

“The US, having offered Indulgence to Japan, Also Responsible for the Comfort Women,” AOK Representative Jean Chung, “Unification is the Key to solve the Comfort Women Problem”

Gwon, Migang

June 3, 2016

“I finally felt the reality that there is the US behind the hasted 12.28 Korean-Japanese Agreement. This is not the matter to solve between Korea and Japan.”

Representative of Action One Korea Jean Chung, a Korean-American who recently co-wrote <We Ask the Attorney of the Empire, Park Yooha>, emphasized that there is the US behind the hasted 12.28 Korean-Japanese agreement at the interview with Min[people]Plus. She said, “You should see the big picture called the US East-Asian policy. The 12.28 agreement is one the US urged. That is why the two countries had to rush the agreement.”

Chung continued, “You have to relate the comfort women (sex slave) problem with the Unification matter. The 12.28 agreement was also pushed to haste to strengthen the Korean-US-Japanese triangle alliance. Any attempt to strengthen the triangle alliance is caused from our division. It is not possible to completely grasp the comfort women problem unless we discuss about the problem of our being divided.”

Min[people]Plus heard from Chung regarding ways to make the Japanese Imperialistic comfort women problem the issue of ‘the Asian Holocaust’. Chung, together with attorney Berry Fisher who had made the ‘German Holocaust Agreement’, had proceeded a lawsuit in the US for the Korean victims of the Japanese Empire compulsory manpower draft residing in the US.

- Explain the contents and the results of the Holocaust Agreement settled in the US.

“The Holocaust lawsuit was against the Nazi war criminal companies which forced slavery labor to the Jews, especially the then insurance companies. During the 1990’s, with the collapse of the Eastern Socialist Block, the insurance documents of the Jews in the concentration camps and the role of the companies were revealed, and this was led to the lawsuit.

The German government takes the stand to apologize and recompense. If there had been class action suit, the image of German companies would have gone bad. They were worried about it and decided to recompense: the government and the companies fifty, fifty each.

The US State Department also tried hard for the settlement. Through the settlement, not the trial, seven billion US dollar recompense was settled and the Foundation for Future and Responsibility was established.”

- You have filed a lawsuit in the US for the victims of the then Japanese Imperialist companies’ compulsory labor.

“In 1999, the California State court passed a time-limited law which let the victims of compulsory labor take a legal action against the companies which had drafted them. I proceeded with the lawsuit separately from that of the Jews and put an ad on a newspaper, together with several Korean-Americans, seeking the Korean victims of the compulsory labor by the Japanese Imperialistic companies. Unexpectedly a lot of people contacted to us.

The victims should exactly remember the name of the company, the company had to be currently on business in any ways, and it had to either be active or have a branch in California. One gentleman satisfying all these requirements showed up. He, Mr. Chung, Jaewon, was even keeping the draft notice of the compulsory labor. He was a college student when drafted and served that compulsory labor at a factory named Onoda Cement. We contacted to Mr. Berry Fisher who had settled the Holocaust Agreement and started the legal action against large companies such as Onoda Cement, Mitsubishi, and so on, Onoda Cement in Fall 1999, Mitsuhi and Mitsubishi in 2000. Almost simultaneously, we had reached the consensus of filing a lawsuit for the comfort women and started it at the US Federal Court in September 2000.”

- I heard it is never an easy work to proceed with the legal action in the US.

“The US did an important role for the Holocaust case. But regarding the Asian region, the US holds a different stance: the US gave Japan indulgence after the WWII, with the beginning of the Cold War, for the justification of blocking the spread of communism. There were US citizens who had been drafted for the compulsory labor in Japan during the WWII. Even to them, at a US court, the US aggressively declared to the justice department that the victims, for the sake of the US foreign policy, not be able to file a lawsuit against the Japanese companies, inducing the department to dismiss the charge.

At the lawsuit in California, the justice department took our side before the main trial, but because of the US government’s intervention it was impossible to win the case (the department eventually denied the trial). The judge even said at the sentencing, ‘(The US government) takes different stances toward the Jewish victims and the Korean victims. Isn’t it another case of racism?’ This shows that the final responsibility for the case goes to the US which gave indulgence to Japan.

This is a structural problem. Those who started the WWII still hold seizing the power in Japan, and that is possible because the US is covering their back behind them. We have to comprehend holistically that the US has been behind the historical problems of the Korean-Japanese conflicts.

I finally felt the fact that there was the US intervention in the hasted 12.28 Korean-Japanese agreement. This is not the matter to solve between Korean and Japan. We have to see the bigger picture of the US East Asian policy. The 12.28 agreement was what was induced by the US, and that was why it had to be done that hasted. Perhaps Park, Keun-hye regime also might have wanted to achieve something before the 50th anniversary of the Korean-Japanese diplomatic establishment.”

- Tell me the fruit you gained from your endeavor for the comfort women problem in the US.

“A lot of overseas Koreans in the US sympathize on the Korean domestic matters and do things that they can do as overseas Koreans. Thanks to their ceaseless activism, the US House of the Representatives passed the Resolution on Comfort Women, and some other congresses in other countries have passed similar resolutions. The organizations working on the comfort women matter established a monument to comfort women in Glendale city and continue their like activism in New York state and elsewhere. In San Francisco, there is activism for the monument to comfort women going on mainly led by the Chinese-Americans. Recently, there was a signature-seeking campaign in California to put the comfort women matter on the textbook, successfully done with several thousand signatures, and we submitted them to the California state department of education.”

- How do you, as overseas Korean, think we should handle the historic problem of the Korean-Japanese conflicts?

“In fact, those working on the matter in the US do not directly accuse the US regarding the related matters, either. Yet we have to reveal the role of the US in the matter because the role of the overseas Koreans in the US is very important.

So horribly many as one third of the Korean people were drafted for labor, army, working comfort women, comfort women (sex slave) and others during the Japanese Imperialist colonial era. The Nazi’s war crime is recorded on historical books as the name of Holocaust, and the German government apologizes whenever its members visit Poland. The German government continues to pay its debt from the war crime up to now. Why not Japan? Because people are not aware that there was a Holocaust in Asia as was in Europe. Some scholars in South Korea insist that around 6.5 million Koreans were drafted, and those in North Korea around 8.5 million. These incredible numbers of people were drafted during the Japanese Imperialist occupation, but people do not know because these are not recorded on historical books. We have to help establish the global public opinion that the Asian Holocaust problem has also to be solved as has the European one been done.”

- How to you evaluate the 12.28 Korean-Japanese Agreement?

“Any Agreement between nations is supposed to be formed as a written document. I heard there is none like that from the 12.28 agreement. Perhaps that is because the agreement was between the two foreign ministers, not between the two nations. Therefore, the agreement may not be considered a complete Agreement between nations.

The settlement of the German Holocaust case is largely indebted to the public opinion. It is the best if we can lead an Agreement throughout the public opinion. Americans should establish the public opinion, expanding the Asian comfort women problem. We have to press the US not to neglect this matter anymore. It is not enough only inside Korea. We have to build the public opinion throughout solidarity in the whole Asia.”

- You co-wrote <We Ask the Attorney of the Empire, Park Yooha>. What is the just way to solve the comfort women problem?

“We have to relate the comfort women problem to the Unification matter. The 12.28 agreement was hastened to strengthen the Korean-American-Japanese alliance. The strengthening of the alliance is existent due to the structural problem of division. The US is allied with Japan and Korea, and North Korea is allied with China and Russia. Because of this structure, it is not possible to discuss thoroughly about the comfort women problem without discussing about the matter of division.

Korea, during the Japanese Imperialist occupation, although struggled for the complete independence, could not establish an independent government due to the intervention of foreign forces. The comfort women problem is to be grasped inside this structure and to be wide known as so. The matter of division has been engraved in our society. The culture of division is overwhelming. The overseas Koreans should become ‘Ojakgyo’(a bridge birds make for a separate couple in a Korean folk tale) and take the role of passing through the positive aspects from each sides to each sides, stopping both turning their backs from each other.

Unification is the very center to solve the Korean current problems including the comfort women problem. Unification is The Spirit of This Age. We have to establish a government holding Unification as a national policy. The Koreans inside the Peninsula and overseas have to gather their strength altogether. One system for that is the voting from abroad. I believe, in a broad sense, the Sewol Ferry tragedy was also caused from the matter of division. To solve every current problem considering it to be that of division is to solve all matters in Korea.

The history of division for 70 years is a very short one in the long history of the Korean nation. I believe to help the Korean people think that they can overcome division is the very civic activism for Unification.”

Gown, Migang kang-momo@hanmail.net

<copyright holder © Fieldmedia MinPlus, distributing and reproducing without permission forbidden>