이 일기에는 당시 일본군의 위안부 동원 및 운영 실태에 관한 기록이 여러 차례 수록되어 있다. 여기에는 일본군이 위안소로부터 영업 관련 보고를 받았으며, 군 사령부에서는 위안소 경영자 회의가 열렸고, 심지어 일본 군의관이 위안부를 직접 검사했으며 군이 위안소의 이동을 통제했다는 기록도 적혀 있다.
1943년 7월 29일자 일기에는 결혼 후 위안부를 그만둔 여성이 일본군의 명령을 받아 다시 위안부로 일하게 되었다는 내용도 있다.
또한 1944년 4월6일자 일기에는 “4차 위안단”이라는 표현이 보이는데, 이를 통해 일본군이 적어도 4차례에 걸쳐 조직적으로 위안부를 모집했음을 추정할 수 있다. 이는 미군이 1945년 11월 작성한 조사보고서에서 “1942년 7월 10일에 위안부 703명과 업자 약 90명이 부산항을 출항했다”고 기록한 것과도 일치한다.
박한용 고려대 한국사연구소 연구교수는 이에 대해 “군이 절대적인 인사, 명령 권을 갖고 위안부에 대한 직접적인 명령과 통제를 한 것을 보여주는 사례”라고 설명했다. 그는 또한 이 일기가 “위안부 피해자에 대한 진실을 규명하는 등 연구에 유용하게 사용될 자료로 보인다”고 말했다.
일본 정부는 그동안 일본이 국가차원에서 위안부 관리를 하지 않았다고 주장해왔으며, 이러한 만행을 저지른 것은 민간 업자들이라고 주장해왔다.
대표적인 극우 인사인 하시모토 도루 일본 오사카 시장은 위안부에 대한 일본의 국가적 개입을 부정하면서 ““위안부 제도는 필요하다”는 망언까지 한 바 있다.
한편, 일기의 소장자인 오채현 타임캡슐박물관 관장은 “10여 년 전 지방의 한 고서점에서 발견한 일기에 군부대•구락부•보건소 등의 단어가 많이 나와 직관적으로 위안부와 관련 있는 자료라 보고 입수해 연구기관에 이를 제공했다”고 밝혔다.
<관련 영문 기사>
More evidence of Japan’s wartime sexual enslavement emerges
By Song Sang-ho
New evidence was unveiled Thursday that Japan’s imperialist army directly managed Asian women for sexual slavery, dealing a fresh blow to Tokyo, which has long denied the wartime atrocity.
Korea University’s Center for Korean History disclosed a diary that a Korean manager of Japanese brothels wrote while staying in Myanmar and Singapore between August 1942 and December 1944.
The diary showed the Japanese army received revenue-related reports from military brothels, examined the bodies of sex slaves and regulated the relocations of sexual entertainment facilities.
“The diary shows the case in which the Japanese military with an absolute personnel management authority issued direct orders and took control of issues regarding the comfort women (sex slaves),” Park Han-yong, professor at the university center, told a press conference.
“This diary is a historical record that shows the Japanese military, the Japanese Government General of Korea and its military command in Korea were involved in the forced mobilization of Korean women for sexual slavery.”
Tokyo argues that there is no clear evidence that sex slaves, euphemistically called “comfort women,” were forcibly mobilized by its military. It stressed civilian entities were to blame for the crime, turning a deaf ear to the victims’ calls for an apology and compensation.
Historians presume that at least 50,000 women from Asian countries including Korea, China, the Philippines and Indonesia were forcibly mobilized to serve Japan’s imperialist army.
In the diary, an entry dated July 29, 1943, showed that a woman who left one brothel after getting married was ordered by the military to return.
Another entry, dated March 10, 1943, showed that some comfort women collectively expressed anger at the order by the army’s 55th division to relocate to a different brothel. Later, they backed down under pressure from the army, the diary said.
The diary also confirmed that the Japanese army recruited Korean women to provide sex to frontline soldiers on at least four occasions. One entry in the diary, dated April 6, 1944, touched on the “fourth batch” of comfort women.
Formerly, a U.S. report, written in November 1945, confirmed that 703 comfort women and around 90 sexual business people departed from a Busan port in July 1942.
Oh Chae-hyeon, chief of a local museum, obtained the diary a decade ago at a provincial bookstore during his historical research. After finding it contained much content on comfort women, he decided to offer it to a research center for in-depth analysis.
According to the Korea University center, the writer of the diary, who previously worked as a scrivener, moved to Southeast Asia in 1942 for business, and stayed in the region between 1942 and 1944.
Japan’s wartime sexual enslavement has been one of the thorniest issues between Seoul and Tokyo as Seoul regards it as a human rights issue while Tokyo refuses to recognize the wartime crime.
In recent years, Seoul has stressed the issue should quickly be resolved as many of the victims, mostly in their late 80s, die of old age.
(
sshluck@heraldcorp.com)
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