The Korean government on Sunday remained unwavering despite Tokyo’s ongoing protest against a memorial in Seoul dedicated to women who were forced into sex slavery during Japanese colonial rule.
Japan has officially claimed that the “peace statue” in front of its embassy in Seoul breaches the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, an international treaty that outlines a framework for diplomacy, a report submitted to the Diet showed Saturday.
The bronze statue was erected in December to mark the 1,000th week of protest launched in 2002 by the so-called comfort women and their families.
Japan’s Sankei Shimbun daily said the government has determined that the monument conflicts with the 1961 accord’s Article 22, Section Two. The clause states that the host country must protect foreign embassies from any intrusion, damage, disturbances of the peace, or impairment of its dignity.
Seoul dismissed the claim, saying it is “not even worth responding.”
“We don’t see a problem supporting a civic group that’s trying hard to resolve the problem. We’ve sent a clear message to Japan that raising these kinds of complaints make things more complicated than easy,” a senior government official told reporters earlier on condition of anonymity.
The report highlights a decades-long tug-of-war between Seoul and Tokyo over wartime atrocities and compensation.
Public sentiment has soured on the back of Japan’s persistent sovereignty claims over the Korean islets of Dokdo, its distortion of historical facts and failure to apologize to forcibly conscripted laborers during the 1940-45 colonial period.
Japan has acknowledged that its troops used sex slaves in front-line brothels but argues that a 1965 indemnity pact between Seoul and Tokyo already settled the issue.
Seoul maintains that the victims are entitled to pursue compensation both on government and individual bases.
On May 7, Takashi Kurai, minister at the Japanese Embassy here, expressed regret over the Korean government’s 500 million won ($424,000) support for the envisioned War and Women’s Human Rights Museum in Seoul.
In U.S., Japanese residents have collected more than 25,000 online signatures for a petition against another comfort women monument in New Jersey.
Tokyo has been lobbying the municipality to take down the memorial. Its offerings include Japanese cherry trees to be planted along the streets, book donations to libraries and youth exchange programs between the two countries. Borough officials rejected the deal.
On Thursday, female lawmakers of the Democratic United Party issued a statement to urge Tokyo to stop lobbying and Seoul to craft stringent measures to safeguard the civil movement.
“We condemn the Japanese government for buying the removal of the statue,” said the statement announced by Reps. You Seung-hee, Kim Sang-hee, In Jae-keun, Jin Sun-mee and Nam In-soon.
“It is deplorable that the government is instead leading the removal campaign when it is supposed to admit historical wrongdoing and apologize.”
By Shin Hyon-hee (
heeshin@heraldcorp.com)
