Seoul urges Japan's repentance after discovery of new victims lists

Japan should be fully aware of its misdeeds during its imperialistic period, South Korea's foreign ministry said Tuesday, following the discovery of fresh records on Korean victims during Japan's colonial rule.

   The South Korean Embassy in Japan recently found a few dozen lists containing the identities of South Koreans victimized in a nationwide independence movement in 1919 and in Japan's massacre of Koreans after the 1923 earthquake in Kanto, Japan.

   The new records, filed in the 1950s by the liberated South Korean government, indicate Japan's brutal colonial rule from 1910-45 affected a far higher-than-previously known number of South Koreans.

   "The (newly found) records showed once again how terrible Japan's misdeeds were during its past imperialistic era," foreign ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young said in a briefing. "The Japanese side should be well aware of them."

   Cho said the records were compiled in 1953 possibly for the then administration's efforts to prepare for South Korea-Japan negotiations for compensations for the colonial atrocities.

   Asked whether the records would lead to additional compensation demands being asked of Japan, the spokesman said the ministry needs to thoroughly review the lists before deciding on the issue.

   Another ministry official also said it will take time to make a decision.

   "We will first look into the records. Based on the results, we will determine whether we can raise this" with Japan, the official said on condition of anonymity.

   The release of the new records is expected to add to simmering disputes between the two countries over the 1965 bilateral treaty.

   Japan has long declared that all the liabilities toward the government and individuals here were settled through the 1965 treaty between the two countries, under which they restored their diplomatic ties and Japan provided a big sum of money to the South Korean government struggling to prop up its war-torn economy.

   Bucking Japan's position, a series of local court decisions ruled that Japanese companies involved in their government's forced labor should compensate South Korean labor victims.

   In addition to Seoul's repeated calls on Japan to apologize and compensate South Korean women who were forced to work at front-line brothels for Japanese soldiers during World War II, South Korea has also raised the need on the part of Japan to pay for individual damage.

   During the briefing, Cho also expressed regret over Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga's defamation of highly regarded independence fighter Ahn Jung-geun (1877-1910).

   The Japanese official called Ahn "a criminal" for assassinating the Korean Peninsula's first Japanese governor-general, Hirobumi Ito, in 1909 during the official's briefing earlier on Tuesday, referring to South Korea's plan to set up a commemorative monument in China.

   "I urge Japan to face up to history humbly," the South Korean spokesman said. "Responsible Japan politicians need to humbly repent its imperialistic aggression and try to understand the emotions of victimized nations." (Yonhap News)