‘Comfort Woman’ Revisionism Comes to the U.S.: Symposium on The Revisionist Film Screening Event at Central Washington University

Extract

This article is the first of a three-part symposium. See parts two and three here.

Perhaps it should have been foreseen, but it was not evident in 1995 just how farcical, tragic, and alarming the 70^th anniversary of the end of WWII would look in Japan. Then, Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi, the Socialist politician in an extraordinary coalition, to put it politely, with the Liberal Democratic Party, issued a statement acknowledging that his country, “through its colonial rule and aggression, [had] caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations.” That followed upon a declaration two years earlier by the then chief cabinet secretary, Kōno Yōhei, which states, “Comfort stations were operated in response to the request of the military authorities of the day. The then Japanese military was, directly or indirectly, involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women. The recruitment of the comfort women was conducted mainly by private recruiters who acted in response to the request of the military. The Government study has revealed that in many cases they were recruited against their own will, through coaxing, coercion, etc., and that, at times, administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitments. They lived in misery at comfort stations under a coercive atmosphere.” This remarkably straightforward observation from what is known as the “Kono Statement” exists in “unofficial” translation on the site of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.