While international pressure is mounting on the Abe administration to resolve the "comfort women" atrocity, researchers and scholars have been offering suggestions to bring it to a closure. Some of them appear to be attempts to reduce the scope of the issue. Ralph Cossa's article "Abe and history: What's next?" in the June 2 edition was one of them. Following are the reasons why his arguments are wrong.
First of all, the Kono statement and the Asian Women's Fund have failed because they lacked the most essential ingredient — "legal authority of the government." The Diet has never ratified an official apology for the comfort women victims, including the Kono statement, while the Asian Women's Fund comprised private donations.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's mantra that he will "uphold the past apology" rings hollow more than ever when his administration constantly makes attempts to discredit the Kono statement and a U.N. human rights report on the comfort women issue.
Second, the Japanese government cannot resolve the comfort woman issue by negotiating with the South Korean government. There are surviving victims from 11 countries throughout Asia, and a settlement between Japan and South Korea, even if it were to be worked out, would not bring closure to the issue.
Since the first testimony 25 years ago by a former comfort woman, hundreds of victims and witnesses came forward from 11 different countries, and it has become a prominent international human rights issue. Therefore, the solution must involve key stakeholders from all these countries.
Another factor Cossa completely overlooks is the dynamics within South Korea. The South Korean government doesn't have the standing to represent the victims nor the advocacy groups such as the Korean Council and the House of Sharing. In fact, a tentative settlement between the Blue House and Japan would likely be met with the harshest criticism from most stakeholders.
Third, the suggestion for the Japanese government to offer compensation on "moral" grounds rather than "legal" grounds fundamentally misses the point. No matter how strongly the Japanese government wants to avoid legal responsibility for its past war crimes, this shouldn't be the reason to relieve its legal responsibility.
Further, we need to remember that the first testimony by a comfort woman victim only came out in 1991 and that the basic treaty in 1965 between Japan and South Korea could not possibly have resolved the issue.
It's a nonstarter if Japan thinks of minimizing the impact somehow in its endeavor to resolve the issue of sexual slavery. Cossa's play with words about "legal versus moral" responsibility is exactly the kind of nonsense that will only foster further suspicion and create another distraction.
Japan needs to show courage of conviction, and fully embrace the issue by offering a formal apology issued by the Diet and accepting all seven demands of the victims and their advocacy groups, including the United Nations, based on international standards.
The world will embrace Japan only if it proves itself through a full and unambiguous resolution that can only be accomplished by doing the above.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.