Requests by Japanese government officials and Diet members to remove a monument in a New Jersey borough dedicated to the women forced into sexual slavery for the wartime Imperial Japanese forces have riled local officials.
Palisades Park officials have voiced anger at what they say has been an offer by the Japanese Consulate General in New York to donate cherry trees and other items in exchange for removing the monument, although the consulate has denied making such an offer.
Now that there are plans to erect a similar monument in New York City, the "comfort women" issue, a thorny diplomatic problem between Japan and South Korea, has established a U.S. beachhead. A Japanese government source described the matter as a "headache."
More than half of Palisades Park's population of about 20,000 are of Korean descent. A plaque on the monument, built in 2010 next to a public library, reads, "In memory of more than 200,000 women and girls who were abducted by the armed forces of the government of imperial Japan." It also says: "Let us never forget the horrors of crimes against humanity."
According to sources, New York Consul General Shigeyuki Hiroki met with Palisades Park Mayor James Rotundo on May 1.
Hiroki requested that the city remove the monument after reading aloud from documents, including a 1993 statement from then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono that acknowledged the involvement of the Imperial army in forcedly recruiting women into sexual servitude and apologized to the victims.
Deputy Mayor Jason Kim, who was at the meeting, was quoted as saying donations of cherry trees and books were presented as part of an exchange deal, and the offer angered him.