South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Saturday warned Japan would face isolation if it pushed ahead with a move to revisit an apology over wartime sex slavery. Her warning, in a speech marking the anniversary of a 1919 anti-Japanese uprising, coincided with the opening of a rare exhibition on "comfort women" in Seoul, a euphemism for women who were forced into Japanese military brothels during World War II.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration is moving to reconsider a 1995 apology for comfort women, putting further stress on the already frayed ties between the two neighbours. "Historical truth is in testimony from the survivors. Japan would only bring isolation on itself if it turns a deaf ear to their testimony and sweeps it under the rug for political benefits", she said.
Park called on Japan to follow Germany in repenting its past wrongs so that the two countries can put bitter memories behind them and "move forward for a new era of co-operation, peace and prosperity". "I hope Japan extricates itself from denial of history and starts making a new history of truth and reconciliation", she said. Hundreds of protestors were killed in a 1919 crackdown on widespread demonstrations by Koreans who were rallying for independence from Japan, which occupied the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
The politically-charged issue of comfort women has stoked regional tensions, with South Korea and China insisting that Japan must face up to its World War II-era sexual enslavement of women from across occupied Asia. On display at the exhibition at the History Museum in Seoul were comics featuring the plight of comfort women as well as artworks by survivors.
The display included a diary kept by an operator of a World War II Japanese military brothel, which South Korea says is a material evidence to prove coercion in the sex slavery. The comics made their debut at an international comic book festival in France last month, sparking a protest from Japanese ambassador to France Yoichi Suzuki. In 1993, after hearing testimony from 16 Korean women, a statement issued in the name of Japan's then-chief cabinet secretary Yohei Kono acknowledged official complicity in the coercion of women into sex slavery.
It offered "sincere apologies and remorse" to the women and vowed to face the historical facts squarely. But repeated wavering on the issue among senior right-wing politicians has contributed to a feeling in South Korea that Japan is in denial and is not sufficiently remorseful. In remarks in 2007 that triggered a regionwide uproar, Abe in his first term as prime minister said there was no evidence that Japan directly forced women to work as sex slaves.