An Anniversary

October 31st was the 10th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325. It was the first UN resolution to acknowledge how women were affected by conflict and the critical role they must play toward making the peace. The resolution initiated a decade of recognition of and remedies for the violence inflicted upon women during warfare. No more is rape an acceptable consequence of war.

No one was more outspoken in its support than US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who traveled to the UN to present American support for the resolution. Under her watch, Congress reintrouced the International Violence Against Women Act on February 4th, 2010. It makes combating gender-based violence a "strategic foreign policy imperative" of the United States. The act begins to establish inter-agency mechanisms for assisting victims of international violence and bringing their perpetrators to justice. It may be voted on during the upcoming Lame Duck session.

Bosnia and the Congo are the recent graphic examples of how women suffer when conflict break out. Their modern, documented antecedent was Imperial Japan’s Comfort Women system during the Pacific War in the middle of the 20th century. Women of all ethnicities were forced into sexual slavery and trafficked to serve the needs of Japan’s military, as well as colonial government and industry representatives.

Often, as is common in today’s conflicts, the Japanese military used rape was used as an instrument of warfare and subjugation. Whether the rape was one of opportunity or provision, it was always one of power. Japan’s soldiers and sailors raped because they could.

UNSC Res 1325 is about returning power to the women abused. The violence inflicted upon women and children in warfare is now recognized as unacceptable and its perpetrators no longer can operate with impunity. Although the Comfort Women had no remedies and no voice, their tragedy helped make the world aware of how unjustly sexual violence affects women and societies.

Sexual abuse and violence by the Japanese military was prevalent throughout Asia during the Pacific War. Women and girls were not the only victims. The Comfort women remain one the great unresolved history issues of the WWII. And Asian governments, especially Korea and China, use it legacy to remind Japan of its moral obligations.

Thus, it was a surprise that so few Asian countries gave their vocal support to the anniversary of UNSC Res 1325. Missing were South Korea, North Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, and Mongolia. Only Australia had its Foreign Minister deliver special remarks and these were not at the UN. Otherwise, just the country representatives to the UN or lower presented their national statements of support. 

Malaysia and South Korea did what Japan did in 2008 at the adoption of UNSC Resolution 1820, which noted that “rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide.” Its national representative showed support through his capability as head of a UN organization and not his country.

In this case of 1325, Malaysia’s UN delegate also headed the UN Economic and Social Commission. South Korea probably hoped that the strong support given by Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, 1325 was sufficient.

It was not. It was especially not sufficient for a country that says it champions the Comfort Women cause.

For perspective, on June 19, 2008, the UN Security Council adopted unanimously the landmark resolution 1820 (2008) after a day-long ministerial on “Women, Peace and Security.” Then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted that there had long been dispute about whether sexual violence against women in conflict was an issue the Council was authorized to address.

“I am proud that, today, we respond to that lingering question with a resounding ‘yes!’” she said, adding that the world body was acknowledging that such violence was indeed a security concern. “We affirm that sexual violence profoundly affects not only the health and safety of women, but the economic and social stability of their nations,” she said.

Japan, interestingly, did not as other G-7 countries offer a statement in support of the resolution. Instead, its UN Representative Ambassador Yukio Takasu as Chairperson of the UN Peacebuilding Commission gave a statement commending the leadership of the UN for the debate at the meeting.

The Government of Japan, then led by Yasuo Fukuda, certainly noted this resolution’s implications for its long-festering Comfort Women problem. However, even in the face of this dramatic, international perceptual change that women are not just merely part of war’s collateral damage and that violence against women is among the most pervasive and insidious human rights violations, Japan remained equivocal.

In 2010, the Japanese government supported 1325 with a statement from the Makiko Kikuta, Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs who affirmed the essence of Council resolution. She said peace could not be achieved without the participation of women, yet women and children remained the principal victims of every conflict. The international community must comprehensively address prevention, participation, protection and recovery, she said, adding that doing so would, among other things, enable identification of what was needed to make the objectives of the resolution a reality. She urged the formulation of a country-specific strategy with a gender perspective when implementing peacebuilding activities.

This DPJ government's show of support, which was not merely a MOFA bureaucratic statement, is a long way from the LDP’s distancing itself from the issue in 2008. The DPJ showed an unusual sensitivity to American policy priorities. Whereas the US has long championed women’s human rights, Japan as demonstrated in 2008 was not always an enthusiastic supporter.

If the US Congress fails to pass the International Violence Against Women Act during the upcoming Lame Duck session, Asian motivation to support 1325, 1820, and further measures will be lessened and American moral leadership seriously undermined. There is more at stake than funding a foreign aid budget.

Notes

November 25th - International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women 

UN Unit to End Violence Against Women

 "The International Violence Against Women Act's Uncertain Future" by Elizabeth Weingarten, Oct 7 2010, The Atlantic

White House Fact Sheet on S.Res.1325

Consequences

Sometimes apologies come too late. And it is not necessarily the wounded party that is made to suffer.

The State of California may soon demonstrate this to many of Japan’s greatest corporations. After 65 years of turning their backs on the people they forced to slave in their factories, on their docks, in their mines, and in their brothels, these companies will be asked by Sacramento to account for what did they did during the war and how they made amends.

The July 9th Economist reported on legislation being considered in California to require companies that want to bid on the state’s multi-billion dollar high-speed rail contracts to disclose their involvement in WWII atrocities and detail how they have taken responsibility for these crimes.

The young, first term Assemblyman who sponsors this legislation, Bob Blumenfield, is focused on the French train company SNCF. This international corporation has never apologized for transporting French  Jews and others to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. The underlying objective is to extract compensation from SNCF for the few remaining survivors.

As you will see from the passages from the bill I note below, the legislation is vague enough to include among the victims of WWII: POWs of Japan, forced laborers from China and Korea, Comfort Women from all over the Pacific. You can find the bill text HERE.

Many private Japanese companies brutalized and transported these people. In regard to the “use” of Comfort Women, the Japanese military allowed corporate executives their own access times and prices. 

Not one of these companies has acknowledged, taken responsibility, or made amends for their wartime conduct. Every Japanese company bidding in California used and abused people from the groups mentioned above. You probably recognize these companies: Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Toshiba, Kawasaki, Hitachi, and Nippon Sharyo.

In regard to transport, part of the focus of the bill many of these companies had transportation arms. According to Unjust Enrichment, at least 17 of the 69 hellships used were built, owned, and operated by Mitsubishi, and other primary owners were Mitsui, Kawasaki, and Yamashita Kisen. I am sure there is some scholar somewhere who has also tracked the ships that carried forced laborers and Comfort Women (who were referred to in the ship manifests as only “logs”).

I suspect if Mr. Blumenfield had known about the POW experience and of the long fight for justice of these Americans: Veterans, Korean Americans, Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, and Pacific Island American he would have better highlighted the indignities they confronted.

And among these groups, only the American POWs of Japan are not asking for compensation. They are asking “only” for respect and to be remembered. They are asking for an apology from the companies that enslaved them and a decently funded program of memory preservation that will extend to their descendants and to those who will both teach in the US and Japan the lessons of the horrors they endured.

Assemblyman Blumenfield somehow did not know about these American veterans. Maybe there is an opportunity to teach him. The legislation is still in committee; it has not passed the Assembly, and has not yet gone to the Senate.

Blumenfield’s bill notes that it is

… relevant to the state's legitimate concern with the present character of applicants, as well as to the quality of their corporate governance, corporate accountability, corporate responsibility, and trustworthiness.  

This bill is not intended to remedy historical wrongs. It is intended to ensure that public moneys provided by the taxpayers and bondholders of the State of California are used in a manner consistent with our shared values of respect for human rights. 

The bill specifies what involvement in war crimes entails. Did the company bidding on any part of the high-speed rail project have: "any direct involvement in the deportation of any individuals to extermination camps, work camps, concentration camps, prisoner of war camps, or any similar camps during the period from January 1, 1942, through December 31, 1944." 

The great value of this legislation is that each company has to show accountability.

If an entity responds that it has had a direct involvement in the deportation of any individuals, as described in paragraph (1), the entity shall certify all of the following: 

(A) Whether the entity has any records (whenever created) in its possession, custody, or control related to those deportations. 

(B) Whether the entity has taken any remedial action concerning those deportations, and whether the entity has provided restitution to all identifiable victims of those deportations.

As the Economist article notes; the Japanese companies are concerned about this legislation. And they should be. The bill says: 

Accordingly, should the Legislature become aware of any potential contractor competing for public funds that has engaged in conduct of similarly problematic moral or ethical character, and should there be a similar nexus between this conduct and the present quality of the applicant's character, corporate governance, responsibility, and accountability, full disclosure of the conduct is essential to the contracting and bidding process and it is the opinion of the Legislature that similar legislation should be adopted in similar circumstances. 

Moral responsibility is what this legislation requests. Maybe Japan’s companies with world scrutiny upon them will find that now is the time to apologize. There are billions of dollars at stake. The Japanese ambassador to the United States has repeatedly said that the high-speed train contract is a priority for the Embassy—it is an issue of national pride and profit.

Japan’s elites have even enlisted the help of all the Alliance Managers to win the contracts. They frame their technology as one contributing to the strength of the US-Japan Alliance. The train contract will be, they say, an example of our “shared values.”

Maybe they are right. If these Japanese companies take responsibility for their wartime actions, as this California legislation requests, then they will be viewed as operating in “a manner consistent with our shared values of respect for human rights.”

For now, they do not.

N.B.: The above is a painting of the Tokushima Maru, the sister ship of the Tottori Maru, a Hellship that transported American POWs from the Philippines, both of which were operated by Nippon Yusen a shipping subsidiary of Mitsubishi. Painting lifted from HERE where you can find photos, paintings, histories, and  descriptions of other Hellships.

Christmas Revisionism II

The Vatican

Pope Benedict XVI has had a rough year reconciling the Church’s wartime record with contemporary sensibilities. Efforts to follow traditional Catholic doctrine have run up against larger issues of modern remembrance and reconciliation. Too often the Vatican finds itself in the same equivocal position as Japan. Measured words of contrition become undone by startling deeds of insensitivity and cultural defensiveness.

On Saturday, December 19th, Benedict confirmed the “heroic virtues” of Pope Pius XII—along with those of John Paul II—opening the door to beatification once a miracle is attributed to each.  A second miracle would be required for sainthood. Pius, who reigned from 1939 to 1958, is often accused of not having spoken out vocally enough against the Nazis or intervening to save Jews and others during World War II as well as condoning the use of Nazi-procured slave labor for the Church and assisting Nazis to escape to South America.

The Jewish community and others reacted with such outrage, that the Vatican issued a statement on December 23rd that "It is, then, clear that the recent signing of the decree is in no way to be read as a hostile act towards the Jewish people, and it is to be hoped that it will not be considered as an obstacle on the path of dialogue between Judaism and the Catholic Church.”

In other words, the statement acknowledges the consequences of enshrining a man whose decisions negatively affected millions, although not quite willing to forego the tradition. The Vatican is rightly worried of the reception when the Pope visits the Synagogue in Rome and the State of Israel in the coming months. The Church's efforts to strengthen understanding with the Jewish people have been clouded and it is being made to be accountable for its actions.

This recent action by Pope Benedict XVI  adds to others over the past year that seem disconnected from the goal of reconciliation. In January, Pope Benedict created firestorm by revoking the excommunications of four ultra-conservative schismatic bishops. One, Bishop Williamson of Argentina, was an outspoken anti-Semite and Holocaust denier.  Worse when the Pope demanded that the Bishop recant these views, he equivocated saying he did not have enough information.

As he told Der Speigel "It is not about emotions but about historic evidence," he said. "If I find this evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time."

The wayward Bishop posted on his blog in February a peculiar rebuke to the Pope.  [The blog, was shut down in July and the below quote had been retrieved in February. Now you can subscribe to an email newsletter of sermons ranting about Pope Benedict's destruction of the Church.]:

Amidst this tremendous media storm stirred up by imprudent remarks of mine on Swedish television, I beg of you to accept, only as is properly respectful, my sincere regrets for having caused to yourself and to the Holy Father so much unnecessary distress and problems.

For me, all that matters is the Truth Incarnate, and the interests of His one true Church, through which alone we can save our souls and give eternal glory, in our little way, to Almighty God. So I have only one comment, from the prophet Jonas, I, 12; 

"Take me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you." 

Please also accept, and convey to the Holy Father, my sincere personal thanks for the document signed last Wednesday and made public on Saturday. Most humbly I will offer a Mass for both of you.

No Japanese denier could be more eloquent in avoiding responsibility. So sorry to cause trouble, but I have no regrets, says the Bishop. Like all deniers, the objective simply is to sow doubt. And if the Holocaust did not happen or if Imperial Japan did not rampage across Asia, then maybe, just maybe Fascism or Emperor worship was not so bad. These governments of a "greater time" had to be better alternatives to democracy. Or as Pierre Vidal-Naquet wrote in his 1992 book, Assassins of Memory, “One revives the dead in order to better strike the living.”

Exasperated and pressured by Germany and international outcry, the Vatican firmly admonished the Bishop, stating that “in order to be admitted to the Episcopal functions of the Church, [he] must in an absolutely unequivocal and public way distance himself from his positions regarding the Shoah [Holocaust]."

The Pope essentially admitted to a rare misjudgment and set a strict standard for contrition. More important, he set an international standard for an apology from those who deny historical fact. He said it should be "unequivocal" and "public." These words are the very same written in 2007 by Congressman Mike Honda (D-CA) for his resolution (H. Res. 121) outlining an appropriate official Japanese apology to the Comfort Women.

There is a difference between unambiguous and unequivocal. There is not room for doubt in the latter. "Unequivocal" has become the universal value associated with apology. Unfortunately, both the Vatican and Mr. Honda still await their apologies.

From Their Hearts

The other day I had an audience with one of Washington's premier Japan managers. It was the usual 10 minutes interrupted by personal phone calls. It was the great man's necessary gesture to ensure that I never ask him for something again. After all, his friends don't like me.

He told me that I was working on the history issues: "important work" and "is not being done" and I am "adding to the debate." He had no idea what I have been doing. How can I add to any debate when no one, including him, invites me to the discussion table or reads what I write? He did do an impressive save when I mentioned my New York Times op ed: "Oh, yes, that was the article I was referring to..." He had not the slightest idea, and I am safe knowing he will never look it up.

OK, I have ranted enough. The point of this is his question to me. He asked, not really wanting my answer, "why do our Japanese friends continue holding these views on history; what is wrong with their society?"

I answered anyway. I responded that it is wrong to paint all Japanese as having reactionary, non-logical, afactual views of their history. In fact, I suggested, the majority of average Japanese citizens do not. Those who do, I said, are Japan's elites, the very people that Americans do business with, the ones with whom we manage the alliance. There are a host of reasons for this.

One, I noted was that there was a curious generational change occurring among Japan's elites.

In a study I did for this very Japan manager a few years back*, I said, the current leadership generation is more like their grandfathers' and not their fathers'. These men in their 50s and 60s look back and admire their grandfathers. These wartime memories of a successful respected Japan are the ones the emerging leadership look to as models. The postwar time was not one of much happiness or order or one's father being available.

Returning to my office, overwhelmed completely by my insignificance, I found an email waiting from one of my activist girlfriends. As if to provide a footnote to my observation of about Japan, she gushed on about the successes of her Japanese friends in pushing through resolutions in local government councils supporting an apology to the Comfort Women. She wrote:

Last month, Fukuoka City Council in southern Japan passed a resolution asking the Japanese government to recognize and apologize for establishment and management of the Comfort Women system for the Japanese military during the Pacific War.

This was the fourth local council in Japan to pass such a resolution.

Takarazuka City (Hyogo Pref.) March 3, 2008
Kiyose City (Tokyo Metro Pref) June 2, 2008
Sapporo City (Hokkaido Pref.) November 11, 2008
Fukuoka City (Fukuoka Pref.) March 25, 2009

Other local councils in Japan are expected to follow soon. These local resolutions initiated by Japanese grassroots activists and NGOs are profoundly meaningful to those who care about the issue.

The pressure to pass a resolution of apology is coming directly from hearts of Japanese citizens. From the bottom up using the democratic process. This avenue of raising awareness on the Comfort Women and other issues of war history can go along way toward a permanent Japanese reconciliation with their past.

"Coming directly from the hearts of Japanese citizens" is a long way indeed from the political discussions at bar of the Hotel Okura.


*It was never published as he did not like its conclusion, that I spent time defining "generation," and that I used extensive polling data as sources. I did not think interviews with 20 "elites" that were personal acquaintances of the original undergraduate researchers were good enough to base a paper on, so I did some of my own research. Mistake.

Speaking Out

Tokyo readers may want to attend a program at Temple University Law School this evening, April 7th. The speaker is deeply involved in peace, security, and history issues.

A subtext to Japan's desire to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council is accountability to international law and the UN's evolving human rights regime. The scrutiny given to Japan by the UN's human right's bodies has not always been kind; and Tokyo has not been necessarily responsive. The 2008 review criticized Japan for its death penalty, illegal incarcerations, wartime forced labor, and comfort women.

The internationalization of the Comfort Women issue came via the UN and its Commission on Human Rights (now call the Human Rights Council). In February 1992, Japanese lawyer Totsuka Etsuro through the UN-recognized NGO International Educational Development (IED), made the first oral intervention before the UN Commission on Human Rights in which Japan was condemned for its crimes against humanity onto the Korean and other Asian "sex slaves" (UN doc. E/CN.4/1992/SR.30/Add.1.).

Dr. Totsuka Etsuro is a Professor of International Human Rights Law at Ryukoku University's School of Law. Dr. Totsuka has dedicated his legal career to defending human rights and has won several awards recognizing his commitment to justice in this area.

He advocates for mentally ill patients in Japan and successfully advocated for the 1997 amendment to the Mental Health Act. He frequently appears before UN bodies in defense of victims of human rights abuses, including the Comfort Women, and represents UN NGOs, such as the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) and the Japan Fellowship of Reconciliation (JFOR). He currently serves as the main Geneva representative for the JFOR developing overseas educational programs at the United Nations for students of Ryukoku University. He also serves as the General Secretary of the Research Institute of International Human Rights Law Policies.

Dr. Totsuka is speaking on the evening of April 7th at 8:00 PM on Korean Comfort Women: The Pros and Cons of Using International Human Rights Law as an Advocacy Platform. If you can attend, please send back a report.

International Women's Day 2009

Today is International Women's Day.

It is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. But since I have a pretty dim view of the world of men, I am pretty much a glass-half-empty person on how much women have achieved. Our voices are still in the Wilderness and we still have to acquire power the old fashioned way. Hillary still had to hook up with Bill, Condi had to play nanny to George, and Koike has to sleep with Koizumi. Yikes!

As a veteran of Japan's "history wars," I also see all the irony in Japan's commemoration of this day of "achievement." One of today's must public issues affecting women is sexual violence in conflict. Imperial Japan's state-sponsorship of sexual violence and sexual slavery through its Comfort Women system remains a contentious history issue in Asia. Contemporary Japan's partial apologies mixed with archaic views on rape continue to damage the country's credibility on human rights.

Over at the UN Action website for Stop Violence Against Women in Conflict they note the day with a special page of commentary on how rape in conflict is among the most brutal crimes against humanity.

The UN Population Fund's Executive Director, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid writes:

Whether it is human trafficking, domestic violence, crimes committed in the name of honour or passion, child marriage, female genital mutilation/cutting, or sexual violence, which in many conflict situations has reached alarming proportions, violence against women and girls constitutes a shameful crime that is too often shrouded in silence and too seldom punished.

Violence against women and girls is not a women’s issue—it is an issue that concerns and diminishes us all. No custom, tradition or religion can justify cruel and degrading treatment.

During the Comfort Women debate over a US House of Representatives nonbinding resolution asking Japan for an unequivocal and public apology to the Comfort Women, too many Japan managers asked why was Japan being singled out. Why was a long-ago issue being dragged into the US Congress? Why should anyone care about these prostitutes? they asked.

It was as if they knew nothing about what was happening outside of the comfortable confabs of US-Japan dialogue. They think they are talking about security. They want to create a security community. Maybe if they turned on CNN and watched what was happening in the Congo, Dafur, Burma, Bosnia, Rwanda...or even read what Voice of America transmits. Or went to the UN Action website that is so eloquently called http://www.stoprapenow.org:



Or they might want to contemplate the video below. It is supposed to be a message about harassment and rape. I found it extremely uncomfortable to watch. And I found its graphic message even more difficult to understand. The video suggests that girls will entice the weak, innocent male to pursue sex. Schoolgirls are just harlots who need better discipline. These are the same arguments used to create and to defend the Comfort Women system. To me, it is disturbing at best.

Paradise Road

In 1997, Glenn Close starred in a drama, Paradise Road, about a group of women who survived the sinking by the Japanese of the ship taking them out of Singapore, which had been overrun by the Japanese army. They ended up in a Japanese POW camp in Sumatra facing all the horrors and depravations one now knows happened in these camps.

The story is partly true. Many of the women did organize a choir that helped them endure the unendurable. What is unsaid is that others made a choice given to them: if they wanted to eat, to be beaten less, to survive, they would have to "serve" the Japanese soldiers.

Maybe this "choice" is how many Japanese apologists/deniers allow themselves to say that the Comfort Women were not coerced into prostitution. This "choice" is a matter of opinion, however. This sort of choice also fits the traditional legal definition of coercion.

On Java, the POW camps for civilians were full of Dutch women, children, and the elderly. The young women there were not all given a "choice" if they wanted to "serve" Japan. Officers of the Imperial Army would arrive at the camps and ask for all the 17-28 year old girls to be lined up. First there was "Sophie's Choice" where the mothers tried to decide who among their daughters would be able to survive what they knew was ahead. Then the girls presented themselves. The officers walked down the frightened line of virgins and chose who they liked.

One survivor of this selection, is Jan Ruff O'Herne. In the early 1990s, after 50 years of silence she finally told her daughters of how she lost her virginity to a very angry Japanese officer who threatened her with his samurai sword unless she submitted and how she was repeatedly raped in the military brothel. Then she told the world.

This week, Jan who is now an Australian citizen gave another interview to the Australian Broadcasting Corp. She is speaking out again to encourage the Australian Parliament to pass a motion calling upon Japan to unequivocally apologize to the Comfort Women, to offer honest compensation for their trauma, and to reprimand publicly any who denied that the Comfort Women system existed.

Her words are moving and inspiring as she recounts what happened to her and how she has lived with the memories. She is in the process of writing a new memoir and was energized by her testimony to a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. It was the first time a government acknowledged what had happened to her and the other Comfort Women.

As she said, "the truth is [now] winning."

The true story of "Paradise Road" HERE.