International Event Calls for Japanese Reparations

SAN FRANCISCO-A four-day international conference co-sponsored by UC Berkeley's Asian American studies program called for swift restitution by the Japanese government for war crimes committed during World War II.

The purpose of the event, which ended yesterday, was to decry Japan's refusal to publicly apologize and provide reparations for atrocities committed from 1937-45.

"As long as Japan is not willing to face squarely with the ugly episodes of its own past, it is difficult to see how it can reconcile and live with its neighbors in peace," L. Ling-chi Wang, conference chair and chair of the Asian American studies program at UC Berkeley, said in a statement.

The conference brought together national and international scholars, diplomats, and witnesses of the war. Titled "50 Years of Denial: Japan and Its Wartime Responsibilities," the conference took place during the 50th anniversary of the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the agreement between Japan and the United States officially marking the end of conflict between the two nations.

The Japanese government continues to affirm that the 1951 treaty absolves them from providing formal apologies and reparations to victims of Japan's "Rape of Nanking" and other war crimes.

In 1937, as many as 300,000 men, women and children were subjected to slave labor, rape, death and mutilation as Japanese troops marched into Nanking, China.

After six weeks of occupation, 20,000 to 80,000 women in Nanking were either tricked or forced into service as sex slaves who the Japanese coined as "comfort women."

Only one-fourth of the approximately 200,000 comfort women across the Pacific Rim survived the war. A few are alive today, but their numbers are dwindling.

Among the surviving comfort women is Kim Soon Duk, who spoke out against the Japanese denial of crimes at the conference Saturday.

"For 50 long years, I kept this close to my chest," she said, as writer and filmmaker Dai Sil Kim-Gibson translated for her. "I spent many sleepless nights deciding on what to do, and finally I decided I'm going everywhere I can to testify."

Duk vividly related one incident when she was being transported. Peeking through the side of the military transport, she saw Japanese soldiers swinging guns with the decapitated heads of young children skewered on the bayonets.

"They were drunk with killing-drunk with human bodies," Duk said.

Artist Holly Wong presented her work, "Testimony to a Massacre," a rendition of the war crimes consisting of 58 photographs. Each was illuminated by a candle as the recorded testimonials of 30 victims described the horrors of the Japan's role in the war.

"I wanted people to have the opportunity to mourn, the opportunity to honor, because so many people that died (in the war) were buried in unmarked graves," Wong said.

"I found that this was a huge crime against humanity that people were just shoveling dirt over and I couldn't just stand by and let that happen."

Unlike involvement with the recent distribution of property to the European victims of Nazi Germany, the U.S. government has not formally assisted the victims of Japanese colonization.

The U.S. State Department wrote in a letter that Japan should not be subject to trial because of "sovereign immunity."

But attorneys for 15 comfort women victims pointed out that the Japanese government broke international rules of war and therefor voided their right to immunity.

Japanese Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka expressed Japan's "feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology" at the celebration of the San Francisco Peace Treaty Saturday.

Any written apology-what some victims have demanded-or tangible restitution is yet to be delivered.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell commented on the position of the State Department yesterday, saying, "The treaty dealt with this matter 50 years ago. It's a position we have to defend."

The demands of the conference included a public apology and reparations such as the establishment of a national holiday in Japan, the inclusion of accounts of the massacre in Japanese school textbooks, and the return of all stolen materials.

Hillel Levine, professor of sociology and religion at Boston University, also called for restitution in another sense.

"We have to build the monuments, we have to build the museums," Levine said. "And we have to encourage the Japanese to do that, because that is part of the healing process."

He added: "Those monuments on the one hand broadcast meaning, saying: 'Here it happened. We mark that. We will not forget.'"

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