Japan’s war compensation remains unresolved

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Japan’s war compensation remains unresolved

On December 8, marking the 69th anniversary of the outbreak of the Pacific War, Akahata carried the following interview with Utsumi Aiko, guest professor at Waseda University Graduate School who has engaged in research on the Koreans forced to fight for Japan during the war:

Japan imposed a draft system on Korea and Taiwan during its colonial rule and sent people to fight in the war it started on December 8, 1941. The Japanese Army organized armed forces in Indonesia and Burma and formed the Indian National Army using Indian captives.

Although Japan fought the Pacific War under the banner of the “liberation of Asia”, it mobilized people in its colonized and occupied territories to join its army and caused many to be killed or injured. After all the suffering, they have been excluded from the Japanese government’s compensation programs for war victims.

For instance, a special measures law was established in Japan’s Diet in June this year to provide compensation to former internees in Siberia. Although the enactment should be recognized as taking a step forward toward the settlement of the post-war issue, the new law limits compensation recipients to Japanese citizens, thus excluding Korean and Taiwanese people who had been held in Siberia for compulsory labor together with Japanese.

The South Korean government estimates that between 7,700 and 10,000 Koreans were forcibly sent to Siberia by the former Soviet Union. Their return to their country was delayed due to the split of the Korean Peninsula after the war, and there were only 2,300 of them left when they were finally sent back to Hungnam, North Korea in December 1948. Nearly 500 former Korean captives crossed the 38th parallel to return to their hometowns in South Korea, where their hardships continued due to the discrimination they faced from local people.

Currently, about 100 former war captives are still living in South Korea. Although they had endured the same hardships as the former Japanese internees in Siberia, they are not eligible for the benefits under the special measures law. Their hope in the new government led by the Democratic Party of Japan to solve the war compensation issue has been betrayed.

With many unsolved post-war issues such as sexual violence, former Siberian captives, and the return of the remains of forced Korean laborers, Japan’s war compensation to other Asian countries is still far from settlement.

- Akahata, December 8, 2010