The 31st Press Conference of the National Action to Urge Urging the End of the Comfort
Women Fraud
May 19, 2021
https://youtu.be/OHipKZDZpvA

Does Japan really want to terminate the comfort women issue? If so,
withdraw the Kono Statement
Kim Byung-heon, Representative of National Action to Abolish the Comfort Women Act
Statement: Withdraw the Kono Statement, for it distorts the truth about the comfortwomen.
On December 1, 2020, the Assembly of Mitte Borough, Berlin, passed a bill agreeing tothe eternal installation of a comfort woman statue at a park in Berlin, with 24 votes forand 5 votes against. The bill was in response to the recommendation to remove the statue
by Mayor Stephan von Dassel.
Following the assembly’s resolution, the Mayor accepted its decision and the statue inquestion avoided being removed. It is to stay there--for at least one year.
There were many underlying currents. Above all, the fact that the Mitte Assembly referredto the “Kono Statement” as a historical fact about the comfort women supposedly was adecisive factor in the Assembly’s decision.
The core of the Kono Statement, announced on August 4, 1993, is:“The recruitment of the comfort women was conducted mainly by private recruiters
who acted in response to the request of the military… in many cases they wererecruited against their own will, through coaxing, coercion, etc… at times,
administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitments… The Korean
Peninsula was under Japanese rule in those days, and recruitment, transfer, control,etc. were conducted generally against their will, through coaxing, coercion, etc...”Thus written, the Kono Statement admitted to Japan’s involvement and responsibility.
Cabinet Secretary Kono at the time acknowledged Japanese military coercion during the1press conference after he announced the Statement. During a discussion with former
Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi held at the Japan National Press Club on June 9, 2015,
Secretary Kono stated, “Referring to the record of Dutch women who were taken to
comfort stations in Indonesia, we cannot absolutely deny that force was not involved.”
He concluded, judging from the example of the Dutch women, that Japanese militaryforced abduction of Korean women was a historical fact.
Here, however, former Secretary Kono made an incredible error. He wrong-headedly
confused the case of the Dutch women, who were actual war crime victims, with Japanesemilitary comfort women, who were recruited and managed to prevent war crimes against
women in Japanese-occupied regions.
The Japanese military comfort women were “legal prostitutes who provided sexualservices, in exchange for payment, at comfort stations that were under the administrationof the Japanese military.”
It was compulsory for women going abroad (leaving Japan and its colonies) to work as
comfort women to conclude a contract with the comfort station master, report to the police
station in person and have their identification verified.
During this process, it was absolutely necessary to obtain parental approval. Having theiridentification and after arriving at their destination, like Shanghai, women were required
to obtain a work application, a copy of their family register, a personal background report,
a seal certification and other papers and to submit them to the Consulate/police station
for a business permit. Both Japanese and Korean underwent this procedure.
Before the start of the contract, women received an advance and put their seal on thecontract. At the expiration of their contract, women were to return home immediately.
However, some had their contract extended or moved to other comfort stations. Amongthese comfort women was Moon Okuju, who lived as a comfort woman near the Burmese
front, earned a lot of money and sent money home.
This is one example of a legal comfort woman.
On the other hand, the Dutch women referred to by former Cabinet Secretary Kono werein a very different situation. Thirty-five Dutch women, who were confined in a civilian2

women’s internment camp, were forcibly abducted by the Japanese military, raped andcoerced into prostitution at comfort stations in Semarang, Dutch East Indies. This episode
was later known as the “Semarang Incident,” a serious war crime.
In 1998, Gay McDougall submitted a report to the United Nations Commission on HumanRights. It’s definition of war crimes included acts of sexual violence, including rape,committed during international conflicts by the enemy or occupation forces. TheSemarang Incident then clearly constituted a war crime.
Consequently, after Japan” defeat in World War II, the Netherlands brought the twelve
men involved in the incident before the Netherlands Temporary Court Martial at Batavia
and punished them as Classes B and C war criminals.
Before the trial began, one of the defendants, a Colonel leading the South Army officer
candidate training unit, committed suicide to avoid trial and punishment, leaving behinda statement: “With the permission of the 16th Army Headquarters, I ordered a certain
Major leading the Semarang Occupation Unit to gather fifty to sixty Dutch women fromthe female internment camp and send them to comfort stations. This order was executed,and these women were forced into prostitution at the comfort stations. A month later, awarning came from the authorities in Tokyo and the comfort stations were closed.”
Twelve Japanese Army soldieries were charged with abduction, forced confinement, rape,
coercion into prostitution and so forth and found guilty. One was sentenced to death andthe rest received prison sentences. The incident was a war crime committed by theJapanese Army against women of an enemy country.
Despite clear differences, former Cabinet Secretary Kono viewed Japanese military
comfort women who worked at legally managed comfort stations in the same light as theDutch women who were war crime victims.
If former Cabinet Secretary Kono’s assertion are right, then Korean, Japanese and allother women called “Japanese military comfort women” are war crime victims. For thepast 30 years, the group previously known as the “Korean Council for the Women Draftedfor Military Sexual Slavery by Japan,” currently known as the “Korean Council for
Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan,” hascontinuously demanded punishment of those responsible for war crimes committed bythe Japanese Army, an apology and legal compensation at their “Wednesday meetings,”
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which first began on the occasion of Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi’s visit to SouthKorea on January 8, 1992. In any event, it all started with the “Kono Statement.”
Many old women, like Kim Bok-dong, Lee Yong Soo and Gil Won-ok, who used to be
comfort women, have now morphed into “human rights” activists. As such, they tour
conflict areas, calling for an end to “war crimes”, mixing in Japanese “war crimes” aswell. Their astounding acts are all because of the Kono Statement.
I have heard that Japan referred to the testimonies of Korean comfort women who wereforcibly abducted in the book published by the “Korean Council for the Women Draftedfor Military Sexual Slavery by Japan” in preparing the Kono Statement. However, out of
the 19 women, who stated in the book that they were forcibly abducted by the JapaneseArmy or that the same things done to the Dutch women were done to them?
Such is the situation in the Republic of Korea. The comfort women issue is distorted andfull of fabrications. Elementary through high school textbooks, best-sellers, magazines,movies, various cultural contents and the media all deal with the comfort women issue,
but all of them distort facts and gloss over the truth.
Kim Hak-sun and a Dutch woman, Jan Ruff-O’Herne, appear in a certain high school
textbook surrounded by words such as “peace” and “human rights”. Teachers havestudents write letters of protest and demanding an apology to the Japanese Government.
Elsewhere in another textbook, a photo of former Cabinet Secretary Kono accompanies
the Kono Statement. Beside these appears Kim Bok-dong’s words, “If a war ever breaks
out again, how can we be sure that what we have experienced will never happen again?”South Korea teaches its children: “The Japanese military comfort women were war crime
victims and the perpetrators were the Japanese Army.”That is not all. In a lawsuit demanding compensation for former comfort women filed by
twelve women on January 8 of this year, the judge ruled for the plaintiffs and unfailingly
mentioned the Kono Statement as the basis for his judgement.
Thus, the comfort women issue in the Republic of Korea triggered conflict and discordamong its community members and disrupted diplomatic relations between South Korea
4and Japan. Because leftist scholars within South Korea fabricated lies about the comfort
women, the mass media reported the same lies, civil groups instigated false claims,
Ministries and Agencies implicitly agreed to wrong-headed policies and political groups
mobilized to take advantage of the situation.
However, the very ringleaders behind the distortion of the comfort women as war crime
victims within South Korea are none other than Japanese intellectuals, civic groups andpoliticians. The base of all these actors is the ghost-like Kono Statement still very much
alive and influential.
Here, I declare, so as long as the Kono Statement is alive, the resolution of the Japanesemilitary comfort women issue will be beyond our reach and Korea-Japan relations will
never recover or return to normalcy.
Amid such a quagmire, we, of National Action, strongly demand:
If Japan retains the Kono Statement as it currently is, then recognize former Korean
comfort women for the Japanese Army as war crime victims in the same manner as theDutch women of the Semarang Incident and punish those responsible for the crimes andimplement legal compensations.
If Japan does not recognize former Korea comfort women as war crime victims, thenwithdraw the Kono Statement immediately! Immediately withdraw the Kono Statement!

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