Calling for the Government’s Official Request to Remove the “Comfort Women” Monument

A Liberal Democratic Party parliamentary member has called for the removal of a memorial to comfort women at the Palisades Park, New Jersey, public library, saying that the “matter was groundless.” The city has denied the request, stating that it is “historical fact.”

On the memorial, there is a picture of a stern Japanese soldier forcing a woman to cower with the inscription, “In memory of the more than 200,000 women and girls who were abducted by the armed forces of the government of imperial Japan, 1930s-1945, known as ‘comfort women.’”

Not only is this completely different than the historical facts, but it is an important problem concerning the honor of the country. The Japanese government should again officially demand its removal.

During the Kiichi Miyazawa cabinet from 1991-93, a study of over 200 official documents that could be gathered by every department and the United States National Archives has found that there is no evidence of forced comfort women by the Japanese military or police force. The text on the memorial is clearly historically inaccurate.

In an interview after that, the city has said that the 200,000 number can be said to fluctuate, but the problem isn’t the number.

According to Japanese officials, the abduction or otherwise forced actions of comfort women did not happen. We wish the city would take into account the Japanese documents that have continued to be shown by the LDP Parliamentary members Keiji Furuya and Eriko Yamaya.

In response to a memorial concerning the abduction of 200,000 comfort women by the Japanese military, at the March Budget Committee meeting, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said, “including the numbers or even the particulars, there doesn’t seem to be any basis.” They should show this position through their actions.

Palisades Park is over half Korean-American. Last September, again in New Jersey, a Korean-American industrialist said that the Japanese school is teaching from a textbook that says Takeshima (Liancourt Rocks) are Japanese territory, and therefore should have state assistance for the school suspended. The request was, of course, denied.

Also, this last January in Virginia near Washington, D.C., the state Congress voted on a bill that would require public schools to write “Eastern Sea” next to the Japan Sea. It was rejected by one vote. The bill was submitted by the congressman from the district where many Koreans and Korean-Americans live.

In America, Korean organizations’ anti-Japanese lobbying activities are becoming very active. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs run public relations activities in diplomatic missions in order to ensure that Japan does not have to walk alone overseas when there are mistakes concerning Japanese history. They can’t be negligent in quickly correcting these mistakes.