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omonatheydidBy Yun Suh-young
A Chinese man, who claimed his grandmother was a “comfort woman” forced into sexual slavery by Japan’s military, hurled four Molotov cocktails at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul early Sunday morning. The 36-year-old Lui, was apprehended at the scene after throwing the firebombs over the wall of the embassy at 8:18 a.m., according to Jongno Police Station.
Two of the four Molotov cocktails went over the embassy wall but did not catch fire. The attack caused no injury or property damage, police said. Lui made 11 firebombs in soju bottles and threw four of them from where a statue of a young girl, dubbed “Peace Monument,” stands. The statue of a girl wearing traditional Korean clothes and sitting on a stool was installed across the street from the embassy on Dec. 14, the day the 1,000th rally demanding a formal apology from the Japanese government for the victims of sexual slavery was held.
Police are questioning the man, who entered the country on a tourist visa in December.
Kyoto News reported that the Japanese Embassy regretted the incident and called for the government to launch a thorough investigation and take necessary steps to prevent a recurrence. Police identified Lui as the man who claimed he set fire to the door of the Yasukuni Shrine in Japan last month. The door of the shrine was set on fire at around 4:10 a.m. Dec. 26 and a man called a Korean newspaper the following day claiming he had done it.
The man said he set the shrine on fire in an act of protest against the Japanese government for its failure to apologize for the use of sexual slavery during World War II. If Lui, a resident from Guangzhou, China, is confirmed to have set the shrine on fire, this would be the second time he set a Japanese building on fire to protest Tokyo’s refusal to apologize for its “painful” history.
The attack on the embassy comes at a sensitive time when diplomatic relations between Korea and Japan have become strained in the wake of the placing of the “Peace Monument.” During a summit on Dec. 18, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda requested South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to remove the statue. President Lee, however, warned that “second and third statues will be set up unless the comfort women issue is resolved.”
Source: Koreatimes
A Chinese man, who claimed his grandmother was a “comfort woman” forced into sexual slavery by Japan’s military, hurled four Molotov cocktails at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul early Sunday morning. The 36-year-old Lui, was apprehended at the scene after throwing the firebombs over the wall of the embassy at 8:18 a.m., according to Jongno Police Station.
Two of the four Molotov cocktails went over the embassy wall but did not catch fire. The attack caused no injury or property damage, police said. Lui made 11 firebombs in soju bottles and threw four of them from where a statue of a young girl, dubbed “Peace Monument,” stands. The statue of a girl wearing traditional Korean clothes and sitting on a stool was installed across the street from the embassy on Dec. 14, the day the 1,000th rally demanding a formal apology from the Japanese government for the victims of sexual slavery was held.
Police are questioning the man, who entered the country on a tourist visa in December.
Kyoto News reported that the Japanese Embassy regretted the incident and called for the government to launch a thorough investigation and take necessary steps to prevent a recurrence. Police identified Lui as the man who claimed he set fire to the door of the Yasukuni Shrine in Japan last month. The door of the shrine was set on fire at around 4:10 a.m. Dec. 26 and a man called a Korean newspaper the following day claiming he had done it.
The man said he set the shrine on fire in an act of protest against the Japanese government for its failure to apologize for the use of sexual slavery during World War II. If Lui, a resident from Guangzhou, China, is confirmed to have set the shrine on fire, this would be the second time he set a Japanese building on fire to protest Tokyo’s refusal to apologize for its “painful” history.
The attack on the embassy comes at a sensitive time when diplomatic relations between Korea and Japan have become strained in the wake of the placing of the “Peace Monument.” During a summit on Dec. 18, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda requested South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to remove the statue. President Lee, however, warned that “second and third statues will be set up unless the comfort women issue is resolved.”
Source: Koreatimes
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no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 12:53 pm (UTC)hwiy gawehg ugh t.
Do something else to let out your feelings of frustration and need for justice that doesn't cause repercussions for others. People always remember the worst more than they remember the good.
like how I like shooting my unloaded bb gun at the TV when something I'd rather not happen happens on a drama I'm watching; what can I say? the sound's soothing.no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 05:31 am (UTC)Hence... I'm not surprised such a big issue is being dragged on for so long when it took the government 8 months to get back to me with my documents. I'm not defending anyone or anything, but I've long since given up using the term "fast" and "government" in the same sentence. I do agree with you though; a bit over half a decade to wait for the countries to figure out how to pass this hurdle is pushing it. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 01:23 pm (UTC)I'm no expert in this issue but comfort women in the Philippines (where my parents are from) are also demanding the same thing.
It would be great if someone with knowledge about this can provide some insight.
What can an apology entail and why is Japan hesitant to give it?
Reparations? Honour?
no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 01:49 pm (UTC)So as much as the japanese gov think that did apologize people think otherwise.
Moreover it is very difficult for the japanese gov to make a public apology because they've been hiding the truth from their own citizen.
The rape of Nankin, confort women... all their action during WWII are not in japanese textbook. Many japanese citizens genuinely don't know about this. And for the gov to come "more" public about it would be to admit that they were hiding the truth for so long.
Moreover if they were to be judge by an international court, people would wonder why they were not judged earlier (like Germany) and a lot of shit would come out, especially for the US... so it's a ver tricky situation.
Here's more article if you are interested:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2012/01/116_102232.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2010-08/17/content_11166750.htm
no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 02:15 pm (UTC)As to the textbook issue, while Japanese textbooks often don't place what I would consider to be an adequate amount of weight on Japan's war crimes or pinpoint responsibility for them finely enough, nowadays they almost all deal with them in some way or another. Japanese people are informed on these issues—the question is simply whether or not they're informed well, or in the right way. (The same question can be asked, of course, for the citizens of the other countries involved.)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 02:32 pm (UTC)I used to practice kendo a lot and we'd have a lot of exchange student from Japan (Tokyo, Fukuoka...) and none of them knew about the rape of nankin nor comfort women, and that was last year.
Concerning IMTFE the Japanese gov (per se) nor the Emperor were judged.
Only 80 officials were susposed to be judged and among those several were not because they got protection from "friends with influence". In the end only 28 people wre judged by the IMTFE.
Unit 731 which was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japanese personnel wasn't even worried by this tribunal.
General Yasuji Okamura who was the one to instigate the system of comfort women wasn't judged.
This tribunal is highly critized, even by its own judges.
So you're right I should change my statement, they were "officially judged" and it was a mascarade. Several non-japanese politics did what they could so the actual criminals would not be judged.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 04:20 pm (UTC)As you rightly point out, the Tokyo trials have been heavily criticized from both sides (inadequate prosecution, victor's justice, etc.), and I certainly don't mean to say that that criticism is invalid. Quite to the contrary, I believe the trials were deeply flawed. I don't, however, believe that this makes them meaningless or something to ignore in their entirety—I think it's worth recognizing that some of the responsible parties were rightly brought to justice, even if some weren't.
You should also note that the Japanese state itself being exempted from prosecution is not at all irregular and is in fact something it shares in common with the German state—neither was prosecuted because both were protected by sovereign immunity. It was only individual actors tried in both situations. (Interestingly, the International Court of Justice is currently considering an Italian challenge (http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=3&case=143) to German sovereign immunity, so things may change on this score.)
You're of course right that the emperor should have been tried, and that he wasn't is as much the fault of the US as it is of Japan.
As for the textbooks, I've read excerpts from a few, and it was in the context of an article taking them to task for obscuring the issue with vague language, so again, I'm not saying you're substantially wrong here. I agree that the textbooks need to be changed. I just mean to point out that there is a difference between inadequately covered and not covered at all. These issues are not some sort of huge conspiratorial secret in Japan—not anymore, at least—they're just issues on which people lack a lot of key information.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 05:49 pm (UTC)The other countries involved...idk. I think a lot of what I learned was pretty anti-Japan,but I can't remember.I know I used to feel strange and angry towards Japan after hearing my grandmother's stories,but I don't remember much about school.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 01:56 pm (UTC)On a side note, I also think it's important to consider the complicity of the "victim countries" in victimizing their own citizens for the sake of national pride and a masculinist discourse of purity. (See Hyunah Yang's piece here (http://books.google.com/books?id=Atj0mXPx3-AC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA123#v=onepage&q&f=false).)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 01:24 am (UTC)And that second paragraph I'm not even going to touch with a ten-foot pole.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 04:05 pm (UTC)You should post it as an independant post.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-15 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 12:29 am (UTC)http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2011/12/1000th-wednesday-protest-and-lies-about.html
no subject
Date: 2012-01-15 01:55 pm (UTC)http://www.amazon.com/Comfort-Women-Violence-Postcolonial-Sexuality/dp/0226767779/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1326635393&sr=8-5
no subject
Date: 2012-01-15 06:13 pm (UTC)that doesn't demerit the value of his argument.