Having spent several hours - years ago - talking to the surviving, ageing, ailing, immensely dignified South Korean "comfort women"  who were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers in the Second World War, and who feel they have not had a proper apology or compensation, I am furious with the recent claim by the Mayor of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto, that the brothels were necessary to maintain discpline.

Hashimoto's comments are outrageous and shocking, even if they are in a long line of disgusting remarks by Japanese right-wingers. His words are shameful and he is shameless.

Sadly, I feel I must equally condemn a column in a South Korean newspaper that has poured petrol on the fire by describing the dropping of atomic bombs on Horishima and Nagasaki as "divine punishment" and stated: "God often borrows the hand of a human to punish the evil deeds of men."

+ The Hashimoto controversy and Japan's failuire to come to terms with its past, by Walden Bello

 

 

 

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