Evidence of Japan's wartime role in sex slavery is incontrovertible
Danny Friedmann says Japan cannot, in this day and age, absolve its imperial army from responsibility for sex slavery during the second world war, when clear evidence of its guilt exists
During a UN Security Council session in January about "war, its lessons and the search for a permanent peace", China, South Korea and North Korea made it painfully clear that Japan's non-recognition of the "comfort women" issue, its politicians' Yasukuni shrine visits and revisionist history books form the roadblocks to reconciliation between their countries and Japan. Resolving these issues could therefore contribute to creating a less volatile atmosphere in the event of conflicts.
A stream of revisionist statements has been made by Japanese political figures, including the mayor of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto, the director general of the state broadcaster NHK, Katsuto Momii, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga.
Last May, Hashimoto said that "comfort women were needed to keep discipline in the ranks and provide rest for soldiers who risk their lives". The next week, he argued that there is an understanding among the majority of Japanese historians that there is no evidence of the involvement of the Japanese government with comfort women.
In January, Momii claimed "such women could be found in any nation that was at war, including France and Germany", and characterised the international anger as "puzzling".
Then, last month, Suga suggested that the evidence of enforced prostitution - on which a 1993 statement of apology by then chief cabinet secretary Yohei Kono was based - was unreliable or invalid.
