South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Thursday that the Japanese government has no right to end the wartime sex slavery issue as it was the perpetrator of the wartime crime against humanity.
Moon made the remark at a ceremony to mark the 99th anniversary of the March 1 Movement, which was a massive street demonstration on March 1, 1919 by Koreans to fight against the Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula.
“Japanese government, the perpetrator, must not say it is over,” Moon said in a speech at the ceremony, which was held at the Seodaemun Prison in Seoul, which the Imperial Japan used to persecute numerous Korean independent fighters under its 1910-45 colonial rule.
“The wartime crime against humanity cannot be covered up by saying it is over,” Moon said, referring to the sexual enslavement by the Japanese colonial government of the Korean women before and during World War .
Historians say up to 200,000 girls and young women were coerced, kidnapped, or duped into sex servitude for Japan’s military brothels before and during the Pacific War.
Moon said remembering and learning from the history is a real resolution of what is especially a miserable history, urging Japan to face the truth of history and its justice with a universal conscience of human beings.
The South Korean leader wished that Japan can come to a real settlement with its neighbors it oppressed and walk a path to peaceful coexistence and prosperity together with its neighbors.
Moon said his only wish for Japan was to move together into a future based on sincere reflection and reconciliation, noting that he did not want any special treatment from Japan.
Moon, who took office in May last year, said in December that the 2015 agreement between Seoul and Tokyo over the “comfort women” victims cannot resolve Japan’s wartime sex slavery issue.
On Dec. 28, 2015, South Korea and Japan “finally and irreversibly” agreed to the issues on comfort women, which euphemistically refers to the sex slavery victims, in exchange for Tokyo’s offer of 1 billion yen (9 million U.S. dollars) supporting a foundation for the victims in Seoul.
The South Korean victims had protested against the 2015 agreement as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had yet to apologize for the wartime crime and acknowledge a legal responsibility of the Japanese colonial government.
The Moon government launched a task force team to investigate the agreement, finding a secret deal between the Abe-led cabinet and the South Korean government under then President Park Geun-hye.
Moon has repeatedly urged Abe to squarely face the wartime history and push for a future-oriented cooperation.
During his speech at the celebration, Moon condemned Japan’s repeated territorial claims to the Dokdo islets, called Takeshima in Japan, which lies halfway between the two countries.
“Dokdo is our land that was first occupied (by the Imperial Japan) in the process of Japan’s invasion of the Korean Peninsula,” said Moon who likened Japan’s denial of the historical fact to its refusal to reflect on the imperial invasion.
After the celebration, Moon, dressed in Korean traditional clothes, marched about 400 meters together with people to Dongnimmun, or Independence Gate, waving national flags and giving cheers for the Korean independence.
