We Urge the Japanese Government to Make Compensation without Further Delay
The colonial domination and the war of aggression perpetrated by Imperial Japan left an enormous number of people in Asia, particularly on the Korean Peninsula and in China, still suffering from incurable wounds of mind and body. However diverse may be the views on history held by Japanese, on one can deny the unmistakable presence of these victimized people.
Among such victims are the former "comfort women" and the forcibly drafted Asian workers, who were enslaved by the Japanese state in complete violation of their dignity as human beings, and compulsorily subject to unbearable torment and humiliation. It is self-evident that they are entitled to compensation by the Japanese state.
Through a critical self-examination of the last militarist war, Japan is the postwar period has been striving to be reborn as a democratic nation based on the idea of universal human rights. As stated in the Constitution, democracy is "a universal principle of humankind," and universal human rights should be respected regardless of the difference in nationality. Compensation by the Japanese state for the grave infringements on human rights committed by it against Asian peoples could, therefore, stand as its testimony before world public opinion that it has transformed itself from militarism into a democracy.
Nevertheless, no compensatory measures for these victimized individuals have been taken by the Japanese government up to the present. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II, we urge the government to fulfill its responsibility at least to these two categories of people, even though there are other victims as well. No further delay is permissible in view of the aging of these people.
If the government decides to make compensation to these individuals in the name of the Japanese state, we, as citizens of Japan, will be willing to cooperate by soliciting private contributions. We do not support the “Asian Peace and Friendship Fund for Women” recently publicized by the government, however, because it is intended to replace state indemnities by private donations. This is a formula which is utterly inappropriate and is bound to fail to meet the claim of the victims.
Knowing that even state compensation will be far from sufficient to cure the profound wounds inflicted on these people, we sincerely seek their forgiveness, hoping that the state compensation will serve as a token of our apologies. At the same time, we must confess that we are deeply ashamed of the persistent evasion of war responsibility committed by the governments and the Diet.
Standing at a crossroads of historic significance fifty years after the end of World War II, we urge the Japanese government to express an unequivocal apology and take concrete steps towards making due compensation to the victimized people so that the Japanese people may, in the words of the Constitution, "occupy an honored place in international society."