Online Interview between Jeong Yeong-hwan & Pak Noja
The issue of the ‘comfort women’ that needs to be viewed from a post-division perspective DAY 1

<DAY 1>

Pak Noja

A1.
Pak Noja: In Korea, the 'comfort women' issue has been understood within the framework of nationalism. The issue of the sexual slavery victims has been understood in such a way that the Japanese Empire committed an act of outrage on ‘our’ - that is, the male-oriented community of nation/people - women. Since 'us' here usually refers to a community that has been established within the borders of 'Korea', I believe that other victims belonging to various places of residence, nationalities, and ethnic groups have not yet received sufficient attention.

A2.
The 'comfort woman' victims of the sexual slavery system reside in both South and North Korea. As for the people living in the North, many of them have their origins in South Korea, who, in fact, fall within the scope of 'separated families' in a broad sense. When the issue of the 'comfort women' is discussed, all victims, whether living in the South, North, or overseas, should also be included. Also, the efforts of overseas Korean organizations such as Chongryon or the General Association of Korean Residents who pioneered and have worked on the issue even before the 1990s, when the issue of the 'comfort women' was hardly ever discussed in both Koreas, should be well received in South Korea beyond the wall of division.

A3.
Overall, the 'comfort stations' constitute the wartime state crime of sexual violence and sexual slavery that violated the human rights of women from various regions, ethnicities, and countries. On this basis, it is imperative that it is not simply viewed as a 'Korea-Japan prism'. The primary nature of this issue is the act of gender violence by the Japanese state and military, but at the same time, the class aspect should not be ignored. In most cases, the daughters of poor peasants and poor people were most easily exposed to the violence of the Japanese military. Certainly, the primary responsibility for this crime lies with the Japanese state and military, and since it is a crime against humanity, there is, in principle, no statute of limitations. However, I believe that there still exists many issues that need to be raised against the dereliction of responsibility by the Allies who did not properly investigate the issue of the ‘comfort women’ and did not even include such an issue in the indictment in the Tokyo Trial during the post-war readjustment along with the attitudes of the officials of the Republic of Korea who rarely mentioned this issue during the negotiations for diplomatic normalization between Korea and Japan.

Jeong Yeong-hwan

A1.
When reviewing this matter, it is necessary to distinguish the fact-finding methods for the 'comfort women' issue in the Japanese military and the civic movement for addressing the past wrongdoings from the general public opinion or the media and political trends. The civic movement, which began in the 1980s, traversed the framework of 'South Korea' relatively early on and has since formed solidarity with Korean residents in Japan and the victims and activists in Japan, China, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. In this way, the movement to address the issue of the “comfort women” in the Japanese military was instilled with the character of cross-border solidarity among women from the very beginning, going beyond the South Korea-oriented perspective, and even holding meetings with the victims in the North in the 1990s.

One of the reaching points of this attempt was the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery in 2000. Certainly, the background that enabled this attempt since the 1980s has been the fierce yet creative struggle of the women's liberation movement in Korea, and I believe it is important that this movement, in particular, had a post-division perspective. Currently, the movement to address the issue of the 'comfort women' in the Japanese military has gone beyond the framework of South Korea in regional and spatial terms. In addition to establishing ties and exchanging experiences with the victims, supporters, and activists in each region who suffered from the sexual violence of the Japanese military and inquiring into the responsibility of the Japanese military in solidarity, the movement has also formed coalitions with the victims of wartime sexual violence during the Korean military participation in the Vietnam War and during the Congolese Civil War, serving as a major driving force behind the movement to resolve the issue of universal wartime violence beyond the time limits.

The problem is that, when the results of the movement for a solution, which has been carried out in solidarity beyond the national framework, are reenacted in popular media or political circles in South Korea, it shifts into the perspective ‘oriented towards South Korean victims’. Since I live in Japan and generally don’t reside in South Korea, it is difficult to apprehend the issue in my daily life, but what I believe to be true is that the issue of the ‘comfort women’ in the Japanese military covered by Korean television, newspapers, and magazines is ‘oriented towards the victims in South Korea’ as you suggested. As Dr. Pak Noja pointed out, the cause of this perspective may well be the result of nationalism in Korea. However, if we examine this issue through historical stages, what matters here is that we should focus not only on the direct result of anti-communist nationalism since 1948 -- without doubt, we cannot grasp the issue of the ‘division perspective’ of Korea without anti-communism -- but also on the limitations and problems of nationalism after democratization in 1987 - the 'division perspective' held by the 1987 regime. Since this issue is related to the second question, I will come back to that later.

A2.
I believe that we should discuss what the 'post-division perspective’ represents while organizing/sharing the concept. I personally understood that the editorial team of the webzine defined the ‘division perspective’ as the perspective that views this issue centered on the victims of South Korea, ignoring the existence of those in the North or overseas. My opinion on the premise of this concept it that, not only did nationalism drive the limited framework of awareness developed in the relationship between South Korea and Japan - I believe this is not the cause, but an outcome - but also the post-war world order after the Second World War, especially the Cold War system in East Asia had a profound impact. The Allies did not address Japan's responsibility for war/colonial rule. Both the demand for criminal liability (Tokyo Trial) and the demand for civil liability (the right to demand compensation) were denied by both South and North Korea. Since the division in 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has been completely excluded from the framework of peace with Japan, and South Korea also started the Korea-Japan Talks in a subordinate position under the US hegemony without participating in the peace conference (under 1948 and 1952 regimes). Therefore, the issue of colonial compensation was entirely transformed into a 'claim issue' from the beginning, and any discussions revolved only within the framework of the 'return of property', and not 'compensation for damages'. As a result, in 1965, the Korea-Japan treaty and each agreement were concluded. That is, the formation of the 1965 regime.

The 1965 regime 'sealed' these two discussions. The first is the 'seal' of discussions on the damages arising from Japanese colonial rule, and the second is the 'seal' of dialogue for peace and unification between the two Koreas. In other words, it was a regime in which the United States drove a wedge called Japan between the victims of the colonial period and the government, and between the two Koreas. There still remains the issue of the ‘comfort women’ in the Japanese military for the sake of employing the ‘division perspective’ because the multi-layered intertwined regime created by the post-war regime—1948, 1952, and 1965 regimes— continues to affect the perception of the issue of colonial damage in South Korea. In other words, this is an internal issue of nationalism in South Korea as well as an issue of the post-war regime as hierarchical international relations. After democratization in 1987, a retrial was conducted on the 1965 regime, but the 1948 regime still remains solid. On October 30, 2018, the Supreme Court's rejection of appeals to overturn an order requiring Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation to pay compensation was a valuable foundation for the 1965 regime. However, despite the fact that the plaintiffs included victims who underwent forced labor at the Chongjin Steel Mill at the end of the war, the issue of compensation for the damage sustained under colonial rule in the northern region has not yet been discussed, although this was a logical outcome as the case was subject to the Constitution of the Republic of Korea. Therefore I believe it is necessary to hold further discussions to fundamentally inquire about this post-war regime.

For another discussion necessary for broadening the view to a post-division perspective, I believe the combination of an anti-colonialism/anti-imperialism and feminist perspective is critical. At first, I started studying the history of Korean residents in Japan, but as I became increasingly involved in the discussion surrounding the <Comfort Women of the Empire> situation, I began to participate in the debate over the issue of the ‘comfort women’. What was considered to be a serious issue in the process was that the anti-colonial viewpoint was almost absent, especially from the mainstream feminist perspective in Japan. A perspective towards the debate in Korea through the post-nationalist/individualist/liberal viewpoint combined with the criticism over the statue of peace and the advocacy of the <Comfort Women of the Empire>. Even in Korea, anti-colonialism tends to be misinterpreted as the same concept as nationalism. However, the oppression generated by colonialism amplifies the division at the level of class and gender, while at the same time, excluding the ruled class ethnically. Since the sexual slavery system in the Japanese military completely exposed the violence of Japanese imperialism, a more in-depth review of anti-colonialism is necessary to expand the horizon of our vision. I believe that the value of the universality of women's rights will be able to exhibit its true qualities for the first time when combined with anti-colonial and anti-imperialist perspectives.

A3.
As I mentioned earlier, the movement for the solution has already achieved many practices based on the 'anti-division perspective'. As I continue to emphasize, the movement already had a 'diverse and broad perspective'. Even at this moment, such practices continue. The same can be said for the case with the Korean residents in Japan. The various practices and studies carried out by the surviving victims, activists, and researchers have already exceeded the scope understandable in terms of diplomatic relations between countries. We must now address the meaning of the movement for a solution again in the historical context and learn from their experiences. I hope that while learning from the tribunal in 2000, the atrocities and responsibilities of the Japanese military will be more systematically revealed, and through inter-Korean exchanges, the testimonies from North Korean victims and their bereaved families will be collected and they will be able to exchange their experiences. In addition, I look forward to the webzine becoming a foothold that bears the activists or researchers who continue to practice uncovering the truth about wartime violence under colonialism throughout the world.

Continue to Online Interview between Jeong Yeong-hwan & Pak Noja The issue of the ‘comfort women’ that needs to be viewed from a post-division perspective DAY 1