{Did the American government employ sex slaves during the Second World War? The newly appointed chairman of Japan\u2019s public broadcasting system apparently thinks so.}<\/p>\n
In the latest in a string of revisionist statements by conservative leaders in Japan, Katsuto Momii said the \u201ccomfort women\u201d system, in which women were coerced into serving in brothels for Japanese soldiers during World War II, \u201ccould be found in any nation that was at war.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe comfort women system is considered wrong under today\u2019s moral values. But the military comfort women system existed as a reality at that time,\u201d said Momii. \u201cCan we say there were none in Germany or France? It was everywhere in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy in Japan denied that U.S forces operated a system of comfort women during or after that war. \u201cWe are not aware of anything that would indicate the U.S. engaged in any such kind of activity,\u201d says an embassy official authorized to speak on the subject. \u201cWe would prefer not to comment any further on Mr. Momii\u2019s statements. I would simply reiterate that his apparent belief regarding U.S. practices is incorrect.\u201d The official asked not to be named, in line with State Department policy.<\/p>\n
Jeff Kingston, professor of Asian Studies at Temple University\u2019s campus in Tokyo, says Momii\u2019s views reflect a comforting delusion among some Japanese conservatives and nationalists. \u201cThere is no evidence that any other nation recruited tens of thousands of teenagers to serve as sex slaves for their troops at the specific request of military and government authorities,\u201d Kingston says. \u201cU.S. troops have frequented brothels in war and occupation like troops everywhere, but the comfort women system can hardly be compared to these brothels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Momii was appointed last month to a three-year term as chairman of the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, also known as NHK. The agency provides news, public service and entertainment programming throughout Japan, and operates news bureaus worldwide. It is funded primarily by viewer license fees and is overseen by a 12-member board of governors appointed by the national Diet.<\/p>\n
Momii, the former head of a major trading company, set off a storm of protest during his first press conference as chairman on Saturday by defending the comfort women system and seeming to blame some of the victims. \u201cPutting my chairman\u2019s title aside, the issue becomes complicated because South Korea criticizes as if Japan was the only one that forcibly drafted women into the system,\u201d Momii said. \u201cAnd [South Korea] demands money, compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officials in South Korea immediately called for Momii to be fired. \u201cIt is deplorable that the head of Japan\u2019s public broadcaster, who should remain fair and impartial, has distorted historical facts and made such a ridiculous claim,\u201d a South Korea foreign ministry spokesman said.<\/p>\n
Momii later said he had been speaking as an individual, and \u201cretracts\u201d his statement.<\/p>\n
While there is some disagreement, historians generally believe that as many as 200,000 women, mostly from Korea, China and the Philippines, were forced or coerced into brothels operated by or for the Japanese military. Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to the system as \u201csexual slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1993, Japan\u2019s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono issued a formal apology to former comfort women and acknowledged Japan\u2019s responsibility for their suffering.<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s political elite has been plagued with controversy over its supposedly revisionist views of history since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office in December 2012.<\/p>\n
Abe triggered protests last year when he suggested that Japan had not been the aggressor during its period of wartime and colonial expansion, and the once-popular mayor of Hiroshima fueled the fire by stating that comfort women served a \u201cnecessary\u201d role by relieving soldiers from stress. Abe courted more criticism last month when he visited the Yasukuni Shrine, which is accused of glorifying Japan\u2019s role in the war.<\/p>\n
Kyodo News Service reported that Momii was Abe\u2019s personal choice for NHK chairman. A search committee that recommended Momii included conservative author Naoki Hyakuta, a close friend of Abe\u2019s and a member of the NHK board. Hyakuta\u2019s best-selling book, Eternal Zero, was made into a hit movie last year; the film ends with the hero, a fighter pilot opposed to the war, carrying out a Kamikaze attack against an American aircraft carrier.<\/p>\n
Time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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