Here is the most hypocritical thing I have read all week:
Moon Hee-sang Source: Spokesperson Office For National Assembly
Japan’s emperor should hold hands with women forced to work in the country’s military brothels and make a personal apology if Tokyo wants to end the decades-old dispute, South Korea’s top lawmaker said.
National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang said in an interview Thursday that Japanese Emperor Akihito — as the “the son of the main culprit of war crimes” — should deliver the apology before his planned abdication in May. Moon was asked how the two U.S. allies could resolve a worsening diplomatic feud fueled by disagreements over Japan’s 1910-45 occupation of the Korean Peninsula, much of it under the emperor’s late father, Hirohito.
“It only takes one word from the prime minister, who represents Japan — I wish the emperor would do it since he will step down soon,” said Moon, South Korea’s No. 2 elected official and a former presidential envoy to Japan. “Isn’t he the son of the main culprit of war crimes?
“So, if a person like that holds the hands of the elderly and says he’s really sorry, then that one word will resolve matters once and for all,” he said.
So will Moon Hee-sang next call for Kim Jong-un to hold hands and apologize to the victims of the Korean War, something his grandfather caused that was far more destructive than anything the Japanese ever did to South Korea? Or call for him to hold hands and apologize to the families of South Koreans abducted over the years by North Korea? Better yet will he call for Kim Jong-un to hold hands with the families of the victims of the Cheonan sinking and Yeonpyeong Island shelling?
Instead of calling for these apologies, South Korea’s left wing politicians like Moon Hee-sang instead want to pay tribute to Kim Jong-un. The Japanese government should call out these South Korean politicians for their hypocrisy.
Installing this statue outside the Japanese consulate in Busan seems needlessly provocative to me. If these activist groups are so concerned about sexual slavery then they should be putting up statues in front of the Chinese embassy in Seoul in protest of the modern day sexual slavery of North Korean women in China:
Members of a civic group confront police on the sidewalk near the Japanese Consulate in South Korea’s largest port city of Busan on Dec. 28, 2016, after attempting to install a statue symbolizing victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery. (Yonhap)
Dozens of members from a civic group without authorization attempted to install a statue of a girl symbolizing the victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery in South Korea’s largest port city of Busan, but the attempt was foiled due to opposition from officials and police.
The group tried to set up the statue on the sidewalk in front of the back door of the Japanese Consulate shortly after a weekly rally around 12:30 p.m. calling for the Japanese government to offer an apology and compensation for its wartime sexual enslavement of Asian women, many of whom were Korean.
As many as 150 activists from the group staged the rally to protest a Seoul-Tokyo landmark deal in December last year in which Tokyo apologized for its colonial-era atrocities and agreed to provide 1 billion yen (US$9.4 million) for the creation of a foundation aimed at supporting the victims, euphemistically called comfort women. [Yonhap]
Korea Bang has the translation of an SBS report that researches whether a mother and her two sons were raped and kept as sex slaves. It is a very odd story that features domestic violence, a religious cult, claims of drugged fueled orgies, rape, and even a mysterious shaman:
On October 29th, 2014, a woman in her 40s and her two sons held a press conference. The title was “Press conference to demand thorough investigation of Mr. Heo and his father’s sexual crimes”. She mainly claimed that her husband, Pastor Heo, her father-in-law and her own parents’ family members all worked together to rape her and her sons. She even claimed that they had had orgies.
Lee: “Would you believe my sons and I had sex with my husband and father-in-law? But it really happened. Sometimes, my father-in-law brought a dozen of his believers. On such a day, we would have an orgy.” (The older son and younger son will be called by false names Junho and Junsu hereafter.) [Korea Bang]
Six refugees from North Korea, including four women who say they were victims of sexual slavery or forced marriages, have fled to the United States, a senator said Saturday.
The group is the first from North Korea to be given official refugee status since passage of a 2004 law that makes it easier for North Koreans to apply for such status.
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, said the six refugees arrived at an undisclosed U.S. location Friday night from a Southeast Asian nation. He would not identify from which nation they came because of worries about security for their families and to avoid diplomatic complications with the country that sent them.
“This is a great act of compassion by the United States and the other countries involved,” said Brownback, a co-sponsor of the law. He said that the refugees’ arrival in the United States showed “the act is working” by making the refugees’ human rights a part of U.S. policy toward the North.
It is very common for North Korean women who are hiding secretly in northern China to become victims of sexual slavery and forced marriages because if they don’t agree to such practices than they can be turned over to the Chinese authorities which means deportation back to North Korea and from there the gulag.
Hopefully this will be more than just a one time event because this will give refugees hiding in China and other Asian countries another outlet to seek asylum besides South Korea. This news is not going to make South Korea to happy though. South Korea is actively trying to prevent North Koreans from defecting in order to appease the Kim Jong Il government in North Korea. Appeasing the North Koreans is of more interest to the current South Korean government than human rights of refugees.
