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Growing Chorus Slams War-Brothel Remarks
Philippines Rep. Liza Maza of the left-wing Gabriela women's party said Abe's statement was "an affront to all women victims of Japanese military sexual slavery" during the war.
Rechilda Extremadura, executive director of Lila Pilipina, an organization of activists and former Filipino wartime sex slaves, said 120 are still alive among 174 documented Filipino comfort women.
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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe raises his hand to speak during a budget committee meeting at Parliament in Tokyo, Friday, March 2, 2007. Historians say some 200,000 women, mostly from Korea and China, served in the Japanese military brothels throughout Asia in the 1930s and 1940s. Many victims say they were kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops, and the top government spokesman acknowledged the wrongdoing in 1993. Abe on Thursday denied women were forced into military brothels across Asia, boosting renewed efforts by right-wing politicians to push for an official revision of the apology. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye) (Itsuo Inouye - AP) PHOTOS |
"Our women here, the grandmothers, said that they were forced, that they were coerced into rendering sexual servitude inside the garrisons, inside the 'comfort stations,'" Extremadura said. "Now, let the Japanese government prove that they went there willingly ... so that they can be labeled as prostitutes. That is where this is heading."
She called on the Japanese government to acknowledge the history: "If you are a responsible government, you are responsible enough to accept, acknowledge and be accountable."
Bustamante said she was heading home in 1942 after scavenging for rice when three Japanese soldiers stopped her on the road and seized her by the arms and legs and threw her into a truck "like a pig."
"Even as I struggled, I could not do anything. They slapped me, they punched me. I was only 16 then, what could I do?" she told AP Television News.
Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, on a visit to Tokyo, declined to comment directly on Abe's statement.
"Our view is that what happened during the war was most deplorable," he said when asked about the sex slave issue. "But ... as far as some kind of resolution of this issue, this is something that must be dealt with between Japan and the countries that were affected."
The United States has avoided public involvement in historical disputes between Japan and its neighbors, though it has expressed concern that such conflicts could affect other issues, such as cooperation on efforts to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
Last month, however, the House of Representatives held hearings on a resolution calling for Japan to fully acknowledge and apologize for the sexual abuse. U.S. lawmakers have introduced a nonbinding resolution urging Japan to apologize formally.
Supporters of the resolution want an apology similar to the one the U.S. government gave to Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps during World War II. That apology was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1988.
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Oliver Teves in Manila, Burt Herman in Seoul, Foster Klug in Washington, and Alexa Olesen in Beijing contributed to this report.