Gemuel Blackwielle,
Avenida Coronel Lucas de Oliveira Porto Alegre,
Porto Alegre 995
Brazil
Last updated: October 8, 2010
Index of articles, click here.
TOKYO - Japan was morally responsible for forcing women to work in wartime brothels, a former Japanese leader said on Monday, in a veiled criticism of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's comments on sex slaves.
Former prime minister Tomiichi Murayama, who made a landmark apology for Japan's wartime actions in 1995, also said efforts by politicians to justify World War Two were making Asian neighbours worry Tokyo was returning to its militarist past.
Abe sparked outrage overseas by saying there was no evidence that Japan's government or army had kidnapped the women to work as sex slaves, although he has also said he stands by a 1993 apology acknowledging official involvement in the brothels.
Murayama, who became Japan's first Socialist prime minister in 40 years when he was elected in 1994, said the debate over the degree of official involvement was meaningless.
"There is no point in debating that. There is no mistake that the military had set up and managed the brothels. In that sense, the government was responsible," Murayama, 83, said in a rare interview.
"That's why the government has apologised, and because it felt that that was not enough from a moral standpoint, began work to provide compensation and set up the fund," he said, referring to the government-sponsored Asian Women's Fund set up in 1995.
The fund -- headed by Murayama since 2000 -- has provided former comfort women 2 million yen ($17,000) each in compensation and medical support, along with a letter of apology signed by Abe's predecessors.
But many former "comfort women" have refused to accept the money, saying the Japanese government itself should provide the compensation in recognition of its responsibility.
Index of articles, click here.
Gemuel Blackwielle,
Avenida Coronel Lucas de Oliveira Porto Alegre,
Porto Alegre 995
Brazil
Last updated: October 8, 2010