In US, 'comfort woman' seeks Japanese apology

Korean Lee Yong-Soo was forced into sexual slavery serving Japan's imperial army. Seventy years later, with Japan's prime minister preparing a historic address to the US Congress, she demands just one thing: an apology.

"Abe is lying and denying all the history of truth," an emotional Lee said at a news conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday. "I want to stand before him as a living witness of history."

Abe, whose attitude toward history has drawn strong criticism from countries including China and South Korea, is scheduled to visit the United States next week.

"I'm not going to die until we resolve this issue," the diminutive 87-year-old said.

Lee testified to Congress in 2007 about her traumatic experience as one of the thousands of "comfort women" forced into Japanese military brothels during World War II.

Lee recalled being snatched from her home by Japanese soldiers in 1944 at age 16.

She survived a harrowing boat journey to Taiwan, only to be held at a Japanese military brothel for two years, where she was raped, beaten and tortured by electric shock. "I was almost dead," she said.

She said her message if she were to meet Abe would be, "Please open your eyes big, and look at me."

"The House chamber is a sacred ground in American history," said Jungsil Lee, president of the Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues, a rights group that organized the news conference.

"There is no place better than the US Capitol for Mr Abe to accept the Japanese imperial government's role in crimes against humanity during World War II and offer a direct and sincere apology from the modern government to all victims of the war crimes."

There are only 53 known surviving victims of Japan's sex crimes in South Korea, and their request for an apology from Tokyo has not been realized, said Jungsil.

She called on Abe to "acknowledge the historical facts in (their) entirety and offer an official apology" rather than acting "as if he is an innocent bystander without any guilt or responsibility".

Dennis Halpin, a visiting scholar at the US-Korea Institute of Johns Hopkins University, also warned against what he called "historical amnesia".

Countries that do not remember history have no souls, Halpin said, adding that Japan's wartime crimes are "indisputable" and "there is no way to deny that history".

Twenty-five US House lawmakers, led by Democrat Mike Honda, wrote to Japan's ambassador to Washington on Thursday urging Abe in his speech to "lay the foundation for healing and humble reconciliation by addressing the historical issues".

The bipartisan letter, which was signed by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, made no mention of comfort women, but dovetails with the calls for an apology.

Despite seven decades of distance, the delicate issue of comfort women remains highly sensitive.

AFP - Xinhua