Page:Larry Niksch - Japanese Military's Comfort Women System - CRS April 3, 2007.pdf/20

 affirmed the original District Court judgment. The case went back to the Supreme Court, which ruled on February 21, 2006, that the claims of the women constituted non-judicial “political questions” and that the Supreme Court deferred to the judgment of the U.S. Executive Branch that the acceptance of such claims by U.S. courts would impinge upon the President’s ability to conduct foreign relations.

Conclusions

There is little question that, since 1992, the Government of Japan has acknowledged fully the role of the Japanese military and government in establishing and operating the comfort women system before and during World War II. However, even before Prime Minister Abe’s controversial statements of March 2007, the persuasiveness of the acknowledgments has been weakened in the eyes of many by related controversies over Japan’s historic record, such as the Prime Minister Koizumi’s visits to the Yasakuni shrine (where Japan’s war dead are enshrined but also where 14 major convicted war criminals also are enshrined), the content of history textbooks, and statements by individual Japanese political leaders such as the statement of the Minister of Education quoted above. The battle over acknowledgment continues in Japan today with the content of history textbooks as a main battleground; and some maintain that the trend toward textbooks omitting discussion of the comfort women system raises doubts about the commitment of Japan’s Prime Ministers in their letters to comfort women that Japan “should face up squarely to its past history and accurately convey it to future generations.”

The comfort women issue is part of a broader debate in Japan over how Japanese should view Japan’s record during the 1930s and World War II. History revisionists in Japan, as represented by the LDP Committee to Consider Japan’s Future Historical Education, appears to seek to absolve Japan from major guilt for its conduct during this period. Opponents of the history revisionists argue that Japan should acknowledge the negative aspects of its record and teach these to future generations in Japan. A recent example of this struggle, involving another historical issue, was the ruling of the Japanese Ministry of Education to delete passages from high school history textbooks that described the role of the Japanese army in the mass suicides of thousands of Okinawans during the Battle of Okinawa (April–June 1945).

The Asian Women’s Fund appears to have been a genuine effort by the Japanese government and the Fund’s sponsors and leaders to compensate and assist former comfort women. As discussed, several governments appeared to have accepted this by cooperating with the Asian Women’s Fund.

The controversial issue of Asian Women’s Fund atonement payments vs. demands for official Japanese government monetary compensation is predominately an issue of legal arguments vs. moral arguments. The Japanese government appears to have a credible legal position based on the Japanese Peace Treaty, Japan’s reparations