Professor Sang-chul Lee of Ryukoku University examines the suspicions surrounding the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance and former leader Yoon Mee-hyang, exposed by former comfort woman Lee Yong-soo, and questions the structure in South Korea that sanctifies “anti-Japan” activism, as well as the responsibility that President Moon Jae-in must face.

May 20, 2020
The shameful face of a South Korean comfort women support group that has claimed to be an ally of “justice” is about to be exposed.
The following is from an article by Sang-chul Lee, professor at Ryukoku University, published in today’s Sankei Shimbun under the title, “I Want to Ask President Moon about the Suspicions Surrounding the Comfort Women Group.”
The shameful face of the South Korean comfort women support group “The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan,” commonly known as the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance, formerly the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, which has claimed to be an ally of “justice,” is about to be exposed.
The incident began when Lee Yong-soo, 91, a symbolic former comfort woman, held a press conference on the 7th and sharply criticized the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance and its former representative, Yoon Mee-hyang.
“I was deceived by the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for 30 years.”
Lee said, “For 30 years I was deceived and used by the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance. The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance has never used the donations collected from the public for the halmoni, the former comfort women grandmothers. From now on I will not attend the Wednesday demonstrations, held every Wednesday in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. The demonstrations only taught students hatred and wounds.”
Lee also said that Yoon knew in advance the contents of the Japan-South Korea comfort women agreement of December 2015 but did not tell them, and also blocked their contact with the government.
Lee is the halmoni who became widely known in Japan when she hugged President Trump of the United States, who was visiting South Korea as a state guest, at a dinner hosted by President Moon Jae-in in November 2017.
After taking office as president, Moon invited Lee and Yoon to the presidential office at New Year in 2018 and said, “The agreement of the previous government, the Park Geun-hye administration, violates the principles of truth and justice. The previous government pushed forward the agreement unilaterally without listening to the opinions of the halmoni.”
After that, although Moon said that he was “not saying that the agreement would be abrogated or that renegotiation would be demanded,” he dissolved the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation, which had been created with funds contributed by Japan.
It has not been made known what influence the activities of the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance had on that process, but according to Lee, “the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance prevented the halmoni from receiving the support money.”
For whom were the donations collected?
According to the materials the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance submitted to South Korea’s National Tax Service, donations collected from 2016 to 2019 amounted to 4.92 billion won, but it appears to have been quite reluctant to pay support money.
In 2019, donations amounted to 825 million won, but the amount paid from that to 23 halmoni was 350,000 won per person.
Meanwhile, Yoon is said to have collected donations by using eight accounts held by the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance and three accounts in personal names, which are suspected of being illegal.
Perhaps there were some halmoni who did not like the fact that they could not receive support money either from the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation or from the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance, and were only being used.
It is said that there was also a halmoni who scraped her own name off with a chisel from the monument bearing the names of 247 former comfort women installed at the “Place of Memory” in a park in Seoul, according to the May 14 edition of the JoongAng Ilbo.
In response to the exposure, Yoon wrote on Facebook that “I spoke with the halmoni by phone and found that her memory was mistaken,” attempting to imply that there was a problem with Lee’s memory.
If Yoon, who has relied on the memories of former comfort women and proclaimed justice, denies those memories, that would also mean denying the activities of the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance itself.
In the general election held last month, Yoon behaved like a messenger of “justice” pursuing Japan’s war responsibility, sending questionnaires to major political parties asking them to state their position on whether the one billion yen contributed by Japan based on the Japan-South Korea comfort women agreement should be returned to Japan, and she was also elected as a member of the National Assembly.
Regarding the reports of suspicions, Yoon insisted that they were oppression against herself as she challenged the fight for justice, saying, “The stronger the unjust attacks by pro-Japanese forces become, the stronger my, Yoon Mee-hyang’s, resolve for peace and human rights will become.”
She also tried to gain sympathy by saying, “I am reminded of former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, whose family was exposed to public criticism for as long as six months since last summer.”
Labeling the pursuit of suspicions as “pro-Japanese”
However, what is more surprising than Yoon’s reaction is the reaction of South Korean society to this uproar.
On May 14, 16 lawmakers of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea issued a statement.
They defended Yoon, saying, “This uproar is nothing more than an offensive by pro-Japanese, anti-human rights, and anti-peace forces to denigrate the movement to correct the truth of history.”
Kim Doo-kwan, a heavyweight lawmaker of the ruling party, raised his voice, saying, “Some media and pro-Japanese, anti-human rights, and anti-peace forces are launching their final offensive.”
Such a logical leap is probably also a common tactic used by many civic groups and activists in South Korea.
It is the logic that they are being attacked not because they themselves committed wrongdoing, but because they tried to uphold the justice of anti-Japan.
Even now in South Korea, activities that pursue Japan’s war crimes and responsibility are treated as a sacred domain, and criticizing organizations, media, scholars, or individuals related to such activities is regarded as taboo; if one breaks that taboo, one is labeled “pro-Japanese.”
＊It is no exaggeration at all to say that the attitude of South Korea and the attitude of the Asahi Shimbun and others, as well as NHK, are exactly alike.＊
Japan is also concerned about what conclusion the battle of accusations between comfort women-related groups and former comfort women will reach, but before that there is something that must first be asked of President Moon.
Moon has always said that the resolution of the comfort women issue and the issue of wartime laborers requires “the consent of the victims,” as he stated at his press conference on January 14, but the question is: who are the “victims”?
Is he saying that he did not know the reality that, under the beautiful name of justice, there are organizations and individuals who proclaim “anti-Japan,” receive subsidies from the government, collect donations, make their living from them, and seek entry into politics?
Moon, who has used such organizations as his support base, should now state his position.