The process by which the comfort women issue was formed is reexamined through the Zainichi activist network of Ms. Bae Sun-hui, Mr. Song Du-hoe, and Ms. Atsuko Aoyagi. Through the Asahi Shimbun’s reporting, Ms. Kim Hak-sun’s coming forward, and the connection with the issue of Koreans who remained in Sakhalin, this article discusses how a false narrative was expanded.
2020-02-25
She was the wife of a doctor and admired Song Du-hoe, a Zainichi Korean activist involved in the movement against discrimination.
Aoyagi was the very person who, together with Song, initiated a lawsuit against the Japanese government demanding an apology and compensation.
The following reveals, from the sequence of events, the activist network among Zainichi Koreans extending from Ms. Bae Sun-hui to Mr. Song Du-hoe to Ms. Atsuko Aoyagi.
This is a chapter originally published on 2018-02-16 under that title.
The following continues from the previous chapter.
“Atsuko Aoyagi of Oita was the wife of a doctor and admired Song Du-hoe, a Zainichi Korean activist involved in the movement against discrimination.
Aoyagi was the very person who, together with Song, initiated a lawsuit against the Japanese government demanding an apology and compensation” (Tsutomu Nishioka, A Guide to Understanding the Comfort Women Issue).
Ms. Aoyagi was the secretary-general of an organization called the “Committee of One Hundred for an Official Apology to Korea and the Korean People,” and in 1990 she traveled to South Korea and distributed leaflets recruiting plaintiffs to file lawsuits against the Japanese government.
As an extension of this activity, Ms. Kim Hak-sun came forward, and as a result, Takashi Uemura, a reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, reported that she had been “taken to the battlefield under the name of the Women’s Volunteer Corps” (Asahi, August 11, 1991).
From this sequence of events, the activist network among Zainichi Koreans extending from Ms. Bae Sun-hui to Mr. Song Du-hoe to Ms. Atsuko Aoyagi becomes visible.
Moreover, Mr. Song was involved not only in the comfort women issue but also in activities concerning the repatriation of Koreans who had remained in Sakhalin.
In other words, the origin of the comfort women issue is fundamentally connected with the Sakhalin issue.
In an Asahi Shimbun article about the erection of an apology monument titled “The Apology of Just One Man,” there is the description, “Seiji Yoshida kneeling in apology before the bereaved families of Koreans who remained in Sakhalin” (December 23, 1983).
This article continues.
As readers know, immediately after I first appeared, I stated that “everything begins with one person.”
A proper noun called the Asahi Shimbun does not write, and a building called NHK does not speak.
Someone writes, and someone speaks.
One person wrote a lie, one person commented with a lie, and a false story began.
The Asahi Shimbun was Japan’s highest-quality newspaper company, and NHK was the public broadcaster; those prestigious names made lies appear to be truth and continued to magnify them.
There is no end, like the sand on the beach, to those who make use of Asahi and NHK.
China, the Korean Peninsula, opposition-party politicians, and the so-called cultural figures who make their living from Asahi and NHK.