ASIA : Fund for ‘Comfort Women’ Coming Up Short in Japan

TOKYO — A private fund that Japan inaugurated with much fanfare earlier this year to pay Korean and other women forced into prostitution for the Imperial Army in World War II has collected such meager contributions that the effort threatens to backfire and become a national embarrassment.

The Japanese government, after rejecting appeals for public compensation, helped set up the “Asian Peace and Friendship Fund for Women” on Aug. 15 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the war’s end. Although no target was officially established, the government had unofficially proposed raising about $20 million to pay 1,000 women $20,000 each.

But by mid-December, only $1.16 million had been collected, and organizers admitted during a recent news conference that they had hoped for more.

The enslavement of as many as 200,000 “comfort women” is one of the most bitter legacies of Japan’s brutal war deeds in Asia. After years of stonewalling, the government acknowledged its role in organizing the women only after a Japanese scholar discovered documents irrefutably proving official participation.

But the issue of responsibility, like all war-related issues here, remains politically touchy. Many here staunchly hold that the Japanese people, not the government, are responsible for the deeds.

“Each and every Japanese citizen must face squarely the deeds committed by their fathers, uncles and grandfathers,” said Yasuaki Onuma, the Tokyo University professor in charge of administering the fund.

But many young people say the Imperial Army’s actions half a century ago have nothing to do with them, while many of the war generation wonder why the women should be compensated when their comrades suffered too. Still others believe that the women willingly participated and made a lot of money doing so.

The apathy and even hostility the fund has elicited suggest that it may end up making the issue worse rather than resolving it.

Many of the women even oppose the private fund, saying an official apology is more important than money, and several individual lawsuits filed against the government remain pending.

From the start, the fund seemed doomed. To protect itself from a flood of other war compensation lawsuits, the government insisted on a private fund. But because there is little tradition of individual charity here, 90% of funds must be raised from corporations, fund official Shinkichi Eto said.

And because today’s tycoons are yesterday’s war veterans, organizers do not expect much cooperation--even though the donations are tax-exempt.

“Top leaders of corporations are in their 60s and 70s and took part in the War of the Pacific,” Eto said. “They have complex psychological feelings. Why should they compensate the comfort women before their own fallen comrades, they ask. There is a hesitancy, I am afraid.”

Many Japanese see the fund as a government attempt to dodge responsibility; they advocate public compensation and a clear apology to the women.

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But the fund-raising drive appears crippled by vagueness.

Onuma said the fund has no target amount or target date and would leave the issue of who deserves compensation to nongovernmental organizations in the recipient nations.

Yoshimi Yoshiaki, the scholar who dug up the damning documents, said in an interview that the government has neither fully admitted its responsibility for the brothels nor admitted that the actions violated international law.

“To restore the dignity of the victims, it is imperative that the government offer a sincere apology,” he said. “But that would only be possible if the government offered to undertake the task of unveiling the entire scope of the military’s sexual slavery and admit historical facts.”