Not-So-Comforting Apologies

“Not-So-Comforting Apologies”

by Michael Lujan Bevacqua

The Guam Daily Post

December 30, 2015

After years of denials, Japan and South Korea appear close to making a deal over apologizing for the comfort women issue from World War II. Money is being promised, although to give a sense of how late this, estimates show that there might have been as many as 200,000 Korean comfort women (although these estimates vary due to records being lost or destroyed.) The Associated Press reports that there are only 46 left alive today.

This potential deal comes after a number of quiet, but embarrassing protests against Japanese denial of their history of sexual slavery. In 2011, a statue of a young Korean woman sitting next to an empty chair was erected across the street from the Japanese consulate in Seoul. Korean women comprised the majority of those used by the Japanese for sexual slavery. The statue was meant to symbolize the untold number of Korean women who wanted for apologies or reparations from Japan over their mistreatment. The Japanese government complained ferociously about how embarrassing this statue was. Earlier this year, prior to a visit to Seoul by Japanese Prime Minister Abe, two more statues appeared in a park, one symbolizing Korean comfort women, the other Chinese. Since the early 1990s, this issue has been prominent and sometimes strained relations between Japan and South Korea. In 1965, the two countries signed a treaty that was meant to put an end to any reparations claims related to World War II. For the past two decades, more and more women have come forward to share their stories of being sexual slaves for the Japanese military, refusing to allow the issue to disappear. The timing of the apology is intriguing, as Abe’s government seems more interested than ever in finding ways to revitalize the faded militaristic past of Japan.

But the issue of comfort women during World War II is far greater than just an issue between these two nations. It is a terrible history that brings together women from a number of countries and islands, the Philippines, Chuuk, Okinawa, Indonesia, Taiwan, Burma, and the Marianas.

Local history textbooks regularly mention the issue of comfort women on Guam during World War II, but scarcely provide any details. The Guam Legislature has approved a number of resolutions calling upon the Japanese government to apologize for their “vicious coercion of young women into sexual slavery and for their cruelty towards the people of Guam during its occupation.” The sexual violence that Chamorro women endured remains one of the most public secrets from that time period. It is something that all take for granted and know happened in various forms, but it remains a taboo subject, something better not spoken of or investigated.

But in the messy mire, what we commonly find is that the issue of comfort women in Guam is largely obscured by misconceptions or the larger specter of sexual violence during the Japanese occupation. The various ways in which women were victimized leads to some ways, which represent far complicated or difficult histories go unspoken and lost.

When I was conducting my research on World War II about 12 years ago, I interviewed more than 100 survivors of “I Tiempon Chapones.” As of today, the majority of those I interviewed have passed on, and I feel grateful to have spent time with so many. sitting at their kitchen tables, their outside kitchens, or meeting them for coffee at Hagatna McDonald’s to hear their stories.

When I would broach the topic of comfort women, it was clearly something that was very difficult to discuss. But even in this difficulty, there were problems of definition. When I asked one woman about her knowledge of comfort women on Guam, she said her mother had been one of them. Noting that this was a rarity, as people tended to speak generally about comfort women, knowing of their existence, but also careful never to be too specific, to name any names, I seized this chance to learn more about the life of Chamorro comfort women. But when she described her mother’s experience, she had been raped by a Japanese soldier at their ranch, I realized she had misunderstood what it meant to be a comfort woman.

Sexual attacks on Chamorro women were all too common during the occupation. Families took care to hide the young women in their family, or alter their appearance in ways to make them less “appetizing” to your average soldier turned rapist. In other instances, women felt compelled to be “friendly” to Japanese soldiers or officers in order to obtain favors or protection for their families. They became girlfriends or mistresses to the Japanese troops, something which made sense in the heat of war, but afterwards became an almost unmentionable act.

This everyday coercion and violence that Chamorro women felt obscures the ways in which Guam was incorporated into the comfort women system. The rapes or the abuse was horrific, but the comfort women represented a more naturalized form of sexual oppression, where women were recruited to be part of a system whereby they would regularly serve the “comfort” of soldiers. The random acts of sexual violence represent one traumatic aspect of war, the comfort women represent an entirely different form of trauma, which can’t be accounted for in random or calculated acts of sexual violence. The comfort women system used by the Japanese military in Asia and the Pacific, was a system of sexual slavery, a massive human trafficking operation. It speaks to something beyond the character of individuals soldiers or commanders, but to the Japanese nation and its treatment of human beings, especially those it deemed as inferior.

It remains to be seen how this apology and this reparation process for South Korea might affect the Chamorro struggle for apologies or restitution for their suffering during World War II.

US GI in S. Korea gets 10 years in Prison for Rape

By HYUNG-JIN KIM - Associated Press | AP – Tue, Nov 1, 2011 from Yahoo.com

SEOUL, KOREA (AP) — A South Korean court sentenced a U.S. soldier to 10 years in prison Tuesday for raping a teenage girl — the second harshest punishment handed down to a convicted American Soldier here in nearly 20 years.

Uijeongbu District Court convicted 21-year-old Pfc. Kevin Flippin of sexually assaulting the 16-year-old girl numerous times after breaking into her small boarding room near Seoul in September, court spokesman Lee-Sang Yup said.

Flippin committed many "sadistic and sexually perverted acts" while threatening the girl with a pair of scissors, a knife and a lighter, Lee said. The soldier robbed the girl of 5,000 won ($4.50) as well, he said.

The court verdict said the girl felt "terrified and sexually humiliated," according to Lee.

The case, along with a separate rape allegation by a teenage girl against another U.S. soldier, prompted top U.S. military and government officials to offer public apologies.

"Our sincere apologies go out again to the victim, her family and the Korean community," the 2nd Infanty Division said in a statement later Tuesday.

About a dozen South Korean activists rallied near the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, chanting slogans and holding placards, including one that said: "We need Obama's apology!"

The court ordered Flippin to undergo 80 hours of counseling and his personal information to be made public on a South Korean government website for 10 years, Lee said.

Prosecutors had demanded a 15-year prison term. The court, however, decided on a 10-year sentence because Flippin had repented, was still young and the rape was his first crime, Lee said.

Both prosecutors and the soldier have one week to appeal, he said.

About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, and crimes involving them have fired anti-American sentiments among many South Koreans.

In 2002, the acquittals of two American Soldiers whose armored vehicle ran over and killed two South Korean schoolgirls during training prompted massive nationwide protests against the U.S. military presence in the country.

Following the latest rape case, the U.S. military reinstated a curfew for U.S. soldiers and increased joint patrols by U.S. soldiers and South Korean police around U.S. installations in South Korea.

Tuesday's sentencing is the longest prison term for an American soldier stationed in South Korea since 1993, when a U.S. soldier was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a South Korean bar employee, according to the Foreign Ministry. His life sentence was later reduced to 15 years, and the soldier was eventually released in 2006.

Of Bases and Budgets

Published on Friday, October 7, 2011 by Foreign Policy in Focus

by Christine Ahn and Hyun Lee

At 4 am on September 24, an intoxicated U.S. soldier based at Camp Casey in South Korea broke into the dorm of a high school student, threatened her with a weapon and repeatedly sexually assaulted her. Due to the extraterritoriality of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the South Korean and U.S. governments, Seoul must issue an arrest warrant to the U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK) to transfer the soldier to face Korea’s criminal system.

This tragic incident presents a critical opportunity to question why, after 66 years, 28,500 U.S. troops still remain on 87 bases and installations on the Korean peninsula and whose security they are safeguarding. The same questions are being raised in Okinawa and Guam, islands in the Asia Pacific with large U.S. bases.

Although the economic crisis facing America has called into question the bloated military budget, it is the first time in U.S. history that Congress is discussing the prohibitive costs of U.S. bases. Given growing popular opposition throughout the Asia Pacific to the ongoing presence of U.S. bases, the time is now to seize this rare political window to close down U.S. bases worldwide.

High Cost of U.S. Bases to People of Asia Pacific

As in the past, the USFK will attempt to call the rape another case of a bad apple, when in fact U.S. troops in Korea have a long history of committing heinous crimes against Korea’s civilian population.

In 1994, South Korean civil society began to mobilize after U.S. soldier Kenneth Markle brutally murdered 27-year old Yoon Keum E. whose bloody body covered with white laundry detergent was found dead with an umbrella shoved up her anus and two beer bottles in her womb. This unspeakable violence forced the Korean people to question the so-called protection provided by the U.S. military and the unequal SOFA arrangements, which enables soldiers to act in impunity.

According to the National Campaign for the Eradication of Crimes by U.S. Troops in Korea, U.S. soldiers have committed tens of thousands of crimes against South Korean civilians since the beginning of its military occupation in 1945. According to South Korean National Assembly member Kim Tae-won, 377 U.S. soldiers were arrested for committing crimes in 2011 alone. Since 2008, the number of rapes doubled, and thefts and assaults tripled. According to the National Campaign for the Eradication of Crimes by U.S. Troops in Korea, U.S. soldiers have committed tens of thousands of crimes against South Korean civilians since the beginning of its military occupation in 1945.

But it’s not just interpersonal violence Koreans endure. U.S. bases have also borne significant social and environmental costs. In 2006, after nearly a 1,000-day long struggle, the South Korean government demolished the homes and fertile farmland of elderly rice farmers in Pyeongtaek for the expansion of Camp Humphreys. This past May, three U.S. veterans confessed to dumping barrels full of Agent Orange in an area the size of a football field at Camp Carroll. Today, Gangjeong farmers and fishermen on Jeju Island are fighting to save their village from becoming a naval base that will stage Aegis destroyers linked to the U.S. missile defense system.

Unfortunately, sexual violence and crimes committed by U.S. troops against civilians haven’t been restricted to South Korea. Okinawa, a prefecture of Japan, has also borne similar costs due to the ongoing presence of U.S. military bases. Although Okinawa accounts for only 0.6 percent of the entire land area in Japan, it is home to 74 percent of U.S. military facilities in Japan. Women for Genuine Security estimates that 37 U.S. bases and installations in Okinawa house 23,842 troops and 21,512 family members.

According to Suzuyo Takazato of Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, from 1972 to 2005, U.S. soldiers committed over 5,500 crimes against civilians, although many Okinawans say the number is actually much higher because women and girls rarely report crimes such as sexual violence. Only some 700 U.S. soldiers have been arrested. Since U.S. troops first landed on the island, Okinawans have been demanding their removal. In 1995, the resistance gained steam after three U.S. servicemen abducted and raped a 12-year-old girl.

In 1996, Tokyo and Washington agreed that the United States would return the land used by the Futenma Air Force base and build a replacement facility in Nago City’s Henoko Bay. But Okinawans have opposed this plan through every democratic means—elections, referenda, rallies, and public opinion polls. In 1997, Nago citizens voted in a referendum opposing the construction of the new U.S. base. In a May 2010 poll, 84 percent of respondents opposed this move, which would destroy Henoko’s ecological preserve. And recently, Nago’s 60,000 people elected a mayor who strongly opposes the base.

Given the fierce opposition to the base relocation, the Japanese government signed a deal in 2006 with Washington to transfer 8,000 U.S. marines and their families from Okinawa to Guam, or Guahan in its native language Chamoru, at a price of $27 billion. According to Lisa Natividad of the Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice, the infusion of these additional marines, their families, and support workers to Guam’s population of 170,000 would grow the island population by 30 percent. “It will double the existing military presence on the island and will eclipse the Chamoru population,” says Natividad.

Since the announcement of the military build-up, Guahans actively led grassroots public education campaigns on the consequences to their culture and environment. Their organizing has begun to pay off. According to Natividad, the Pentagon received an unprecedented 10,000 comments of concern in 2009—6.5 percent of Guahan’s total population—about the planned Guam military build-up. Two civil society organizations—We Are Guahan and the Guam Preservation and Historic Trust—have filed a lawsuit to prevent the use of Pagat village as a live firing range.

Cost of U.S. Bases to America

For the first time in history, the call for closing bases and shifting priorities may actually have the ear of lawmakers on Capitol Hill as they cope with the nation’s intensifying budget crisis and take the unprecedented step of putting the Pentagon budget on the chopping block. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) proposes to save $69.5 billion by reducing military personnel overseas in Europe and Asia. This recommendation, originally made by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, is aimed at reducing “the military personnel stationed at overseas bases in Europe and Asia by one-third.” Senator Coburn also recommends canceling the deployment of 8,600 U.S. Marines and their 9,000 dependents to Guam from Okinawa. To realign U.S. troops in Japan, Okinawa, and Guam would cost $27 billion.

The Sustainable Defense Task Force also proposes to cut military personnel and bases by one third in Europe and Asia and projects savings of up to $80 billion. “On the Korean peninsula, the gap between adversary and friendly conventional capabilities has grown much more favorable,” it states in Debt, Defense, and Deficits – A Way Forward, released June 2010. “Also, U.S. capacities for long-range strike and for effective rapid deployment of forces have grown greater, reducing the crisis response requirements for troops on the spot.” The Task Force does not view China as a military threat to the United States. Rather, it says, China’s integration into the regional economy means “Beijing does not seek to fracture its relationship with the United States.” It also sees Taiwan and the Mainland as “strongly interdependent economically.”The struggle of farmers and indigenous people against U.S. bases in Guam, Okinawa, South Korea, and elsewhere, and the struggle of working people for jobs, healthcare, and education here at home are opposite sides of the same coin.

In May, three ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee—Senators Carl Levin (D-MI), Jim Webb (D-VA), and John McCain (R-AZ)—called on the Pentagon to “re-examine plans to restructure U.S. military forces in East Asia” because they were “unrealistic” and “simply unaffordable in today’s increasingly constrained fiscal environment.” Their recommendations include putting on hold plans to expand Camp Humphreys in Pyongtaek, South Korea to support tour normalization, scrapping the relocation of Futenma in Okinawa, and scaling back plans for base expansion in Guam. “The proposals would save billions in taxpayer dollars,” stated the letter from the Senators. Last month, during Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s confirmation hearing, Senator Levin asked whether the closure of some bases and bringing home U.S. troops was on the table. Carter responded that indeed, it was “on the table.”

Time to Link Arms

The struggle of farmers and indigenous people against U.S. bases in Guam, Okinawa, South Korea, and elsewhere, and the struggle of working people for jobs, healthcare, and education here at home are opposite sides of the same coin. The vibrant energy and creative talents of our nation’s youth are needed here to build hospitals and schools and revitalize local communities, not on unpopular bases abroad that displace indigenous populations.

It’s time to link up our demands – shut down bases abroad and create jobs here at home. Although oceans apart, we have more at stake in each other’s struggles than we may think. And Washington’s budget debate provides an opening for us to link arms and demand a change in the nation’s priorities.

Movements for peace and economic justice across the Asia Pacific are strengthening their ties by organizing two important convenings: “Peace in Asia and the Pacific: Alternatives to Militarization conference in Washington, DC on October 21-22; and Moana Nui: Pacific Peoples, Lands and Economies gathering from November 9-11 timed with the APEC Summit in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In the long term, the U.S. peace and social justice movement must press to change the fundamental mission of the U.S. military around the world. For now, we can start by impressing on the U.S. public and policymakers the urgency of people’s struggles against U.S. bases abroad as well as the high cost of maintaining them and what that means for the American people.