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U.S. House to Present Resolution on Comfort Women

Posted June. 18, 2007 03:02,   

한국어

HR-121, a House resolution calling on the Japanese government to formally acknowledge and apologize for its role in the coercion of women into sex slavery during World War 2, will be presented before the House International Relations Committee on June 26.

At a meeting sponsored by a Korean organization at the Wilshire Plaza hotel in Los Angeles last Saturday, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Lantos, said, “The resolution was held up from being presented last month, and will be formally presented on June 26.” Lantos added that he also supports the resolution on the comfort women issue, which is a women’s human rights matter, and that it is very likely that the resolution will pass the House International Relations Committee by a big margin. Chairman Lantos, the sole holocaust survivor in the U.S. congress, further stated, “The comfort women issue is one of several human rights issues that are yet to be resolved. For too long, justice has not been realized for the pain Korean women suffered.”

A source familiar with the U.S. congress noted, “Once the resolution is presented, it is highly likely that the resolution will pass the standing committee by an unanimous vote. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi also expressed her strong support for the resolution, so it is possible that the resolution will be presented before the general meeting.”

Meanwhile, there has been strong criticism and a backlash following a full-page advertisement taken out by 63 high-ranking Japanese politicians in the Washington Post on June 14 edition saying, “There was no proof that so-called comfort women were forced into sex slavery, and comfort women were treated well.” U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was said to have stated that the advertisement was very upsetting and that he has ordered his staff to investigate the details of the advertisement.

In addition, the U.S. Navy is reportedly preparing a counterstatement to the claim in the Japanese advertisement saying that the U.S. military asked the Japanese government to set up comfort stations to prevent U.S. soldiers from raping after its occupation of Japan in 1945. ” The U.S. says that the claim is completely groundless.



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