World intellectuals urge Japanese PM to apologize for wartime atrocities

World intellectuals urge Japanese PM to apologize for wartime atrocities. July. 30, 2015 07:20. jjj@donga.com.

More than 500 intellectual from around the world on Wednesday issued a statement reaffirming the illegitimacy of Japan`s forceful annexation of Korea in 1910 and opposing Japan`s distortion of imperialist past.

In the joint statement announced in Seoul, the scholars and researchers, including Wada Haruki, a professor emeritus at Tokyo University, and Lee Tae-jin, a professor emeritus at Seoul National University, said that the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty of 1910 was "null and void" in the first place. They also urged Japan`s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to offer sincere apologies for Japan`s past aggression and colonial rule. The announcement of the statement was led by a committee of Korean and Japanese intellectuals who also issued a similar statement in 2010 to mark the 100th anniversary of Japan`s annexation of Korea.

"Under Abe`s leadership, the reverse course of history is gaining momentum," they said in the statement. "Japanese leaders have made efforts, starting from the 1995 Murayama Statement, to express deep regret for colonial rule, but lately, the Abe administration has been making every effort to reverse these developments." They also criticized Japan`s right-wing politicians for spreading false history claimed through research.

The intellectuals also urged Abe, who plans to issue a statement marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, to affirm that he would uphold statements that his predecessors made in the past about historical issues and that Japan`s aggression and colonial rule of its Asian neighbors cause tremendous damage and pain to them. Then, they urged Tokyo to quickly resolve the wartime sex slavery issue and clearly admit that Japan used forced labor at coal mines during the war.

Wada, who led the statement, said he was "sorry" for the course of history being reversed since 2010, adding that Japanese historians have joined forces to criticize Abe and urge him to stop distorting history.

In addition to 382 Korean intellectuals and 105 others from Japan, the participants in the statement also included 22 U.S. historians, such as Alexis Dudden, a professor of history at the University of Connecticut, and 15 European scholars, including Wolfgang Seifert, a professor of Japanese studies at the University of Heidelberg. Seoul National University professor emeritus Lee Tae-jin said, "European and American historians who issued statements protesting Abe`s distortion of the history of sex slavery have joined this statement, making it a joint one by world intellectuals."

The committee expected more intellectuals to join, as historians from China and Southeast Asian countries are considering participating.