City Council of Takarazuka, Osaka [March 26, 2008]

Written Opinion expressing the sense of Takarazuka City Council that the Japanese Government should settle the issue of the Military Sexual Slavery in good faith.

The U.S. House of Representatives adopted the resolution on July 30, 2007 that the Government of Japan should formally acknowledge and apologize for its sexual enslavement of young women known as “Comfort Women” during World War II. On July 31st, the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe commented that he regretted the resolution implying that the Government has no intention of making a formal apology to the survivors. His attitude contradicts the Kono statement of 1993.

With such attitude, it is inevitable that the repeated apologies of the Government in the past years are dismissed as mere lip service. Moreover, there is no denying those who argue that the money from “Asian Women’s Fund” distributed to some victims with the apology from Prime Minister Murayama was a deceptive scheme to dodge criticism from the international society.

Following the US, similar resolutions and motions were adopted in the Netherlands, Canada in November and EU Parliament on December 13th, during the Japanese Government to make an official apology, compensation, history education and etc. These actions demonstrate the rising criticism of the world against the Japanese government which has neither issued a formal apology, compensation to the damaged victims, full investigation of the system, nor prosecuted those responsible while the related articles are disappearing from school textbooks as if there never were such practices.

The citizens’ movements have been strengthened internationally to accelerate the settlement although the developments have never been reported in full by the Japanese media. We request that the Government, in addition to the promises of the 1993 Kono statement, thoroughly investigate the military “Comfort Women” system and exert its honest and sincere efforts to recover the dignity of victims.

As stated above, we hereby submit our statement in accordance with Article 99 of the Local Autonomy Law.

Tetsushi Koyama
Chairperson,Takarazuka City Council

To: Hon. Yohei Kono, Speaker of the Lower House, Hon. Satsuki Eda、President of the Upper House, Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo