House wants Japan apology / ‘Comfort women’ resolution urges government to say it’s sorry

2007-07-31 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- The House passed a resolution Monday calling on Japan to finally formally apologize to tens of thousands of "comfort women" forced into World War II sex slavery, despite vigorous lobbying by the Japanese government.

The measure sponsored by Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose, which culminated years of lobbying by the surviving women from several Asian and European countries and their supporters, passed by voice vote after about a half hour of debate in which no one spoke in opposition.

To people in the United States, the issue is just one of many obscure foreign matters on which Congress weighs in with nonbinding resolutions.

But in Japan, Honda's demand for an apology 62 years after Japan's surrender has been headline news for months. It has become one of many troubles dogging Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose ruling Liberal Democratic Party was routed Sunday in elections for parliament's upper house.

Nationalist forces in Japan object to a formal apology, and to what they see as U.S. meddling in the affairs of Japan, one of Washington's closest and most powerful allies.

The issue of the comfort women, who were forced into prostitution by Japan's army, has also prompted ongoing anger at Japan in such countries as China, South Korea and the Philippines, home to many of the women.

"Today the House will make history," Honda said on the House floor. "We must teach future generations that we cannot allow this to continue to happen.

"I have always believed that reconciliation is the first step in the healing process."

Honda spent his early childhood with his parents in an internment camp in Colorado after President Franklin Roosevelt ordered all Japanese Americans rounded up after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Honda pointed to the decision by Congress and President Ronald Reagan to apologize to the World War II internees as an example Japan should emulate.

But the Japanese government, which hired lobbying firms to oppose the measure, hardly seems in a conciliatory mood.

Two weeks ago, the Washington Post reported that Japanese Ambassador Ryozo Kato had sent a strongly worded private letter to House leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, warning that the resolution could have a sharply negative effect on U.S.-Japan relations.

Kato warned that passage "will almost certainly have lasting and harmful effects on the deep friendship, close trust and wide-ranging cooperation our two nations now enjoy."

Early this year, Abe seemed to back away from earlier words of apology from ministers in previous Japanese Cabinets, fueling demands for a formal apology to the some 200,000 women who were involved.

When Abe visited Washington in April, he was asked about the issue and said, "As a person and prime minister, I have heartfelt sympathies with the difficulty, bitterness and suffering incurred by comfort women and feel sorry for such situations."

Bush said he accepted Abe's words, offered as an individual but not on behalf of Japan's government, as an apology.

While Honda scored a victory with his latest resolution, his earlier effort to allow U.S. servicemen who were forced into slave labor in Japan during the war to sue for damages hasn't gotten anywhere in Congress. The measure, co-sponsored by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach (Orange County) is vigorously opposed by the Bush administration, which said it would violate the 1951 peace treaty with Japan that bars such lawsuits.

Honda said he doesn't think his resolution will harm U.S.-Japan relations. "Our friendship would be stronger, our admiration for the Japanese government would be stronger if they saw fit to come forward" and formally apologize, he said.

He also said he would like to see Japanese school textbooks revised to deal frankly with the comfort women and other World War II issues.