The Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo)

Monday, December 4, 2000

Mock court to rule on WWII sex slave system

Ishida ; Yomiuri

An international tribunal to rule on whether the "comfort women" system, in which Asian women were forced into prostitution by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, constitutes a war crime is to be held in Tokyo from Dec. 8 to 12.

However, the final decision of the tribunal, which has been organized by nongovernmental organizations, will not be legally binding. According to experts, the formation of the tribunal is in line with a recent trend of forming panels, such as an international tribunal convened in the former Yugoslavia in 1993, to hear wartime sex-crime cases.

Although the tribunal's ruling will not be legally binding, it could help pave the way for the ratification of a treaty adopted in 1998 to establish the International Criminal Court (ICC), a legal institution that would have jurisdiction to rule on such cases, the experts said. The tribunal, titled "Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery," will be conducted in the same way as a criminal court case; with legal experts acting as judges to hear evidence pertaining to the alleged crime committed by the wartime Japanese government.

Prosecutors also will attempt to implicate about 30 former high-ranking Japanese military officials, including Emperor Showa.

Violence Against Women in War-Network, Japan (VAWW-NET Japan), a Tokyo-based NGO, originally proposed the idea for the tribunal, which now is supported by women's groups in six Asian countries that were subjected to Japanese military rule in World War II.

"The tribunal, which is the result of a women's initiative, asks that the international community accept the judges' rulings," VAWW-NET Japan representative Yayori Matsui said. "We also hope that our effort will encourage each country involved to take legal action to resolve the issue."

The tribunal will be attended by a total of 66 former comfort women now living in China, East Timor, Indonesia, the Netherlands, North Korea, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan, some of who plan to take the witness stand. Two legal experts, one each from the United States and Australia, will act as chief prosecutors at the tribunal, while prosecutors from each of the Asian countries of the victims will submit indictments. Other legal experts will defend the accused.

The final ruling on the issue will be made on Dec. 12 by six world-renowned egal experts. The tribunal's secretariat estimates that more than 1,000 people from Japan and overseas will attend the tribunal hearings.

"In the 1946-48 Tokyo International Tribunal, sex-crime cases were hardly heard," said Kazuko Kawaguchi, a lawyer and member of the tribunal's executive committee.

"However, we view the comfort women system as systematic sexual slavery. The Rome Treaty adopted in 1998 to establish the ICC states that acts of sexual violence carried out during wartime constitute 'crimes against

humanity.'"

The sexual slavery tribunal is modeled on the International War Crimes Tribunal, a people's tribunal organized by Irish peace activist Bertrand Russell to protest U.S. policies in Vietnam. With the help of philosopher Jean Paul Sartre and others, Russell convened the tribunal to draw attention to alleged U.S. atrocities in the Vietnam War, helping to strengthen the movement to halt the war.

The panel of six "judges"--three men and three women from five continents--charged with giving the final ruling at the Tokyo tribunal will include Gabrielle McDonald, a U.S. citizen and the former president of the Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal held in 1993.

The other judges are Carmen Argibay from Argentina, president of the International Association of Women Judges; Christine Chinkin, a professor of gender and international law at London University; P.N. Bhagwati, vice chairman of the U.N. Human Rights Committee and former chief justice of India's Supreme Court; Vitit Muntarbhorn, who hails from Thailand and is the former U.N. Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography; and Willy Mutunga, chairman of the Kenyan Commission on Human Rights.

Since the early 1990s, Asian women living in Asian countries and the Netherlands have begun to talk about their experiences as comfort women during World War II. Some of the women have asked the Japanese government to compensate them and punish those responsible.

According to VAWW-NET Japan, so far a total of about 600 women in Asian countries and the Netherlands have claimed that they were kept as sex slaves by the Imperial Japanese Army in the war.

Eight lawsuits have been filed by such women at the district and high court levels in Japan. However, most of the women's claims have been rejected and the Japanese government has failed to take responsibility.

"It is an urgent problem now that those who have lodged claims are aging," VAWW-NET Japan representative Matsui said. Of about 180 South Korean women who claimed they were kept as comfort women, more than 50 have died.

In other countries, the situation is no different. Of 43 North Korean women who made public declarations of their wartime experiences, 21 have died. In the Philippines, the plaintiff in that country's first lawsuit on the issue filed in 1993 also has died.

"The tribunal is designed to serve as a response by Japanese women to the victims (of the army's comfort women system) who have passed away, while also posing the question: 'Why have the perpetrators gone unpunished?'" Matsui said.

As a related event, a public hearing will be held on Dec. 11 during which female victims of wartime sexual violence from 12 war-torn countries, including East Timor, Afganistan and Kosovo, will speak about their experiences.