SADO, Japan — Japan will go forward with a memorial ceremony on Sunday close to the Sado Island Gold Mines, regardless of South Korea’s last-minute boycott of the occasion that highlighted tensions between the neighbors over the problem of Korean compelled laborers on the web site earlier than and through World Battle II.
South Korea’s absence at Sunday’s memorial, to which Seoul authorities officers and Korean victims’ households have been invited, is a serious setback within the quickly enhancing ties between the 2 nations, which since final yr have put aside their historic disputes to prioritize U.S.-led safety cooperation.
The Sado mines have been listed in July as a UNESCO World Heritage web site after Japan moved previous years of disputes with South Korea and reluctantly acknowledged the mines’ darkish historical past, promising to carry an annual memorial service for all victims, together with lots of of Koreans who have been mobilized to work within the mines.
On Saturday, South Korea introduced it will not attend the occasion, saying it was not possible to settle unspecified disagreements between the 2 governments in time.
Masashi Mizobuchi, an assistant press secretary in Japan’s International Ministry, stated Japan has been in communication with Seoul and referred to as the South Korean determination “disappointing.”
The ceremony shall be held as deliberate later Sunday at a facility close to the mines.
The Sixteenth-century mines on the island of Sado, off Japan’s north-central coast, operated for almost 400 years earlier than closing in 1989 and have been as soon as the world’s largest gold producer.
Historians say about 1,500 Koreans have been mobilized to Sado as a part of Japan’s use of lots of of hundreds of Korean laborers, together with these forcibly introduced from the Korean Peninsula, at Japanese mines and factories to make up for labor shortages as a result of most working-age Japanese males had been despatched to battlefronts throughout Asia and the Pacific.
Japan’s authorities has maintained that each one wartime compensation points between the 2 nations have been resolved underneath a 1965 normalization treaty.
South Korea had lengthy opposed the itemizing of the location as World Heritage on the grounds that the Korean compelled laborers, regardless of their key function within the wartime mine manufacturing, have been lacking from the exhibition. Seoul’s backing for Sado got here as South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol prioritized enhancing relations with Japan.
The Japanese authorities stated Sunday’s ceremony was to pay tribute to “all employees” who died on the mines, however wouldn’t spell out inclusion of Korean laborers — a part of what critics name a persistent coverage of whitewashing Japan’s historical past of sexual and labor exploitation earlier than and throughout the warfare.
Preparation for the occasion by native organizers remained unclear till the final minute, which was seen as an indication of Japan’s reluctance to face its wartime brutality.
Japan’s authorities stated on Friday that Akiko Ikuina — a parliamentary vice minister who reportedly visited Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine in August 2022, weeks after she was elected as a lawmaker — would attend the ceremony. Japan’s neighbors view Yasukuni, which commemorates 2.5 million warfare lifeless together with warfare criminals, as an emblem of Japan’s previous militarism.
Ikuina belonged to a Japanese ruling celebration faction of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who led the whitewashing of Japan’s wartime atrocities within the 2010s throughout his management.
As an illustration, Japan says the phrases “intercourse slavery” and “compelled labor” are inaccurate and insists on the usage of extremely euphemistic phrases akin to “consolation ladies” and “civilian employees” as an alternative.
South Korean International Minister Cho Tae-yul stated Saturday that Ikuina’s Yasukuni go to was a difficulty of competition between the nations’ diplomats.
“That subject and numerous different disagreements between diplomatic officers stay unresolved, and with only some hours remaining till the occasion, we concluded that there wasn’t ample time to resolve these variations,” Cho stated in an interview with MBN tv.
Some South Koreans had criticized Yoon’s authorities for supporting the occasion with out securing a transparent Japanese dedication to focus on the plight of Korean laborers. There have been additionally complaints over South Korea agreeing to pay for the journey bills of Korean victims’ relations to Sado.
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Kim reported from Seoul, South Korea.
