Saturday, March 24, 2007
Japan ex-PM Nakasone denies setting up WW2 brothel http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\03\24\story_24-3-2007_pg4_11
TOKYO: Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone on Friday denied he had set up a wartime military brothel, but said Japan should apologise for the suffering of women who served as sex slaves for its soldiers. Asked about a 1978 memoir in which he wrote that he had set up a "comfort station", as the brothels were known, when he was an Imperial Navy officer, Nakasone said the facility had been for "rest and recreation" for drafted workers. "I was not involved in anything like setting up a 'comfort station'," he told a news conference during which he spoke on a wide range of diplomatic and political matters. Nakasone wrote in his memoir that he had set up the station for the drafted workers, some of whom had started assaulting local women and indulging in gambling, when he was their unit leader in the Philippines and Borneo. Nakasone, 88, a conservative who served as prime minister from 1982 to 1987, said the "comfort women" saga was a tragedy for which Japan should apologise. "The 'comfort women' question was a tragedy and even though it was during the war, the attitude taken by the military was deplorable and we express sympathy and feel remorse for those women involved," he said. "Facts are facts, and we should frankly recognise the facts and if there were human rights violations, we should not hesitate as politicians to apologise," he added. Abe's comments denying official involvement in kidnapping women, mostly Asian, to work in the brothels have angered Seoul and risk straining ties with Washington, where US Congressman Michael Honda has introduced a resolution calling for Japan to make an unambiguous apology for the sex slaves' suffering. reuters
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