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SKYMUN VIII Chair Report Forum: Six-Party Talks Issue: Measures to Resolve Historical Conflict Regarding Victims of WWII while Preventing the Misuse of Funds by Government Officials Student Officer: Katie Yoo, Deputy Assistant President 1. Introduction Due to the Second World War (1939 to 1945), proper measures to resolve historical conflict regarding millions of victims around the world remain neglected for decades. For about 50 years, the WWII victims of forced labor and sex slaves have kept silent, fearing the social stigma that will lie upon them. Prior to 1945, Korea, spending over six years under the Japanese colony, is known to be one of the major victims of both. However, from the late 20th century, countries like Korea and China have been calling for a re-evaluation of compensation for victims who are still physically and mentally suffering from the consequences of war. Although Japan, along with the nations, tried to reach an agreeable point, most failed and did not meet the demands of the victims. This topic is especially pertinent to Six-Party Talks as Japan, the two Koreas, China are all directly affected and involved in this conflict. The delegates must craft a resolution that reaches a compromise that considers the opposing stances of each nation. As mentioned above, the main WWII victims relevant to the SPT agenda are sex slaves, including comfort women, and forced labor victims. Sex slaves are undoubtedly one of the major victims of WWII, especially because both Japan and South Korea have not reached a definitive conclusion on the topic. South Korea had nearly 200,000 Korean women and young girls recruited as sex slaves. They were deceived as being sent to help the Japanese army, then were brutally raped by the soldiers. According to survivors, 90 percent of comfort women did not survive in such conditions as they were raped 20~30 times and up to 40 times per day during the weekends. Even after Korea gained its independence in 1945, Japan did not reveal any signs of regret or apology. Against their own will, Koreans were sent to become sex slaves, and no actions were taken for the following 50 years since they were recognized as an embarrassment to the nation. Unfortunately, the comfort women incident was considered a shameful event, which prompted Korea not to bring up the issue for 50 years. As it was left silent for all those years, many victims died, leaving only 18~20 victims alive. In 1965, South Korea and Japan signed an agreement to normalize diplomatic relations between the two nations. However, as the victims started to call for compensations in the 21st century, the Korean government, in 1991, started to strongly advocate for comfort women, consistently requesting Japan for a sincere apology. In 1993, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yohei Kono, offered a sincere apology to the comfort women, strongly emphasizing that it was a wrong act. Not so long after, in 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied charges of Japan coercing comfort women against their will, frustrating many Koreans, including the victims. It contradicted the claims from 1993, which began campaigns and protests from the Koreans regarding advocating compensation for comfort women, such as the ‘Wednesday demonstration’. Later in 2015, President Park and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came together to finalize the issue of comfort women. Japan paid $8.3 million to Korea, and both agreed not to bring this matter again once this agreement is signed; however, many Koreans and the victims claimed that Japan did not issue an official apology and continued to protest for a sincere apology from Japan. Although President Park failed to address the issue, the current president, President Moon, has been putting efforts to pressure the Japanese government to have them pay compensation for the victims. Other countries such as China have also been involved in the comfort women issue as many Chinese women were also sex slaves during WWII. However, China did not pressurize much of the Japanese government since Japan was their major trading partner. DPRK also could not receive proper compensation due to its uncooperative behavior towards the issue at hand. Many Koreans, along with Chinese workers, were sent to forced labor in Japan regarding the forced labor. The Korean victims have fought for their rights and compensation; however, similar to the comfort women cases, the Japanese court refused to pay compensation to the victims because they claimed they have already done it in the 1965 treaty. Although certain Japanese companies did show a sign of sincere apology, the majority of them remained still, which officially began the trade war between Japan and Korea. Korean citizens began to boycott all Japanese products, which Japan responded with restrictions on export controls on electronic raw materials on July 1st of 2019. This continued as South Korea filed a complaint against Japan to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Due to the COVID pandemic, the trade war is worsening, and communication among nations has been challenging. What is worse, previous agreements made between nations that involve a large amount of monetary funds have been misused in many cases. For example, Asian Women Fund (AWF), an agreement created by Japan, had significant flaws within its contributed funds. Japan claimed it contributed 4.8 billion yen to the AWF to implement atonement projects to support comfort women in the Philippines, Korea, and Taiwan until 2002. However, the actual financial support provided to the victims was 765 million yen, meaning that 3.6 billion yen was used for other purposes regarding AWF. This involves massive monetary funds, which must be looked over to solve the conflict accurately. As such, there were previous attempts to mitigate the political tensions through initiating diplomatic talks, but none proved to be helpful. 2. Definition of Key Terms WWII World War II was a massive war that occured between Nazi Germany and other European powers such as Briain and France. It lasted from 1939 to 1945, which Germany formed alliances with Italy and Japan, combating the powers of Britain, France, USSR, and the US. The constant bombing and destruction of nations, prompted all of them to develop fatal technologies that will sabotage their enemies. WWII ended with both the surrender of Germany, Italy and Japan, the Axis power, and the European countries as well, after the sucidie of Adolf Hitler. War Crime War crime consists of a variety of crimes that occur within the violation of international humanitarian law regarding an armed conflict. Some significant examples are forced labour, sexual assault, taking of hostages, and so on. Comfort Women Comfort women, otherwise known as sex slaves, consist of women and young girls who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Army. The Japanese authorities considered such acts as a factor to create a stable and strong Japanese Army by setting ‘comfort stations.’ For the soldiers, comfort stations, were meant for satisfying their sexual desires, by constantly raping women and girls against their will. Unfortunately, the comfort women were mostly deceived, as they were told, from the beginning, that they would be working for the Japanese military. Forced Labour Forced labour is known as the forced work or service that people must perform involuntarily. More exactly, they are “coerced to work through the use of violence or intimidation, or by more subtle means such as manipulated debt, retention of identity papers or threats of denunciation to immigration authorities” (ILO). Although forced labour was more significant in China, both Koreans and Chinese faced issues regarding receiving proper compensation within forced labour victims existing in both nations. Japan continuously declines the request for compensations regarding forced labour; therefore, as of now, no proper compensations were received from forced labour. Trade War The trade war is a retaliation between nations constantly imposing tariffs and restricting one another's international trade. Although a trade war usually occurs between two nations, it could have side effects on other countries that are not necessarily part of the war. A trade war only limits a nation from globalism and damages both consumers and the country's businesses. It's fairly similar to sanctions, which negatively affects countries' relations, but, most importantly, the trading process. 3. Timeline of Key Events 29 August 1910-15 August 1945 - Japanese Colonization of Korea From august 29th of 1910, Korea was annexed by the Japanese Empire until the mid 1945. It was left as a traumatic event for the Koreans since all their cultural inputs such as language, religion, and even their nationalities were being replaced by Japan's forceful cultural assimilation. Although many Koreans tried to fight for the nation’s independence, most were brutally killed by the Japanese soldiers and nearly 725,000 Korean workers were sent to work in Japan or other facilities. During this period of time, Korean women and young girls were deceived of being sent to work for the Japanese military, then were raped by the soldiers. This sense of brutality continued until the USSR and the US occupied the Korean peninsula at the end of WWII. 22 June 1965 - Japan-Korea Treaty on Basic Relations The ‘Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea’ was officially signed on 22nd of June in 1965, which had the purpose of normalizing diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea. Most of the agreement was held concerning economic cooperation, such as Japan providing South Korea with 300 million USD for war compensations, $200 million “in loans together with $300 million in loans for private trust.” However, within the issues regarding property, rights, and interests, South Korea along with the United Nations claimed that Comfort Women and Forced Labor take major part with human rights; however, the Japanese government continued to claim that the money within the money provided from them already included every compensation including the comfort women issue and forced labor.
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