Nanjing, 13 December 1937, and Seoul, 14 December 2011

13 December 1937 in Nanjing, China, and 14 December 2011 in Seoul, South Korea, are both unforgettable days in Japan's relations with Asia.
The Japanese army occupied Nanjing, China's capital at the time, on this day and immediately started a reign of terror. Even the Judgement by Justice Radha Vinod Pal, who had not been nominated by the newly-independent India, who denied the principle of war crime, and who declared all the defendants at the Tokyo Military Tribunal not guilty, talks of the weeks of disaster in the city. I would like to postpone the discussion of Nanjing till I have visited it, however, and move on to Seoul.
During the series of wars that Japan fought for half a century, the Japanese army kidnapped a large number of women from different places in Asia and Pacific, estimated to be around 200,000, attached them to different units, and made them 'comfort women'. The number of the South Koreans is said to be the largest among them.
On Wednesday 8 January 1992, some former South Korean 'comfort women' held a meeting in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul to protest against the Japanese Government's neglect of their duty to apologize and compensate to them. This was the beginning. Since that time onward, they and their supporters, not only South Korean, have been holding a Wednesday protest meeting each and every week at the same place for twenty years. It was 1000th on 14 December 2011. It was reported that a former South Korean Prime Minister addressed the meeting.
Among the 234 women who have identified themselves as former 'comfort women' in these two decades, only 63 are remaining.
Against this background, the Constitutional Court of South Korea declared in August 2011 that it was unconstitutional on the part of the Government not to negotiate with its Japanese counterpart on the claims of the 'comfort women'.
What is the attitude of the Japanese Government? They invariably refer to an article in the Japan South Korea Treaties of 1965, which says that all the claims by the South Koreans are hereby completely and finally solved. They seldom want to recall that the same Treaties also say that if there is a difference in the interpretation of them it will be dealt with diplomatically, and if it does not lead to a solution an arbitration committee will be formed whose decision will be binding on both parties.
It was on a sunny and pleasant morning that I went to observe one such Wednesday meeting at Seoul some years ago. There were ten such women, surrounded by many more supporters. They were holding placards, demanding apologies and reparations from the Japanese Government. The meeting was over in about an hour. Then quite unexpectedly I had the pleasure of being invited to a lunch with the women and the supporters.