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DPRK-Japan Inter-Governmental Talks Proposed

KCNA

    Pyongyang, November 11 (KCNA) -- The DPRK government proposed Japan to hold inter-governmental talks as early as possible to discuss the issue of compensation to the Korean victims of human rights abuses who have been investigated and confirmed so far from the viewpoint that it is rather a human rights issue than a political issue for Japan to apologize and compensate for the human losses caused by Japan to the Korean people. Japan should approach the issue of settling this, bearing in mind that it is the demand of the times and humankind for it to accept the DPRK's proposal.
    A spokesman for the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs said this in a statement issued on November 11 as regards the recent disclosure of the list of at least 420,000 victims of forced drafting during the Japanese imperialists' military occupation of Korea.
    The statement said:
    The Korean people are becoming increasingly assertive that the normalization of the DPRK-Japan relations can never take place unless Japan redeems the most hideous human rights abuses committed against them.
    This is the reflection of the unshakable will of the Korean people to force Japan to pay the blood shed by them to the last and an eruption of their pent-up grudge against Japan that committed the never-to-be-condoned crimes in the past.
    After occupying Korea by force of arms the Japanese imperialists enforced an unprecedented enslavement policy and the policy of obliterating the Korean nation. They killed at least one million innocent Koreans and forcibly drafted and abducted at least 8.4 million young and middle-aged Koreans to drive them as slaves and use them as bullet shields. On top of this, they forced 200,000 Korean women into sexual slavery for the imperial Japanese army.
    All this is well known to the world.
    They did not allow the Koreans to use their spoken and written languages and even deprived them of their Korean names. As if it were enough with this, they did not hesitate to use Koreans as guinea pigs.
    All these crimes committed by Japan are war crimes and the most hideous human rights abuses that deserve punishment regardless of the domestic law at that time or the statute of limitations.
    The international human rights fora should take a proper settlement of this issue as a basis for settling human rights issues.
    It is preposterous to talk about human rights or international law without its settlement.
    The victims are urging the Japanese authorities to carry out comprehensive investigation into those shuddering crimes, punish war criminals and apologize and compensate the victims and their bereaved families as a separate issue.
    No one can deny or suppress this claim as it fully conforms with the universal justice of human rights and principles of international law.
    Such being hard facts, the present Japanese authorities refuse even to admit those crimes against humanity, asserting that there is neither reason to compensate for them in the light of the existing law nor evidence proving the forcible drafting.
    They even went to the lengths of justifying and embellishing those biggest crimes against humanity in disregard of advices of the UN human rights meetings and resolutions.
    This is an intolerable insult to the victims who met deaths due to unspeakable mental and physical pain with grudge against Japan and their bereaved families and survivors and a mockery of the dignity of the entire Korean nation.
    The DPRK government strongly urges Japan to apologize and compensate all victims of hideous human rights abuses committed during its occupation and rule over Korea including suppression and massacre of Koreans due to their movement for independence and political and other reasons, forcible drafting, sexual slavery, tests on living bodies, forcible migration and deportation and forced change of Korean names into Japanese and their bereaved families. The normalization of the DPRK-Japan relations can never take place unless Japan compensates for the above-said human rights abuses.