Monthly Demonstration in The Hague: Petition 224

 FOUNDATION OF JAPANESE HONORARY DEBTS

                    NGO,STATUS ROSTER

His Excellency Sinzo ABE
Prime Minister of Japan


The Hague, 9 July 2013.
Petition: 224
Subject: Self reflection and compassion.


Excellency,


Self reflection and compassion are the main elements in coping with the past and looking forward to the future. The role of politicians as elected representatives in this process is essential. The Dutch victims of the brutal and cruel occupation of Dutch East Indies expect that Japan accept the moral obligations stemming from the Japanese Military misconduct. We are amazed that present Japanese politicians do not understand that they have this obligation and allow Japanese diplomatic officials to tell other diplomats in Geneva "to shut up". Other officials are allowed to make outrageous statements about the necessity of Comfort Women for the Japanese soldiers without strong condemnation by you. And then the latest scandal of funds set aside to help earthquake, tsunami and nuclear victims, to which Dutch nationals contributed substantially. Some of these contributions, appear to be allocated to Japanese power companies. Your order to re-examine the spending of the disater budget demonstrate that you take self reflection and compassion seriously.

Prime Minister,

Mayor Toru Hashimoto's approval of the institutionalization by the Japanese Military of sexual slavery, known as Comfort Women, is outrageous. His remarks that enforced prostitution of young girls and women was necessary for the Japanese Military at war, brought back the stories the Dutch girls and women in the Japanese concentration camps had to endure. The true story is that Japanese officers recruited from these camps young underage girls and women for their own pleasure. The military tribunal Semarang sexual slavery case made that very clear! Senior Japanese officers visited in their desire to satisfy the hospital concentration camp Solo and ordered the young girls and women to line up.The Dutch camp leader and the Dutch medical doctor, both women, argued that they were not fit for the line up.The officers became angry and hit and kicked the doctor so badly that she died several days later. It was for the courageous behavior of the doctor and the camp leader that these girls and women were saved from sexual slavery. The officers never returned, apparently they were satisfied elsewhere. The full story will be published in our News Magazine on the occasion of 14th August Comfort Women's Memorial Day.

Prime Minister,

In this petition we suggest that you and the Japanese people you represent, show self reflection and compassion with the past to look forward to the future with dignity. Stick to the Kona Statement of August 4, 1993 apologizing for immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds inflicted on thousands of Comfort Women, mostly Korean but also from China, the Philippines, Indonesia and the Netherlands. Acknowledge the moral obligations stemming from the military occupation of Dutch East Indies and in particular the way the Dutch were maltreated. This would reflect on you as Prime Minister of Japan and on your personal dignity!

On behalf of the Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts,

J.F. van Wagtendonk
President

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Listen attentively, and remember that true tales are mend to be transmitted----- to keep them to oneself is to betray them.

Anonymous.



We dealt with an enemy who did not believe in the Geneva Convention.
Soldiers do rape, that happens every day all over the world. But rarely do nations institutionalize rape which is what Japan did in World War 2 and during their colonial days. To deny this or justify it is insane. It would be like the US saying that the fire bombings of Tokyo did not happen, that Japanese people set the fires themselves. Crazy talk! Japan is embarrassing themselves by denying reality.

Between 1932 and the end of the Second World War, the Japanese Government and the Japanese Imperial Army forced over 200.000 women and girls into sexual slavery in rape centers throughout Asia. These rape centers have often been referred to in objectionably euphemistic terms as "Comfort Stations".
Its now clear that both the Japanese Government and military were directly involved in the establisment of rape centers throughout Asia during World War 2.
The women who were enslaved by the Japanese military in these centers.... many of whom were between the ages of 11 and 20 years old...... were housed in locations throughout Japanese controlled Asia, where they were forcibly raped multiple times on a daily basis and subjected to severe physical abuse and exposed to sexually transmitted diseases.
The women, many of whom were still children at the time, were in fact enslaved in rape centers either directly by the Japanese military or with the full knowledge and support of the Japanese military.


***** The resolution was endorsed by a majority in favor on August 27 at the 51 st session of the "UN Sub-Commision on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights held in Geneva from August 2 to 27.
This report from the UN Commission of Human Rights 1998.
It's important to recognize the need to address past, unremedied human rights, humanitarian law and international criminal law violations involving sexual slavery and sexual violence****


My mother and her sister were used by these Japanese military, while we were imprisoned in Moentilan. My mother had to swear to her older sister never to talk about it. We have to keep this to our selves. But my mother told her younger sister when they returned back in the Netherlands. I am glad she did, because I start to understand more and more what I had seen during that time, as a toddler. Things I had seen I would otherwise never been able to understand.Things, which I saw my mother trying to cope with during the rest of her life.The nightmares and the hatred towards Japanese. The disappointment with the Queen, when the emperor Hirohito came to the Netherlands in 1971 to visit. How terrible sad she was. It's no wonder that my step-sister and brother and I were not interested when Prins Willem became King. Some people did not understand us, but that's what it is. I suppose that's how we were brought up. What my mother and her sister felt was taking over our lives as well. My mother, her sister and numerous people from the Dutch East Indies felt so utterly disappointed and betrayed.Never were they able to tell what they had endured in those horrible Japanese camps. The Dutch people were to occupied with their own stories about World War 2, and what the Nazis had done to human beings. After all my mother and her sister had been in paradise, where it was all sunshine and food growing along side the road on trees.My mother and her sister are in a better world today. They passed away taking their stories with them.
May they rest in peace!

My mother on the right with her sister on the left.

Happy times, three years before the Japanese invaded the Dutch East Indies.Two very happy women, who's lives would be shattered.