NGO, Status Roster
His Excellency Shinzo ABE
Prime Minister of Japan
The Hague, 10 June 2014
Petition: 235
Subject: Review of the Kono apology.
Excellency,
In our previous petition 234 we stated that the Kono Statement and the Murayama Statement are only limited apologies as they deny Japan's full liability for the consequences of the Imperial Army's violations of human tights. We presented the points which should at least be included in the lasting apology by Japan on behalf of its people. The San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951 did not discharge Japan from its moral responsibilty. What happened in the past has a bearing on Japan's future.
Prime Minister,
The announcement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga that a "verifying team" is to study how the Kono Statement was established and on which facts it was based makes the remarks in our petition 234 even more valid. Although the Chief Cabinet Secretary remarked that the Kono Statement will not be revised during your administration, it begs the question what will happen if the review concludes differently to the official apology. This is why we request the Japanese government in a gesture of penance to promise in the apology that it will never happen again. Indeed a commitment which will be lasting into the future. President Barak Obama's damning remarks in Seoul following his visit to Tokyo about Japan's institutionalized forced recruitment into prostitution during World War Two as a "terrible, egregious violation of human rights" should be taken into account by the "verifying team". As should Japan's general unwillingness to accept the world's disapproval of Japan's World War Two past. We recommend you instruct your verifying team to involve surving victims from the Netherlands East Indies (now called Indonesia) in its review.
Prime Minister,
The issues which the Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts presented in her petitions are issues which will not go away. It is not a legal matter but requires an Honorable solution in accepting the moral obligation stemming from the behavior of the Imperial Army during World War Two. We are confident that if you put the question to the Japanese people, they will admire your courage and agree to resolve this painful memory of World War Two. And this will allow your country to move far more quickly into the future.
We require a personal acknowledgement of the receipt of this petition.
On behalf of the Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts,
J.F. van Wagtendonk
President
================================================
Its sad that this matter is taking so long to get solved. Many of the women who were abused by the Japanese Imperial Army have passed away. They lived their lives with the most unbearable memories they had to undergo at the hands of their captures. The emotional pain they had to live with for the rest of their lives is not to describe. Many a night I have laid in my bed listening to my mothers cries, as she relived in her dreams the Japanese officers using her over and over. My mother and I, her sister and two children were taken to our first camp in Moentilan,on the island of Java, where we each received a number. My mother's was 546, and mine was 547. We were no human beings anymore, we belonged to the Emperor of Japan.Yes we survived the horrors of the camps.... My mother passed away in 2003 and her sister in 1995. It doesn't matter for them anymore, but for us their children it will matter , and after we have gone our children will fight for an apology from Japan for the behavior of the Imperial Army, and we will keep seeking for a sincere apology which hopefully cure the emotional pain. As Barak Obama said it is a terrible egregious violation of human rights.
My mother was a very happy woman. Happily married to the love of her life. In 1941 they were blessed with a daughter, which is me. Oh how proud they were.How everything changed in 1942 when the Japanese invaded the Dutch East Indies.Their lives would never be the same.My father died a horrible death at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army building the infamous Burma railroad at the young age of twenty six. My mother and her sister with their children spending three and a half year behind barbwire and high fences.Almost starved to death and being subjects of daily beatings.
Many of to- days people, specially the younger generation, are not aware of the ultimate sacrifice they made to stand up against evil!! They were truly the greatest generation of heroes. And that's why we should stand up for their rights and fight for Japan's unwillingness to accept their World War Two past,and the evil their Japanese Imperial Army inflicted.
 |
| Happy times, my mother in the middle, my father on the right. |
 | |
| Me in front of our house, with the boys from the neighborhood. |
 |
| Only 10 years old. |
 | |
| Boys camps. |
LEST WE FORGET!
