Opinion

Rape Now, Pay Later?

By DOUGLAS LUMMIS

Regular readers of this column will remember that my last two columns were about the sex slave question. The first was based on quotations from the United Nations report on the matter. The second was quotations from a letter from Hyogo Prefectural Assemblyman Shigeo Ohmae.

I sent in both of these columns from abroad. When I returned recently and saw the articles in print for the first time, I learned that the titles had been changed. The original title of the first, "Denying the unbearable," was changed to "Japanese can't deny an unbearable history." This suggests (though it does not directly say) that I think Japanese history is more unbearable than the histories of other countries, which I don't. It also suggests that I think the problem of rape in the military is peculiarly Japanese, which I don't (see my column of Jan. 3, 10, 1997).

The original title of the second, "Denying the unbearable, part 2," was changed to "Critical response." Careful readers will understand why I regret the alteration.

Now I have a letter from Sayoko Yano of Nerima-ku, Tokyo, responding to Assemblyman Ohmae's letter. "I was too angry to sleep last night," she writes. She is especially angry at his idea that the "comfort women" should not complain, because they were paid. She writes, Assemblyman Ohmae seems to think that a man may rape women if he pays them later.

Assemblyman Ohmae, of course, wants to say that as they were paid, it wasn't rape. But there are deep problems with this idea. There is the testimony of the women that most were not paid. There is the testimony that many were abducted. There is the fact that many were children.

And there is the fact that most of the survivors are now refusing the money offered them by the Asian Women's Fund. This is not the behavior of prostitutes. If these women are, as Assemblyman Ohmae implies, opportunists making a big noise to get money, how do you explain their refusal to take the money offered them?

The women have demanded official state compensation. They are offered "consolation money" from a private fund. This they refuse. Many people can't understand why. Suppose you were convicted of a crime and fined. You refuse to pay the fine and offer a donation instead. But the government did not fine you because it needed money; the fine was a penalty. In paying it, you acknowledge, and seek atonement for, your guilt. In offering a donation instead, you are offering a bribe.

Official state compensation is like a fine. It would acknowledge guilt on the part of the government and redeem the reputations of the victims. Simply offering "money" instead is an insult and allows cynics to say, "See, they only wanted `money' after all."

(This is not meant as a criticism of those women who, pressed by need, have accepted money from the Asian Women's Fund. It is only an attempt to understand the position of those who haven't.)

Shukan ST: April 25, 1997

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