Spotlight: World to Abe: Apologize!

As Shinzo Abe travels to the United States on Sunday, a global chorus is rising to a crescendo for the Japanese prime minister to apologize for his country's WWII atrocities.

During a meeting with Abe on Wednesday on the sidelines of an Asian-African summit in Jakarta, Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed that "the issue of history is a major matter of principle concerning the political basis of the China-Japan relations."

Xi urged the Japanese side to take seriously the concerns of its Asian neighbors and send out positive signals on the issue of history.

On Thursday, commenting on three Japanese cabinet ministers' visit to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the visit "embodies their wrong attitude towards history."

Only when Japan reflects on its history of aggression and stay away from militarism can China-Japan relations realize sound and stable development, Hong added.

South Korea has also repeatedly urged Abe to face up to history. In an interview published Friday in Brazilian newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo, President Park Geun-hye said "Japan should dispel concerns of its neighbors by demonstrating sincere actions on past history based on a correct recognition of history."

Even Japan's ally, the United States, has reiterated a call for Japan to approach its wartime history in a way that promotes "healing and reconciliation."

"We've continued to emphasize the importance of approaching historical legacy issues in a manner that promotes healing and reconciliation for all parties," said U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf. "We've been very clear about the importance of that."

Terms such as "heartfelt apology" and "colonial rule and aggression" were included in the statements issued by then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama in 1995 and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in 2005 to mark the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the end of WWII.

Murayama on Tuesday criticized Abe's statement that he will not repeat the wordings of "apology" and "aggression" in his planned address on the 70th anniversary.

Murayama noted in a speech that Abe does not want to recognize Japan's colonial rule and aggression in his deep mind. "That's the reason why he wants to refrain from repeating those wordings, as well as why people closely watch the tone of the statement," Japan's Asahi Shimbun quoted Murayama as saying.

The New York Times, in a recent editorial, pointed to Japan's failure to settle its wartime history.

The newspaper linked the success of Abe's upcoming visit partly to his efforts to "confront Japan's wartime history, including its decision to wage war, its brutal occupation of China and Korea, its atrocities and its enslavement of thousands of women forced to work as sex slaves or comfort women in wartime brothels."

"By now, that history should have been settled," the paper said. "That it is not settled is largely the fault of Mr. Abe and his right-wing political allies who keep questioning history and even trying to rewrite it, stoking regional tensions."

Abe and his government are uttering vague words and phrases about Japan's wartime past while they intend to pursue their goal of regaining the country's honor, said South Korean newspaper Korea Herald in an editorial on Saturday, warning that Japan's failure to squarely face history could be costly.

At the Asian-African Summit in Jakarta, Abe did not explicitly apologize for Japan's wartime atrocities. Both South Korea and China expressed regret.

While his speech at the joint meeting of the U.S. Congress is coming, Abe should not speak of the future relations with the U.S. without offering first a proper apology for its wartime crimes, said the South Korean newspaper.

As Abe prepares his speech for Washington, he should remember what German Chancellor Angela Merkel advised last month -- to face his country's past squarely, it reminded.

Meanwhile, a group of activists from China, the United States and South Korea demanded at a joint press conference Thursday in Washington that Abe apologize for his country's wartime sexual enslavement of women.

The activists, including one of the surviving victims, 87-year-old Lee Yong-soo from South Korea, plan to hold a large rally involving some 700 people in front of Congress next week to demand Abe apologize.

Lee Jung-sil, head of Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues, which organized the press conference, accused Abe of acting like an innocent onlooker, stressing that he should face up to history.

"Abe keeps lying even though a living witness of history is alive. I want to show him that there is a living witness of history. Please let me seat at the front when he delivers a congressional speech so as for him to see me," Lee, the surviving victim, was quoted by Yonhap as saying.

Kim Bok-dong, 89, one of the 53 surviving South Korean "comfort women," recalled her immeasurable pain at a press conference in Tokyo on Friday, and called on Abe to admit Japan's wartime wrongdoings, offer an official apology to its victims and take the responsibility.

"What we want is something very simple. We want an official apology, reparation. ... I also demand Japan speak the truth in front of the media. ... I want my dignity and honor back," said Kim.

"The responsibility of the country's administration falls on Abe now. ... The onus of responsibility lies squarely with him to recognize what Japan did in the past and to properly address the issue," she said.

Yoon Mee-hyang, representative of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, said the "comfort women" victims have faced injustice for decades and the issue has been rumbling on unresolved for decades.

"What the Japanese government needs to do now is to listen to the voices of the victims and implement our requests," Yoon said.

U.S. experts have also voiced hope that Abe would acknowledge the atrocities committed by Japan in WWII when he addresses Congress.

"I hope Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will remember and acknowledge that Japan, Imperial Japan, had started the war and was responsible for atrocities," said Jan Thompson, president of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor (ADBC) Memorial Society, which represents surviving U.S. prisoners of the Japanese.

Thompson told Xinhua that she hopes Abe will take the opportunity to address not only Americans, but other nationals such as Chinese, Filipinos and Koreans.

"No matter how horrible or painful a country's history is -- we must learn from it and not run from it," she said. "I truly hope that Abe will not give us a vague comment about World War II. ... Those who were responsible are dead, but denying the truth only gives them 'life' to distort and continue the hurt and anger."

Lester Tenney, who endured three hellish years as a Japanese prisoner during World War II, was quoted by the AP as saying: "If Mr. Abe comes here I would like him to say, `I bring with me an apology from the industrial giants that enslaved American POWs.' ... You can't have a high-ranking country today if you're not willing to face your past."

Harold Bergbower, 94, was a private with the 28th Bomb Squadron, U.S. Air Force, when he was captured on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao and sent eventually to Davao penal colony, according to the AP report.

"We could not have been treated any worse in prison camp," recalled Bergbower, who lives now near Phoenix, Arizona. He said that he has forgiven the people of Japan, but not the government, and that the past "needs to be told as it happened."

Darrell Stark, another U.S. veteran, who was captured during the war and forced to work hard for years at a copper mill in Japan, told the AP that "it really upsets me there are certain individuals who have completely ignored history."

"If he (Abe) really wants to do something great for his nation and maybe for the world, he should make an apology," said the 93-year-old. Endi