Every secondary schoolchild to visit World War One battlefields for centenary

I have had little opportunity to update the blog this week, however I will make amends for it over this weekend and upload a few posts. Until then here is an article that may interest you...

Killing fields: troops go over the top in the Battle of the Somme, when 19,240 men died on the first day

Joe Murphy

11 October 2012

(source:http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/every-secondary-schoolchild-to-visit-world-war-one-battlefields-for-centenary-8207418.html)

Children from every secondary school will visit First World War battlefields under plans to make the centenary in 2014 a national event equivalent to the Diamond Jubilee.

The Prime Minister set out the plans in a speech at the Imperial War Museum, pledging that £50 million worth of commemorations will keep alive the memory of the sacrifices made by nearly a million British war dead.

“Our duty with these commemorations is clear,” he said. “To honour those who served.  To remember those who died. And to ensure that the lessons learnt live with us for ever.”

Proposals for a bank holiday and for flags across Britain to be flown at half mast are to be considered by a panel of experts and former military leaders.

Some 16 million military personnel and civilians died in the conflict from July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1918.

Mr Cameron said his grandfather, uncle and great uncle all fought in the trenches. “Our ambition is a truly national commemoration ... from our schools and workplaces, to our town halls and local communities,” he said.

“A commemoration that, like the Diamond Jubilee celebrations this year, says something about who are as a people. Remembrance must be the hallmark of our commemorations.” The education programme, costing £5 million, will encourage every child to research the fallen, while smaller groups will visit the battlefields and cemeteries of northern France. Another £5 million will revamp London’s Imperial War Museum.

A poll by think tank British Future found 69 per cent of people believe the milestone will be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to mark the nation’s shared history. It showed the public wanted to mark Remembrance Sunday 2014, the centenary of the start of the war, as a national day. British Future is calling for shops to be closed, sports moved to other days and a longer period of silence than the traditional one minute.

Sunder Katwala, director of the think tank, said: “The centenary of the Great War should be the next great national moment bringing us together, as the Jubilee and Olympics did this year.”

Commemorations must remember the living as well as the dead

Commentary: Robert Fox, Defence Correspondent

THE Great War is part of our modern memory. That is why plans for commemorating the centenary of the First World War of 1914-1918 are announced today by the Prime Minister. We will be sharing events with allies and foes from the two global and all subsequent wars.

The notion of how the war shaped the way we think and speak in this country was explained in a brilliant book, The Great War and Modern Memory, by Paul Fussell, an American scholar, who was wounded in the Ardennes in the Second World War.

He shows how the very poetryand language of the Great War lives with us — in expressions such as “over the top”, “back to the trenches”, “salient” and “counter-offensive”.

The experience of the offensives along the Somme and the Ypres salient is still part of the national subconscious, for Commonwealth troops as well as British Tommies. It changed almost everything.

On  July 1, 1916, the first day of the great Somme offensive, a total of 57,740 allied troops were casualties; 19,240 of those died. At Beaumont Hamel 733 men of the Newfoundland Regiment were killed and injured in the space of a couple of hours — only 68 came back. Many of those were civilian-soldiers of Kitchener’s Army. No wonder many think July 1 should be national veterans’ day. But we should not be too exclusive and parochial. Schools read the war poets — Graves, Sassoon and Owen. Perhaps they should read more of the less celebrated, but perhaps greater, poets such as Isaac Rosenberg and Edward Thomas. We should recognise too the great war poets and artists of other lands, like Akhmatova, Blok, Ungaretti and Otto Dix.

Much of the civilised world and most families in this country were touched by the Great War. It didn’t turn out to be “the war to end all wars”.

Millions of people have been touched by battle and loss in our own time. Hundreds of thousands of service men and women feel the impact of more than half a dozen wars over the past half-century, and their families with them.

We need to remember the living survivors of war and warfare as well as the dead.

'Comfort women' sign in Times Square urges Japan to apologize

Here are a couple of articles referring to the 'Comfort Women' that I thought might be of interest. I am still trying to find the reaction to the raising of the issue at the UN. When I have a little more time I will do more research and write my own article. Until then, here are the recent reports for your perusal:
'Comfort women' sign in Times Square urges Japan to apologize

Source: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/asia/korean_peninsula/AJ201210070019

NEW YORK--A billboard urging Japan to apologize for its wartime exploitation of "comfort women" appeared in New York's Times Square in early October.

Believed to have been erected by a private South Korean group, the sign asks for a "heartfelt apology" to women forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers during World War II.

The advertisement, which is more than 10 meters square, begins with the question "Do you remember?" and shows former German Chancellor Willy Brandt kneeling in apology for Nazi atrocities at a Jewish ghetto monument in Poland in the 1970s.

The sign says the action "promoted reconciliation in Europe."

It continues: "In 2012, Korean women forced to work as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers … are still waiting for a heartfelt apology from Japan."

The group believed to have created the sign had also placed an ad in U.S. newspapers calling on the Japanese government to apologize to Korean women forced into sexual service.

The Consulate General of Japan in New York sent a letter of protest, explaining the Japanese government's stance on the issue, to the advertising company that controls the billboard installation site.

By HIROKI MANABE/ Correspondent

From today's Independent, here is another report:

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/koreas-comfort-women-the-slaves-revolt-814763.html

Korea's 'comfort women': The slaves' revolt

Korea's dwindling band of 'comfort women' have spent years fighting for justice. But a growing revisionist movement in Japan refuses to recognise the abuse they suffered. David McNeill reports

In Korea they call them halmoni or grandmothers – although many are so scarred mentally and physically that they have never married or had children. In Japan, they are known as "comfort women", a hated euphemism for their forced role of providing "comfort" to marauding Japanese troops in military brothels. But around the world, another, altogether starker term will follow them to their graves: sex slaves.

Kang il-chul is one of a handful of the surviving women living their final days in the Sharing House, a museum and communal refuge two hours from the South Korean capital, Seoul. It is a stark, concrete building in a sparsely populated area of rice fields and scraggly mountain forests. But she says she has found some peace here. "I am among my friends, who treat me well," she says.

At the age of 15, she says she was taken and sent to a Japanese base in Manchuria. On her second night, before her first menstru-ation, she was raped. Soldiers lined up night after night to abuse her. She has scars below her neck from cigarette burns and says she suffers headaches from a beating she took at the hands of a Japanese officer. "I still have blood tears in my soul when I think about what happened," she says.

Like many of the women, she finds it traumatic to recall the past, crying and knotting a handkerchief, and swaying as she talks. But she gets angry and slaps the table in front of her when the former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is mentioned. "That horrible man," she spits. "He wants us to die."

Last year, Mr Abe stunned the Sharing House by claiming there is "no evidence" to prove the women were coerced, reversing Japan's position. Amid a political storm and pressure from Japan's US allies, he backtracked in a series of carefully worded statements that took the heat out of the controversy. But the denial "terrified" Kang. "I felt that my heart had been turned inside out," she says.

"The women's greatest fear is that when they die, the crimes against them will be forgotten," said Ahn Sin Kweon, director of the Sharing House.

Thousands of Asian women – some as young as 12 – were "enslaved ... and repeatedly raped, tortured and brutalised for months and years", according to Amnesty International. Sexual abuse, beatings and forced abortions left many unable to bear children.

Most survivors stayed silent until a small group of Korean victims spoke out in the early 1990s. Among the first was Kim Hak-soon, who was raped and treated, in her words, "like a public toilet". "We must record these things that were forced upon us," she said before she died.

The call was taken up by about 50 women, recalls Ahn Sin Kweon. "Many weren't married or were living alone in small towns, barely able to scrape a living." A Buddhist organisation helped construct Sharing House on donated land in the 1990s. "They were initially reluctant because the more they were out in the spotlight, the more people knew that they were raped. It is very difficult for women of that generation to discuss sexual matters openly, let alone these experiences."

Japan officially acknowledged wartime military slavery in a landmark 1993 statement, followed by the offer of compensation from a small private fund, which expired last year. But the so-called Kono statement has long baited Japanese revisionists, who deny the military was directly involved. "The women were legal prostitutes, earning money for their families," claims the revisionist academic Nobukatsu Fujioka.

Although Mr Abe is gone, replaced by Yasuo Fukuda, Kang il-chul and her fellow victims fear it is only a matter of time before the denials return, perhaps with the next Japanese prime minister. The struggle defines the final years of their lives: if they lose, they will in effect be branded prostitutes.

When her health allows, the 82-year-old drags herself to a weekly demonstration outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul. The former sex slaves have been coming here since the early 1990s and marked their 800th consecutive demonstration in February. Their demands, including the punishment of those who raped them, an apology from the emperor and the building of a memorial in Japan, are angrily hurled against the walls, but are unlikely to be won.

The Wednesday protest, as it is known, has become ritualised and tinged with sadness as the already small group of survivors is reduced by illness and mortality. Of 15 former residents of Sharing House, just seven remain, most in poor health.

But the women are heartened by small victories. Last year, the US congress passed Resolution 121, calling on Tokyo to "formally apologise and accept historical responsibility" for the comfort women issue. Kang il-chul was one of the women who travelled to Washington to testify.

The resolution, sponsored by the Japanese-American politician Mike Honda, was fought hard by Tokyo. An editorial in Japan's largest newspaper, Yomiuri, said there was not "one shred of evidence to substantiate" the claim that the Japanese government systematically coerced and recruited the women.

Today, a large banner showing a beaming Honda is draped across the main courtyard of the commune. A copy of Resolution 121, signed by Honda and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hangs in Ahn Sin Kweon's office. "The resolution was very important for us because our priority is to keep the memory of the women alive," he says, recalling Honda's reception when he visited here last November. "He was treated like a hero."

Surprisingly, perhaps, Mr Ahn reserves much anger for his own government. Like many activists, he believes Seoul bartered away any compensation claims when it signed a friendship treaty with Japan in 1965, in return for millions of dollars in soft loans and grants.

He says it is also up to the Japanese people to criticise their government. Every year, he says, about 5,000 Japanese travel to his office. Their encounter with the former sex slaves is often wrenching and tearful. Some stay as volunteers to work at the centre.

But Kang il-chul is deeply suspicious of Japanese journalists. "They want to show us weak and dying," she cries, again slapping the table in anger. "Especially the camera crews. They follow the oldest, sickest women around." Later, she stops me taking pictures of a frail woman blankly watching television. "You must show us strong," she demands and we take pictures of her posing, like a boxer, beside a monument to the sex slaves.

She recalls the day she was taken. "The soldiers had a list with my name on it. They put me in a truck. My nephew came out to look at them. He was just a baby. The soldiers kicked him and he died."

Memories like that make her strong, she says. "Future generations will call us prostitutes. Either they [the Japanese government] save their faces, or we save ours."

Regular readers of this blog will know my support of the Korean (and wider community of) 'Comfort Women'.  Tomorrow the issue will be raised formally at the UN in an attempt to get the Japanese Government to  accept responsibility for the forced sexual slavery of up to 200 000 women from the early 1930's to the end of the Second World War. The victims are dying one by one and before it is too late the international community has a moral imperative to procure justice for these women. I deplore the fact that it has been almost 70 years since the end of WWII and this issue is still not resolved. I take pride in standing beside these women and will take every opportunity that I can to publicise their plight. Later this week I will give a potted history of the issue, until then, here is an article that I read this morning form the 'Asahi Shimbun - Asia and Japan Watch,' which greatly saddened me.

By DAISUKE SHIMIZU/ Staff Writer July 14, 2012

Source: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201207140043

'Comfort women' still controversial in Japan, S. Korea

Eriko Ikeda is fighting a battle against time as she tries to keep a small museum in Tokyo's Nishi-Waseda neighborhood dedicated to the former "comfort women" open.

Ikeda, the head of the Women's Active Museum on War and Peace, says more people are denying the government's and military's involvement in forcing Korean and other Asian women to provide sex for Japanese soldiers before and during World War II.

"As the victims get older and pass away one after another, it's as if their tragic memories are also disappearing," the 61-year-old says. "Somehow, I want to keep telling people the facts about the war by exhibiting their grave testimony and these materials."

In 2005, the nonprofit organization Women's Fund for Peace and Human Rights opened the museum in a room in a building to inform the public about the suffering of former comfort women.

The number of visitors to the museum has fallen off in recent years, and its finances are in poor shape. Although July 6 marked the 20th year since the Japanese government officially acknowledged that the state was involved in the recruitment of comfort women, there is a growing movement in Japan that denies the state's involvement.

The museum features materials, including 155 photos of the faces of former comfort women from the Korean Peninsula and other Asian countries, as well as testimonial videos. Also on display are Japanese Imperial Army rules on wartime brothels and copies of official Ministry of Interior documents requesting the governors recruit comfort women.

When the museum opened, there were 2,706 visitors, which peaked at 3,224 in 2007. It garnered attention after the backlash in Japan and abroad against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's statements about the comfort women issue. Abe publicly stated there was no evidence that comfort women were forcibly taken by the military. He later had to issue an official apology because the Japanese government already confirmed in 1992 that the wartime government was involved in the brothels.

Even so, visitor numbers have dropped below 2,000 in the past three years, with only 1,843 coming last year. The museum is now in the red.

Among the museum's visitors are university students who come to study the comfort women issue for their seminars. Some have even published books. However, some male students have written messages in the museum's guestbook, such as "the comfort women were just trying to make money" and "Japan doesn't need to apologize or pay compensation."

In Palisades Park, New Jersey, there is a small monument dedicated to the memory of the women abducted by the Imperial Japanese Army. A town of 20,000 people where about half the population is of Korean ancestry, the stone memorial was championed by a local Korean-American civic group. Dedicated in 2010, the monument has an inscription that says the Japanese Imperial Army abducted the comfort women.

In May, four Diet members of the Liberal Democratic Party visited the city's mayor to demand the monument's removal. Eriko Yamatani, a member of the Upper House, asserted that "there is no truth (to the claim that) the army organized the abduction of women."

The Palisades Park authorities flatly denied the demand for the monument's removal. The incident only deepened the animosity between Japanese and Koreans over the long-standing contentious issue.

In June, a Japanese man tied a protest stake to the statue of a comfort woman that stands across from the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. The stake read: "Takeshima is Japan's territory." The Takeshima islets, known as Dokdo in Korean, is claimed both by Japan and South Korea. The image was viewed by tens of thousands of people on the Internet.

Elsewhere, in Tokyo's Shinjuku district, a photo gallery about former comfort women caused an uproar when groups that deny Japan's responsibility for World War II, among others, expressed their opposition to its opening. Due to their protests, Nikon Corp., the venue's owner, decided to cancel the exhibition, but a court injunction ordered it not to.

By DAISUKE SHIMIZU/ Staff Writer