The “Comfort Women” Resolution (HR 121) Passed: Why That’s Not Bad
(This editorial was inspired by and grew out of the ongoing debate at Liberal Japan in response to Matt Dioguardi’s posts of July 9th and July 31st - both of which are well worth reading and discussing, especially for those readers interested in a counterpoint to what I’m about to say here.)
On Monday, to my surprise, the US House of Representatives passed House Resolution 121, the so-called “comfort women” resolution by a voice vote, after making it out of committee on the third try. Before I get into why the passage of H.R. 121 is a positive step and why I think it has been somewhat misrepresented in many media - both mainstream and blogospheric - let’s take a look at what it actually “demands”:
- Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of Japan–
- (1) should formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces’ coercion of young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as `comfort women’, during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II
- (2) would help to resolve recurring questions about the sincerity and status of prior statements if the Prime Minister of Japan were to make such an apology as a public statement in his official capacity;
- (3) should clearly and publicly refute any claims that the sexual enslavement and trafficking of the `comfort women’ for the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces never occurred; and
- (4) should educate current and future generations about this horrible crime while following the recommendations of the international community with respect to the `comfort women’.
House Resolutions may not be exhibitions of vigorous prose, but they do, in their formality, occasionally make strong calls and use forceful language. Even for a House Resolution, 121 is restrained, even milquetoast. Far from “demanding” action on the part of Japan, as it has often been described, H.R. 121 makes suggestions using nothing stronger than the word “should.” The resolution is also tempered by that funny phrase, “. . . [I]t is the sense of the House of Representatives that. . .” (emphasis mine.)
Â
Now, I will freely admit that House-speak can sound formal, legalistic, restrained, and, above all, formulaic, but, to me, the actual resolution part of H.R. 121 could be translated into casual, everyday English as, “We have this feeling that the Government of Japan ought to say they’re sorry, that it would help them put this behind them if the PM said it to make it seem official, stop saying the coercion didn’t happen, and give it a mention in school. We guess.”
Add to this the facts that H.R. 121 is a non-binding resolution, which means no one will ever make any attempt to enforce it; that the only thing in it that would be concrete enough to be enforced, in any case, would be that an apology, if one comes, comes from the current or future Prime Minister; that there’s a nary a hint of any time-frame within which such actions ought to occur; and that it was passed by a voice vote, outside of normal session, with only fifteen of 435 members present, and no debate - the mark of resolutions, bills, and amendments that are really not considered important.
House Resolution 121 is not a bill, either. It can never go anywhere else. It cannot be enforced, it will not be further debated, it can never go to the Senate or become a law. It neither received nor could ever receive the support of any other part of the Government, especially the Executive, which is what would matter were it to carry any weight in terms of policy or action.ăăIn fact, on Tuesday, less than a day after it was passed, the White House expressed its support for Prime Minister Abe and his Cabinet and said no new apology was necessary.
Of even greater note, also on Tuesday, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs unanimously adopted a non-binding resolution introduced by Representative Jim Saxton of New Jersey praising Japan for its role in the War on Terror - a clear move to blunt the force of H.R. 121. The new resolution was sponsored by. . . you guessed it; Mike Honda. Interestingly, the newer, “pro-Japan” resolution, in addition to being drafted and passed in the blink of an eye, uses some of the same language as “anti-Japan” H.R. 121.
It is the Congressional equivalent of us here at TPR (here representing the Foreign Affairs Committee) sitting around and saying, “I say, sexual slavery in World War II might have been downright unpleasant,” then waiting for a few commenters to say, “Yeah, OK.”
“Right then. Moving on. . .”
Myriad voices across the spectrum of media have described the “comfort women” resolution as either the US taking Japan to task for its past sins (the positive view) or the US meddling in Japan’s affairs (the negative view.)
The positive view holds very little water, for the aforementioned reasons and also because the resolution itself, which consists, as do all House Resolutions of a section of findings and a section of resolutions, includes fully three times as many items praising the government of Japan for steps taken and for other actions in support of human rights as it does items condemning or criticizing Japan.
H.R. 121 includes eleven findings, or statements of fact that lead to its resolutions. Among these findings (the formulaic “Whereas. . .” statements) are six items that explicitly praise or credit Japan with positive steps and actions, some even unrelated to the “comfort women” issue, and reaffirm Japan’s status as America’s bestest good buddy regardless of any sexual slavery. There are three items that could be construed as negative or critical, but are incontrovertible statements of fact, and one of those three is buried within what could equally plausibly be considered a seventh item of praise.
This leaves two negative or clearly critical statements, both of which stick very much to the issue of the coercion of young women into prostitution or sexual slavery during WWII and, despite the Resolution praising Japan for unrelated human rights efforts, skip over other human rights violations of which the House has had a “sense” that Japan was guilty, such as insufficient efforts to combat and official efforts to deny current human trafficking for the purposes of forced prostitution. In other words, the Foreign Affairs Committee, in drafting the Resolution, and the House, in powdering it up to be passed, bent over backwards to make this criticism of the Government of Japan sound as constructive as possible.
A scene involving two characters:
US HOUSE (a gruff old defense lawyer, tie loose, looking frustrated): Look, son, you keyed that car in public, hundreds of people saw you, the whole thing was caught on the security cameras, and the phone call in which you bragged about it to your friends was recorded. Just say you’re sorry and I can give you a hand cleaning this up because you’re the tops, kid. The best. Flawless, but for this one little thing.
GOVERNMENT OF JAPAN (a young guy, raffishly attired, maybe looking a little like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, only without the jacket because this is summertime and he’s all about CoolBiz, trying desperately to look nonchalant): That car was never keyed. There is no mark! I mean it wanted to be keyed, even asked me. I mean it keyed itself. Yeah! It keyed itself all up, that’s it. I had nothing to do with it. Besides, I said before it appeared a car might have been keyed and that I was sorry such a thing happened, possibly with me somehow involved, but probably not. The car keyed itself and I had nothing to do with it! Leave me alone! I hate you!
(Runs into his room and slams the door.)
US HOUSE (turns back to TV, sits back in his chair, pops a few pretzels in his mouth. Chewing): Well, that went well. And all in the commercial break, too. Good kid, that Government of Japan.
Applause.
The negative view, that the US is meddling in the affairs of a sovereign Japan, is even more porous than the positive view.
For starters, as I mentioned above, the US House, through this Resolution, is not advocating, much less taking any action against Japan. There is nothing in H.R. 121 that suggests that even the House thinks Japan should take it seriously. Constituents of a member of the US House of Representatives, Mike Honda of California, made a complaint and Representative Honda took that complaint to the appropriate Congressional committee, in this case the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, chaired by Representative Tom Lantos, also of California.
The propriety of the Committee’s actions in this case should not be in doubt. Since when have governments or governmental agencies been concerned only with their own actions or incidents that occur on their own soil? Should the House Committee on Foreign Affairs be taken to task for condemning what is now going on in Darfur? Few outside of the Sudanese government would say so.
But when it comes to now peaceful Japan, such actions, even in the form of flaccid nudges, become “meddling.”
There is no meddling. No agent of any part of the US government is trying to change any internal policy in Japan. The closest thing to this would be the resolution that states that Japan “should educate current and future generations about this horrible crime while following the recommendations of the international community with respect to the ‘comfort women’.” This, though, is not telling Japan how to educate its children or plan its school curricula.
Meddling requires at least some hint of action.
The first two times H.R. 121 was set to face a vote in the Foreign Affairs Committee, it was taken off the agenda due to pressure from the six-figure-a-month Japan lobby in Washington. Pressure was put on members of Congress and diplomatic strings were pulled to silence the issue.
Members of the Government of Japan took out a full-page ad in the Washington Post demanding that the Resolution not be passed and Ryozo Kato, Japan’s Ambassador to the United States, threatened strained or damaged relations should the Resolution pass.
That, dear readers, is meddling.
In its 2006 “Trafficking in Persons” report, the US State Department demoted Japan to Tier 2 for the continuing extent of the traffic in women, primarily from Southeast Asia, resulting in forced prostitution or near-sexual slavery.
That was meddling. The US Government was taking action, by classifying Japan as less-than-successful in its efforts to stop human trafficking, in an attempt to change Japanese laws and policies.
There is also strong precedent in Governments, directly or indirectly, perfectly legally trying to influence the behavior or actions of other governments or helping other governments - often by acting on cases that did not occur within their national boundaries.
It was a Spanish court that issued an arrest warrant for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, on the grounds that some Spanish citizens might have been killed in Chile due to Pinochet’s illegal actions.
The American Drug Enforcement Agency arrested Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who was then tried and imprisoned in the US.
Would H.R. 121 not be a less striking exercise of the same sort? Some of the former victims of Japan’s program of sexual slavery are still alive and some have become US citizens. Are they to be allowed no redress because they’re really old and not Japanese citizens?
That’s essentially what two of the most popular arguments against H.R. 121 are saying. First, the idea that the “comfort women” issue is one only rightly dealt with by Japan as an enduring controversy within a sovereign nation. This is, frankly, horseshit. Japan kidnapped, coerced, and lured women, overwhelmingly from outside of Japan, into sexual servitude. To call this issue one to be decided by Japan as a sovereign issue is equivalent to saying that the ongoing American-led and instigated war in Iraq is an issue into which other countries may not inject opinions because the United States is a sovereign nation.
The nerve of George Mitchell and Bill Clinton trying to mediate peace talks in Northern Ireland. Meddlesome jerks.
Second, the insipid argument that WWII ended 62 years ago, so people should just forget about it. Some of the victims of that war are still alive and still have a right to seek justice. Perhaps Josef Mengele and Adolf Eichmann should not have been hunted down.
When the Judiciary Act of 1789 was passed, it included the following line:
The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.
This clause, commonly known as the Alien Tort Statute, has, in recent decades, come to be interpreted to mean that cases by non-US citizens can be brought against non-US citizens in US district courts, most often in cases of human rights abuses.
As a non-binding US House Resolution is not a legal action, no such precedent is required, but it goes to show how ordinary an action such as H.R. 121 is. This was not an extraordinary resolution, nor was it an unusual or unprecedented exercise of legislative power.
House Resolution 121, the “Comfort Women” Resolution, from the US perspective
Congressmen are elected to serve their constituents, which means bringing issues important to those constituents before Congress. In this case, Representatives Honda and Lantos and everyone else who so vocally supported the Resolution could take a strong moral stand with no risk of penalty. No one, after all, is going to publicly speak in favor of sexual slavery.
(Incidentally, Mike Honda, the author of this resolution and its chief sponsor, has received no money or campaign support from Chinese-American or Korean-American lobbying groups, including the group that was the driving force behind H.R. 121.)
The strongest words delivered were not in the Resolution, but in Chairman Lantos’s remarks in favor of it. While he mirrored the Resolution’s language in making sure he praised Japan at least twice as much as he criticized it, he compared Japan’s post-WWII tack unfavorably to that of Germany, at whose hands he himself was a victim.
Every member of the House likes a nice black and white moral issue. They know that President Bush is deeply, deeply unpopular. They also know that the White House is not about to do anything to upset one of the few staunch allies it has left.
Easy vote. Take a stand against WWII-era sexual slavery, show that the US is willing to apply its humanitarian principles evenly - to all countries, even close allies - and get a feather in your cap, no price paid.
What House Resolution 121, the “Comfort Women” Resolution, could do for Japan
One point, which I’ve made often here on TPR, is that Japan really has to find some sort of resolution to WWII-related issues. In reality, the only way any resolution will work is if the Government of Japan makes it abundantly clear that it has done everything that could be asked of it in terms of trying to to settle such issues and put them behind it.
The governments of China and Korea, Japan’s chief antagonists on War-related issues, will surely find some reason to criticize Japan, stoke nationalistic flames, and use the War as a way of diverting attention from their own domestic troubles, but this is no reason for Japan to keep handing them ammunition. In its its ludicrous supposition that some statements are for domestic consumption and others are for international distribution, that it’s all right to speak out of both sides of its mouth and expect everyone to believe it, the Government of Japan repeatedly damages its own credibility and makes it historical burden heavier than it needs to be.
Japan’s reaction to House Resolution 121 is a case in point. Had Japan’s Government not thrown a hissy-fit in response to the Resolution’s making it through the Foreign Affairs Committee, it would have been a non-issue, it would have gone unnoticed. When, shockingly, lectures from politicians turned cracked amateur pseudo-historians failed and the measure went before the House, Japan decided the best way to quiet things down was to fan the flames into an inferno, which no one in the House, however much they wanted to, could ignore. In his remarks, Representative Lantos specifically cited Japan’s full page ad in the Washington Post denying the existence of coercion in the “comfort” program as a prime example of what was wrong with Japan’s handling of contentious historical issues.
No nation, even Japan, has the exclusive right to write its own history, much less an exclusive knowledge of that history. The idea that somehow only politicians in the Government of Japan know what happened during WWII is downright nutty, especially when we now so often have people who were young children or who were not yet born at the time of the War telling others, particularly victims of abuse at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army, that those victims don’t know what happened.
At some point, for its own sake, the Government of Japan must learn how to handle public relations. After a boneheaded move like placing an ad in the Post in an attempt to influence a House vote, there is nothing Hogan & Hartsen and the rest of Japan’s copiously funded lobby, with all of its connections and former Congressmen can do.
If nothing else, perhaps this minor debacle will wake the Government of Japan, maybe even shock it into reality.
Related Posts:
- US House Committee Passes Sex Slave Resolution; Measure Heads to Full House
- Seijigiri #12 - November 16, 2006: A special discussion on the Japan lobby
- Full Text of the 1993 “Kono Statement”
- Fareed Zakaria Interviews Sankei Shimbun Editor on the Comfort Women Issue
- Gerald Curtis on the Comfort Women Issue
