South Korea Refuses to Forgive Japan’s Wartime Atrocities

South Korean President Park Geun-hye

THE INDEPENDENT: World Focus: In South Korea a sense of vulnerability bred from past humiliations lies just below the surface

Old hatreds bred from old atrocities and injustices are slow to disappear. South Korean President Park Geun-hye said at the start of visits to France and Britain this week that she is willing to hold a summit anytime with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, whose country intermittently threatens war against South Korea.

But she rejects flatly any idea of meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe until Japan apologises for wrongdoings during its 35-year occupation of Korea.

In particular, South Korea wants a deeper apology and greater compensation for an estimated 200,000 South Korean “comfort women” who were forced to work as prostitutes in Japanese military brothels during the occupation. Everything to do with the 1910-45 Japanese occupation of Korea, brutal and authoritarian even compared with most other imperial occupations, still festers. The Japanese response to Ms Park’s remarks – that what happened during the occupation and Second World War is very ancient history – is not going to mollify South Korean resentments. » | Patrick Cockburn | Tuesday, November 05, 2013