Ex-Sex Slaves Get More Japanese Apology

Back in December 2004 I wrote about the last victims of the second world war to be recognised and compensated, the "comfort women" of east Asia, China, Korea, Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan:

Back in 2001, Emperor Hirohito and his wartime governent were found guilty of "forcing women into sexual slavery during World War II." by a mock war crimes tribunal in the Hague. "The tribunal described the wartime system, whereby an estimated 200,000 women from across Asia were forced to work in Japanese military brothels, as "state-sanctioned rape and enslavement."

I am not anti-Japanese. However were these wartime victims European, or Jewish, the compensation would have been paid years ago. It is to Japan's shame that they remain in such parsimonious denial - especially considering the contemporary wealth and health that nation enjoys.

Mr Abe had previously been accused of the sex-slave equivalent of holocaust denial, after questioning whether there was any proof that the women had been forced. However, overwhelming testimony and first-hand post-war accounts recount the appalling conditions that the women were forced into: "Most of the victims were very young and most were in a perpetual state of exhaustion, pain, malnutrition, depression and deteriorating health."

Even now the apology comes with caveats, but this latest comments about the use of coercion come as US congress considers a non-biding resolution which calls for Tokyo to make an uneqivocal apology.

Not any chance of Japanese responding to US arm-twisting, then?