河野談話: 日本將重新驗證慰安婦證供

Recently the Yomiuri News on-line reported the following:

河野談話で証言検証チーム設置を検討…官房長官

　菅官房長官は２０日の衆院予算委員会で、日本政府がいわゆる従軍慰安婦問題で「おわびと反省の気持ち」を表明した１９９３年の河野洋平官房長官談話に関し、根拠となった韓国人元慰安婦１６人の証言内容を検証する政府チームの設置検討を表明した。

　河野談話は、元慰安婦の証言をもとにまとめられたが、研究者などから十分な裏付け調査がなされたのかどうか疑問視する声があがっている。日本維新の会の山田宏衆院議員が検証チーム設置を求め、菅氏は「機密を保持する中で検討したい」と応じた。

　ただ、菅氏は、証言をまとめた資料の公開については「非公開を前提にやっている。機密扱いの中で、どうできるか検討したい」と述べるにとどめた。これに関連し、政府高官は記者団に「外部の人に見せるというのは難しい。やはり政府内ということだ」と語った。

（2014年2月21日00時15分  読売新聞）

(試譯文)

On the so called military sex slavery, in the House of Representatives Budget Committee on the 20th (February) Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga made clear that the government would set up a team to verify the contents of 16 former South Korean comfort women’s testimonies which the Japanese government had based on to write the statement of Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono in 1993 that expressed "the feeling of an apology and reflection".

Regarding this Kono Statement which was written based on former comfort women's summarized testimonies, voices had come out from the researchers etc. There were doubts that whether sufficient supporting investigation had been made. Hiroshi Yamada, a member of the House of Representatives of the Japan Restoration Party had asked for the setting of a verification team. Mr. Suga responded by saying that "in confidentiality I would like to conduct an inquiry".

However, about disclosing the data which summarized the testimonies to the public, for Mr. Suga it was suffice to say that “the assumption was to do it without making them public. I would like to examine what could be done in confidentiality". In relation to this, an administration official had said to a press corps that it would be difficult to make public the related data “to the people outside. After all it is an internal matter for the government".

(00:15 on February 21, 2014    Yomiuri Shimbun)

For Japan, obviously the present political situation in Asia is very different from that in 1993. Given its relationship with China is now at the lowest ebb in decades (with South Korea to a lesser extent), Japan may feel that it is the opportune moment to readjust its historical standpoints afresh without causing further damages to the already deteriorated Sino-Japanese relation.