South Korean wartime slaves seek asset seizure in Japan

Supporters of four South Koreans who served as wartime forced labourers for a Japanese firm visited its Tokyo headquarters on Monday to demand court-ordered compensation.

South Korea’s highest court ruled in October that Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal pay 100-million won ($88,000) to each man for being forced to work at its steel mills between 1941 and 1943. Only one of the victims is still alive.

Lawyers for the men went to the company’s Tokyo headquarters with supporters to demand the money, but its representatives refused to meet them.

Kim Se Un, one of the lawyers, said they will now “start procedures to seize” the assets of the firm’s South Korean affiliates, local media reported.

The court ruling has triggered a new row between Japan and South Korea, two US allies faced with an increasingly assertive neighbour in China and the long-running threat of nucleararmed Pyongyang.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has criticised the ruling, saying it was “impossible” under international law and the issue had been “completely and finally settled” by a 1965 treaty that restored diplomatic relations.

On Monday, cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga urged Seoul to take steps to restore calm.

“We are asking the South Korean government to take appropriate measures, including redressing the current situation, that violates the international law due to the ruling by the Supreme Court,” Suga said. “We are in close contact with Japanese firms that are subjects of similar lawsuits.”

Around 780,000 Koreans were conscripted into forced labour by Japan during its 35year occupation of the peninsula, according to South Korean figures, not including the thousands of women forced to work in wartime brothels.

THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT IS IN CLOSE CONTACT WITH JAPANESE FIRMS THAT ARE SUBJECTS OF SIMILAR LAWSUITS