Protest over South Korea’s privately funded reparations plan

Government move to compensate Japan’s wartime forced labor victims criticized by families

South Korea offered on March 6 to compensate the country’s victims who were forced by Japan into harsh labor during World War II, a plan that has drawn strong protests from victims’ groups.

South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin told a news briefing that the Foundation for Victims of Forced Mobilization, affiliated with the interior ministry, will pay damages and interest on arrears to the plaintiffs who won three lawsuits at the Supreme Court in 2018 as part of the support for the victims and bereaved families.

Park said the foundation, launched in 2014, will compensate other plaintiffs who would win other cases relevant to wartime forced labor, noting that it will be financed by voluntary donations from the private sector, rather than direct payment by responsible Japanese companies.

South Korean President Yoon Sukyeol said the compensation plan was based on a “determination” for “future-oriented South Korea-Japan relations,” South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported.

However, the victims and the bereaved families have strongly protested against the compensation plan through a foundation funded by South Korean companies, demanding a sincere apology from the Japanese government and the accused firms.

About a dozen protesters staged a demonstration outside as Park made the announcement.

“Today’s humiliating resolution is a result of (the South Korean government’s) consistently low posture toward the Japanese government,” representatives of some of the victims said at a separate event.

Some of the 15 plaintiffs say they will reject the government’s plan, setting the stage for more legal battles.

“It’s not a proper apology,” Yang Geum-deok, one of the victims, told reporters. “It should never be like this when there are people who actually did the wrong.”

The main opposition Democratic Party denounced the plan as “submissive diplomacy”.

“It’s a day of shame,” An Ho-young, a spokesperson for the party, said in a statement. “Japanese companies embroiled in war crimes received indulgence without even budging, and the Japanese government managed to remove trouble by having the grace to repeat past statements.”

“It is as if the bonds of the victims of forced labor are being dissolved through South Korean companies’ money,” Lim Jae-sung, a lawyer for several victims, said in a Facebook post on March 5.

“It is a complete victory for Japan, which can’t spare even one yen on the issue of forced labor.” Analysts were also cautious. “The significance of today’s announcement will be measured in large part by what Japan does next,” Benjamin A. Engel, research professor at the Institute of International Affairs at Seoul National University, told AFP.

Japan and the United States welcomed the announcement.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi welcomed the new plan, telling reporters it would help to restore “healthy” ties.

Soon after the plan was announced, the two countries started making arrangements for Yoon to visit Japan for a summit meeting with Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Kyodo News reported on March 6. A visit around March 16-17 is being floated as a possibility, Kyodo said.