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In the press conference venue at the Zelkova Tree Café in Anguk-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul on Monday, 79-year-old Kim Kyeong-seok, head of the Association for the Pacific War Victims, took the microphone with a shaking hand.
"With the money we were sold for in the Korea-Japan Basic Treaty of 1965, we built Pohang Iron and Steel (now POSCO), highways and raised small and medium businesses. So now it's time to pay us back. It's also time to add interest. Victims of the Pacific War are dying today, and they will die tomorrow. We make this request while we are alive, even if just for a little while longer."
Kim led the class action suit filed against the Foreign Ministry to declassify the explosive documents so they can obtain compensation for their losses. As an 18-year-old he was dragged away into forced labor for Japan.
In 1991, he sued Japan's NKK Steel for damages, finally receiving Y4.1 million eight years later. It was the first time that a victim of the war had received compensation from a Japanese company.
"I went back and forth to Japan hundreds of times. Each time they told me that all talks had concluded with the Korea-Japan Basic Treaty. I wanted to know what had concluded and why, so I filed a lawsuit to have the documents released.
¡°After many ups and downs, this is a beginning. But we mustn't be satisfied with this. You don't know how hard we'll have to fight, since there is nothing but this terrible treaty¡¦ Frankly, all I want is a little so-called compensation to buy just one box of medicine."
"I'm full of emotion that the documents have been partially released, but the contents of those documents are terrible... It's like an agreement to steal. We're going to have to fight this for many days. The nation mustn't turn its back on its people."
Kim was overcome by emotion and unable to go on as elderly listeners wiped away tears.
Then an elderly woman in a red vest took the microphone. She was 83-year-old Lee Ok-seon, a former Japanese ¡°comfort woman¡±. In a quiet voice, she said, "Compensation? I don't know much about this. All I know is that when I think about what I went through, how I was tormented by Japanese soldiers, I can only cry." She said, "Many comfort women died of diseases or were massacred all at once, but the Japanese government might say it never happened... If we are discarded by Japan and Korea ignores us, in whom are we to believe?"
81-year-old Kwak Ki-hun, a nuclear bomb victim, said, "Looking at the contents of the document, it would appear the Korean government's negotiating skills were quite pitiful... Other nations are going to Japan and getting sufficient compensation. We, too, must claim our rights and set a good example for the world."
(Shin Ji-eun, ifyouare@chosun.com )
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