Dear HE Muto Masatoshi, the Japanese Ambassador to Korea

Your Excellency,

As the end of year approaches, everyone moves at a fast pace to wrap up the rest of the year. I would like to express my respect to you for putting much effort for developing amicable relations between Korea and Japan.

I would like to ask you for your understanding for openly delivering my message to you who I have never met before. I am hoping this letter to help unraveling complicated problems inherent in relations between Korea and Japan.

As you know, the 1000th ‘Wednesday Demonstration’ for the Korean comfort women will be held in front of the Japanese Embassy on the 14th. It has been 20 years since the first demonstration was held on January 8, 1992. It was about a year before you started your new post as a councilor of the embassy.

The elderly Korean women, who were in their 60s during the time, are now in 80s and reaching their deathbed. As ten years is an epoch, throughout the long years, there are only 64 comfort women alive out of 234 comfort women from the beginning.

The elderly women have been protesting with placards and pickets saying “Japanese government must apologize and provide compensation” without taking a break on holidays. They also held remembrance demonstrations for the victims of this year’s Fukushima earthquake and Kobe earthquake.

Dear Ambassador, as you know, the comfort women and citizens of Seoul are planning to place a Peace Monument in front of the Japanese Embassy on the 14th. The Peace Monument, which is about 120cm, is created to retain significance of the Wednesday Demonstration and represents victims of Japanese military sexual slavery during the war time.

On November 25th, when you met Park Suk-hwan, the 1st vice-minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, you requested the Korean government to stop placing the Peace Monument in front of the Japanese embassy. Your request is understandable since Fujimura Osamu, the Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan also requested the Korean government to stop building the Peace Monument of the comfort women during a news conference held in Tokyo on the 8th.

As an ambassador who represents the Japanese government, it is obvious that you are displeased with placing of the memorial monument which shows an embarrassing part of Japanese Militarism in front of the embassy. Probably this is why the expression ‘blasphemy of officials’ has come out. It seems like the Japanese government thinks that building of the Peace Monument will bring negative effects to the diplomatic relation between Korea and Japan.

Your Excellency,

I will not argue that the position of the Japanese government on this matter is completely wrong. I believe that you acknowledge the fact that Asians, unlike the other races, learn not to turn their face away from a neighbor’s pain since their childhood. But it is very difficult to understand Japan’s position on placing the Peace Monument.

What brings negative effects to the diplomacy between Korea and Japan is not building of the Peace Monument, but in my honest opinion, it is the Japanese government which does not legally and morally bring a solution to the comfort women case. If the Japanese government feels uncomfortable about the Peace Monument, I think it proves that the Japanese government acknowledges its fault.

Rather than opposing building of the Peace Monument which may be an eyesore to you, I think it is appropriate to console the elderly women’s tear and resentment by considering why the weak elderly women have continued to hold demonstrations in front of the embassy for 1000 times.

One comment that came out during the interview you had with students in Sungnam who visited you in spring this year caught my attention. It was an answer of the question: “What was the most worthwhile thing you had experienced while you were working for diplomatic activities by visiting many countries?”

“I like the way juveniles act as juveniles, children act as children who are cheerful and energetic. Because children are the generation who will lead the future, I think it is good for them to grow up naturally.”

“What I found worthwhile while I was working for diplomacy is that the relation between Korea and Japan has been changed and developed throughout the last 40 years.”

Your Excellency,

I assume that you know well about what the comfort women, who will hold a demonstration on the 14th, have experienced by the time when they were supposed to be ‘cheerful and energetic’.

I believe that professionalism and devotion of people like you enabled improving the relation between Korea and Japan for the last 40 years. But it is difficult to hide the fact that it is somewhat not enough. That is because the two countries put a ‘lip service’ and ‘bread and circuses’ before the nature of the problem.

This matter can be considered in a same way. It will be a better solution to have a heart-to-heart talk with the elderly women if you consider building of the Peace Monument as a real problem. As you said, Japan is our close neighbor country and we understand and concern each other. The matter of building the Peace Monument is becoming another litmus paper for the future of Korea-Japan relation.

I would like to conclude my letter with introducing a message said by a Japanese woman in her 50s who became Korean. “The only person who can solve the problem of the Korean comfort women case is the Emperor of Japan. Since he is a person of a character, he can solve this problem thoroughly. But it is pitiful that no one provides accurate information about the problem. Japan needs government officials and diplomats who do not care about their own personal safety than ever.”

I would like to express a deep sense of gratitude for reading a long letter.

Yours sincerely

2011. 12.