パリセーズパーク市の従軍慰安婦記念碑に関する地元紙報道
全訳する気力がありませんので、一部取り上げます。
動画もありますので、NorthJerseyのサイトを直接見てもらえればと思います。
記事のタイトルは「Palisades Park monument to WWII 'comfort women' sparks historical tug-of-war」で、従軍慰安婦記念碑が歴史上の論争の口火を切った、というものです。
自民党右翼議員らが市庁舎に乗り込んで恫喝したくだりは、この部分*1。
“Their purpose was to have us pretty much remove it,” he said on Wednesday as he stood in front of the library. “Regardless of whatever else they said their main goal was, to come here to think we would be intimidated to take it away, and we are not.” Rotundo said during a three-hour meeting last Sunday with town officials, the four Japanese legislators disputed the number of comfort women and claimed that they willingly served the soldiers.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/immigration/051012_Palisades_Park_ceremony_remembers_comfort_women.html
ニューヨーク総領事（大使）の広木氏が、事前に利益をちらつかせて撤去を求めたくだりはここ。
That session came days after Shigeyuki Hiroki, Japan’s consul-general in New York, met with Rotundo. The mayor said he was told that Japanese officials were interested in funding local youth programs, donating books on Japanese culture to the library and planting Japanese cherry blossoms in the town — if the monument were removed. Two others at the meeting — Deputy Mayor Jason Kim and town Clerk Martin Gobbo — also said the offer was made.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/immigration/051012_Palisades_Park_ceremony_remembers_comfort_women.html
広木大使はそのような申出はしていないと否定していますが、大使からの返答にある“necessary adjustment”の内容については説明を拒否していますので、「袖の下」をエレガントに表現すると“necessary adjustment”となったのでしょうね。
But in an email sent to The Record on Wednesday, Hiroki’s office said he made no such offer. The email confirmed both meetings took place, but provided few details on what was discussed.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/immigration/051012_Palisades_Park_ceremony_remembers_comfort_women.html
“Ambassador Shigeyuke Hiroki met with [the] mayor of Palisades Park on May 1, and explained about the position of the Japanese government relating to the issue of comfort women, and requested for his understanding and necessary adjustment which would facilitate smooth exchanges between the communities,” the email stated.
The ambassador declined to explain what was meant by “necessary adjustment.”
大使のやり方はどうかと思うが、後から4人の右翼議員よりはマシな態度をとっていて、日本政府が1995年に元従軍慰安婦の生存者に謝罪し基金を設けたことに言及している、とかなり詳しく見ています。
However, the email seemed to distance the position of the consulate from that of the four lawmakers, saying the Japanese government has apologized to the women on many occasions and even set up a fund in 1995 for those women who are still alive.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/immigration/051012_Palisades_Park_ceremony_remembers_comfort_women.html
簡単な経緯について、1993年に日本政府は慰安所運営に軍が関与していたことを認めて、河野談話として謝罪されたが、官房長官の談話であり国会決議ではないので被害者に受け入れられていないこと、2007年にはアメリカ下院決議で、日本が行った戦時性奴隷について認め謝罪するよう求められたこと、が書かれています。
In 1993, the Japanese government accepted the role of its military in setting up brothels, and a declaration known as the “Kono Statement” offered an apology. But many, including the surviving comfort women, didn’t accept the statement because it was issued by a Cabinet secretary, not by Parliament.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/immigration/051012_Palisades_Park_ceremony_remembers_comfort_women.html
In 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a non-binding resolution urging Japan to acknowledge and apologize for its wartime sex slavery.
そして近年、自民党の議員らが、日本軍が拉致し売春を強制した証拠はないと主張しており、今回乗り込んできた議員もその自民党議員だ、と書かれています。
But in recent years, members of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party have said there is no evidence that the military kidnapped women and forced them into sex slavery. The four legislators who visited Palisades Park are members of that party.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/immigration/051012_Palisades_Park_ceremony_remembers_comfort_women.html
まあ、歴史修正主義に染まっている議員としては、与党民主党の議員も忘れてもらっちゃ困るぜ、という感じですが、外国から見ると、自民党の悪名には及ばないようですね。
Palisades Park monument to WWII 'comfort women' sparks historical tug-of-war [video]
Wednesday, May 9, 2012 Last updated: Thursday May 10, 2012, 9:27 AMBY MONSY ALVARADO
STAFF WRITER
Three Korean lawmakers on Wednesday placed bouquets of white chrysanthemums near a stone monument in Palisades Park dedicated to “comfort women” — more than 200,000 Asians who were reportedly forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers before and during World War II.
The moving tribute, however, comes just days after four officials from Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party claimed that there is no proof sex slaves existed and asked for the monument’s removal, saying it portrayed historical inaccuracies, Palisades Park Mayor James Rotundo said. Historical accounts, interviews and testimonials, however, document the story of the comfort women.The monument in Palisades Park, which counts more than half of its 19,622 residents as Korean, is the only known tribute in the United States to the comfort women. A monument was erected in Seoul, South Korea, in front of the Japanese Embassy last year. Rotundo promised the Korean lawmakers that the Palisades Park monument wouldn’t be removed.
“Their purpose was to have us pretty much remove it,” he said on Wednesday as he stood in front of the library. “Regardless of whatever else they said their main goal was, to come here to think we would be intimidated to take it away, and we are not.” Rotundo said during a three-hour meeting last Sunday with town officials, the four Japanese legislators disputed the number of comfort women and claimed that they willingly served the soldiers.
That session came days after Shigeyuki Hiroki, Japan’s consul-general in New York, met with Rotundo. The mayor said he was told that Japanese officials were interested in funding local youth programs, donating books on Japanese culture to the library and planting Japanese cherry blossoms in the town — if the monument were removed. Two others at the meeting — Deputy Mayor Jason Kim and town Clerk Martin Gobbo — also said the offer was made.
But in an email sent to The Record on Wednesday, Hiroki’s office said he made no such offer. The email confirmed both meetings took place, but provided few details on what was discussed.
“Ambassador Shigeyuke Hiroki met with [the] mayor of Palisades Park on May 1, and explained about the position of the Japanese government relating to the issue of comfort women, and requested for his understanding and necessary adjustment which would facilitate smooth exchanges between the communities,” the email stated.
The ambassador declined to explain what was meant by “necessary adjustment.” However, the email seemed to distance the position of the consulate from that of the four lawmakers, saying the Japanese government has apologized to the women on many occasions and even set up a fund in 1995 for those women who are still alive.
It was in October 2010 that the monument with a copper plaque depicting a soldier and a cowering woman was erected, mostly at the encouragement of local artist Steven Cavallo, the Korean American Voters Council, Rotundo and Kim, who is Korean- American.
Bergen County’s freeholders donated the stone for the monument, and Dennis Mc-Nerney, the county executive at the time, called the debated World War II-era episode one of “history’s greatest tragedies.” Outside the Palisades Park library on Wednesday, Rotundo and Kim told their Korean guests — who were in the United States for three days — that the monument was not meant to blame the current Japanese government, but that it was an education tool to teach younger generations about the tragedies of war.
‘Learn from the history’
“This is an issue against women; this kind of atrocity of rape and abduction shouldn’t happen anymore,” said Kim, the first Korean-American to be elected to a council seat in the state. “If we don’t learn from the past history and correct this, it will happen again, and that scares me. That is what drives me to have this monument and tell the whole world why we should have this monument.”
One of the Korean congressmen, Jang Byeong Wan, said they visited Palisades Park “to show appreciation for having the monument here.”
“You can only learn from the history,” he said through Kim, who served as a translator.
Last December, two comfort women traveled from Korea to visit the monument, and answered questions at the Palisades Park library about their stories of rape that they said lasted for several years. They are among a handful of comfort women who reside in Korea and protest every week in front of the Japanese Embassy asking for a formal apology from the government.In 1993, the Japanese government accepted the role of its military in setting up brothels, and a declaration known as the “Kono Statement” offered an apology. But many, including the surviving comfort women, didn’t accept the statement because it was issued by a Cabinet secretary, not by Parliament.
In 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a non-binding resolution urging Japan to acknowledge and apologize for its wartime sex slavery.
But in recent years, members of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party have said there is no evidence that the military kidnapped women and forced them into sex slavery. The four legislators who visited Palisades Park are members of that party.
A number of interviews, historical accounts, testimonials, and books on the comfort women have been published and can easily be found on the Internet. Dai Sil Kim-Gibson, who attended Wednesday’s gathering at the library, produced a documentary and wrote a book in 1998 called “Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women” She said she interviewed about 50 women in South Korea, China and Japan.
Her interest began when she was living in Washington, where she was asked to translate for a comfort woman who was going to speak at a Korean Methodist Church. “I was probably 10 years younger [than the woman] and she said to me, ‘Could you imagine what it was like to have 30, 40 soldiers on top of you every day when you were born and raised in the culture where chastity was more precious than life itself?’ ” said Kim-Gibson, who lives in New York. “Can you imagine?”
http://www.northjersey.com/news/immigration/051012_Palisades_Park_ceremony_remembers_comfort_women.html
