"For 30 years I have been fooled and fooled and exploited and exploited!"
"(About the Wednesday meetings in front of the Japanese Embassy) They have taught only hatred and trauma. Donations have never been spent for the victims and I have never been told what they were spent on."
"(About Yoon's winning of the election) She is only pursuing her own self-interest and greed."
"She hasn't informed us, former comfort women, of the billion yen Japan paid after the Japan-S. Korea agreement."
In response, Yoon Mi-hyang wrote on Facebook how close she and Ms. Lee Yong-soo had been, how they had shared the information about the Japanese government payment after the Japan-S. Korea agreement and how Ms. Lee Yong-soo had congratulated her candidacy.
However, in the post, there was a passage which cannot be overlooked.
In the post, Yoon Mi-hyang recalled how she first received a phone call from Ms. Lee Yong-soo in 1992. "She said in a very faint voice, 'I was not a victim, but one of my friends was.'" This passage was also published in a Chosun Ilbo article.
What? Does that mean Ms. Lee Yong-soo wasn't a comfort woman? This is a crucial point, so I asked some of my friends who can read Korean to check the original Korean passage. They answered there was no doubt that she said so.
The stories Ms. Lee Yong-soo told all these years, as a former comfort woman, were all fake?
Ms. Lee Yong-soo has actively told testimonies as being a victim of the Comfort Women system, but her testimonies were inconsistent and changed so much from her first testimony over the years.
According to published materials, Ms. Lee Yong-soo was born in Daegu, Korea in 1928. She was taken to Taiwan as a comfort woman in 1944 and was tortured at a comfort station until 1947. For what reason did she work as a comfort woman and suffer tortures for two years after the war ended?
As for the torture, the newspaper Akahata Sunday edition (issued by the Japanese Communist Party) December 4, 2016 issue told the following Ms. Lee Yong-soo's story.
"When I was 16, I was taken away to Taiwan by the Japanese army. I tried to run away from the comfort station but was caught and a soldier kicked me hard and sliced my right thigh with a sword. He wounded my arms with a wire and then a severe electric shock came. 'Oh my mother!' I cried and lost my consciousness."
the truth about this anti-Japan organization
The most famous Ms. Lee Yong-soo's performance was given in front of the U.S. legislators during the deliberation of "the Resolution for requesting apology from Japan regarding comfort women issue" (United States House of Representatives House Resolution 121) in 2007. She told her testimony, screaming and crying for an hour and the resolution was passed.
After that, she took part in activities, such as lectures, protests, and campaigns for erecting comfort woman statues to accuse the Japanese government for the former comfort women all over the world. She also appeared at a public hearing in San Francisco about the installation of a comfort woman statue.
According to official sources, when Ms. Lee Yong-soo first came forward as a former comfort woman in 1992, her original story was, "I was happy following a Japanese man in national clothes, who gave me a dress and leather shoes." However, after that, she changed her story to this: "I was abducted from my house by Japanese men in military uniform."
I would like to ask Ms. Lee Yong-soo, “Are you saying now that all those stories that you told all over the world were not based on your own experience? Do you know how many Japanese people have suffered from hostilities because of your stories?”
Why did the Yoon Mi-hyang post such information on Facebook? If Ms. Lee Yong-soo were a fake comfort woman, then Yoon Mi-hyang herself would be an accomplice.
Ms. Yoon Mi-hyang is now criticized for having her daughter study at an American university in spite of her persistent condemnation of the US government. There is an accusation that her daughter is supported by the donation money from the general public. She is also criticized for what happened some time ago: her husband and his sister were arrested and charged with being North Korean spies.
Suffice it to say that the truth about this anti-Japan organization was revealed in front of us. The aim of their activities should have been to support the old former comfort women in need. What they actually did, however, was condemning Japan, defining themselves as sheer victims and Japan as the assailant.
Their aim was not to resolve the issue at all but merely to increase their own influence for their own gain. They have not been supporting but exploiting old comfort women.
Now an old woman who worked with them for 30 years accuses them, saying, "I was fooled and exploited." Is that why Ms. Yoon revealed that Ms.
Lee was not actually a former comfort woman?
If that's the case, it's so disgraceful. The comfort women issue has caused troubles and sufferings for many Japanese people all over the world.
I would like to ask Ms. Lee Yong-soo and Ms. Yoon Mi-hyang to tell the truth to the whole world. If they confess that their stories were all fake, then the world will honor their courage. And then the comfort women issue will be irreversibly resolved at last.
※Translated by Masaaki Shimizu
