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(回答先: 豪首相、日慰安婦発言に「弁解するな」警告（中央日報） 投稿者 ジリノフスキー松田 日時 2007 年 3 月 13 日 16:13:34)
Misha Schubert, Tokyo, and Penelope Debelle, Adelaide
PRIME Minister John Howard has set himself on a collision course with his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, by declaring there should be no "quibbling" over the degree of coercion used to force thousands of women to act as sex slaves for the Japanese military during World War II.
On the eve of their talks in Tokyo today, Mr Howard has made it clear he will not tolerate an attempt by Japan to rewrite history. Heis expected to raise the issue with Mr Abe this afternoon.
Mr Abe enraged surviving so-called "comfort women" two weeks ago when ― after the US Congress called on Japan to accept historical responsibility for the sex slave practice ― he suggested there was no evidence to prove that the Japanese Government or army had coerced women to work in brothels.
He refused to issue an official apology to the women.
"There is no evidence to back up that there was coercion as defined initially," Mr Abe told reporters, referring to claims that the Imperial Army had abducted women for use as sex slaves.
"It was not as though military police broke into people's homes and took them away like kidnappers."
Mr Abe tried to quell the controversy last Sunday by reiterating his support for the 1993 Kono statement of apology.
Mr Howard yesterday welcomed the reaffirmation of the 1993 statement, but rejected any attempt to parse definitions.
"There can be no quibbling about what happened … Any suggestion there was not coercion is completely repudiated by me and it has been completely repudiated by other Allied countries," he said.
Adelaide woman Jan Ruff O'Herne, 84, who was seized from a prisoner of war camp in Java and forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese, has urged Mr Howard to pursue the matter with Mr Abe.
Mrs O'Herne said she was relying on Japan's culture of honour to force it to acknowledge its wartime history.
She testified last month at a US House of Representatives hearing in Washington that, at the age of 19, she was raped "day and night" for three months by Japanese soldiers.
Mrs O'Herne said that on a recent visit to Japan she addressed high school children about her experiences. "I was glad that I was there to be able to tell them the truth," she said. "I think the younger generation in Japan wants Japan to take responsibility and own up to their wartime history."
Mr Howard described the trauma suffered by Mrs O'Herne and up to 200,000 other comfort women as "an appalling episode in a tragic period in the history of the world".
Yet Mr Howard, who has consistently rejected calls for an official apology by the Australian Government after inquiries into the "stolen generations" of indigenous people, sidestepped a question about the value of symbolic apologies.
"I think the problem with this is an apology has been given and then some doubt was raised as to whether there was a retreat from that apology," he said.
Mr Howard's controversial comments came as Mr Abe last night said he felt a "shared destiny" with Australia as he prepared to sign the first security agreement that Japan has struck with any nation other than the US since World War II.
The declaration will affirm a desire for closer security ties between Japan and Australia, opening the door to greater intelligence sharing, joint military training, peacekeeping co-operation and shared efforts to foil regional people smugglers.
Mr Abe last night tried to reassure China and South Korea that it was not the intention of Australia or Japan to "encircle" China.
And in a nod to the role that his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, played in signing the 1957 Commerce Agreement that opened the trade door between Australia and Japan, Mr Abe told the ABC: "I feel something like a shared destiny here and … we will be able to build a comprehensive security relationship."
Yet Mr Howard, who has consistently rejected calls for an official apology by the Australian Government after inquiries into the "stolen generations" of indigenous people, sidestepped a question about the value of symbolic apologies.
"I think the problem with this is an apology has been given and then some doubt was raised as to whether there was a retreat from that apology," he said.
Mr Howard's controversial comments came as Mr Abe last night said he felt a "shared destiny" with Australia as he prepared to sign the first security agreement that Japan has struck with any nation other than the US since World War II.
The declaration will affirm a desire for closer security ties between Japan and Australia, opening the door to greater intelligence sharing, joint military training, peacekeeping co-operation and shared efforts to foil regional people smugglers.
Mr Abe last night tried to reassure China and South Korea that it was not the intention of Australia or Japan to "encircle" China.
And in a nod to the role that his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, played in signing the 1957 Commerce Agreement that opened the trade door between Australia and Japan, Mr Abe told the ABC: "I feel something like a shared destiny here and … we will be able to build a comprehensive security relationship."
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