No Comp For WWII Sex Slaves

A group of 40 South Koreans seeking compensation for being forced into service by the Japanese imperial army during World War Two had their decade-old lawsuit rejected by a Tokyo court on Monday.

While acknowledging their suffering -- the group included women forced into sexual slavery in army-run brothels and men conscripted into military service -- the court cited international law in rejecting the suit.

"International law does not recognize the right of an individual to seek compensation from a country," Kyodo news agency quoted presiding judge Shoichi Maruyama as saying.

Maruyama also said all claims for compensation were settled by the 1965 treaty establishing diplomatic ties between Japan and South Korea.

Some of the group responded angrily to the ruling, kicking desks and charging at a court clerk, Jiji news agency said.

The group of former sex slaves, soldiers and bereaved family members had demanded a total of $6.49 million from the Japanese government.

Japan ruled the Korean Peninsula as a colony from 1910 to 1945.

"The verdict is disappointing to us Japanese as well because this was our final chance to correct past wrongdoings," the group's lawyer, Kenichi Takagi, told a news conference.

Former comfort woman Sim Mijia said: "My heart ached when I heard the verdict. I want the Japanese to be taught that under the emperor's orders, young girls, 13- or 14-year-olds, were taken away and made into sexual objects for soldiers."

Some of the plaintiffs say they still suffer physical disabilities resulting from their treatment.

Tokyo has not paid direct compensation to any of the estimated 200,000 mostly Asian women forced to work in brothels for the Japanese military before and during World War Two, saying all claims were settled by peace treaties that ended the war.

Instead, in 1995 Tokyo set up the Asian Women's Fund, a private group with heavy government support, to make cash payments to surviving wartime sex slaves.

The long-smoldering issue of compensation for victims of Japan's aggression remains a sticking point for improved relations with its Asian neighbors.

Earlier this month, controversial Japanese cartoonist Yoshinori Kobayashi was declared persona non grata by Taiwan and barred entry into the island because his non-fiction comic book quoted an adviser to President Chen Shui-bian as saying Taiwanese women who served as sex slaves for the Japanese army had volunteered their services.

The Chinese-language edition of Kobayashi's Taiwan Discourse quoted W.L. Shi, chairman of the Chi Mei petrochemical group, as saying that Taiwan comfort women volunteered to work as sex slaves to escape poverty.

Shi apologized after the comments sparked a public outcry. He denied he had said the comfort women were volunteers, but acknowledged that his views may have been biased.

Japan's ties with its Asian neighbors are kept on edge by periodic remarks, mainly by Japanese politcians, that are seen as glossing over Japan's wartime atrocities.

Japanese history texts screened by the Education Ministry have also frequently aroused fierce debate at home and in Asian countries invaded by Japan in the first half of the 20th century for their attempts to whitewash Japan's military history in Asia.

In the most recent such furor, a draft history textbook written by a group of nationalist academics sparked protests in Asia earlier this year by stating that Japan's invasion of Southeast Asia helped colonized nations there gain independence.

China and both North and South Korea have lambasted the draft text.

Following widespread protests, the publishers of the textbook said they would revise the most controversial parts, domestic media said.