[KS] Re: Japanese Colonization Period

[Dr. John Caruso Jr.]

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Very good questions and detailed response. Thanks for profound reflection.

John

----- Original Message -----
From: "k u s h i b o" <jdh95 at hitel.net>
To: <korean-studies at iic.edu>
Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2000 10:28 PM
Subject: Re: Japanese Colonization Period


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> Dr. John Caruso Jr. wrote:
> > The hundreds of years fell between Hideyoshi and the late 1880's and
> > culminated in annexation of Korea in 1910.  Long range perspective of
> > Japanese shoguns and other warring clans plus pirates.
>
> You can't paint every leader or every ruling group of Japan from the 1500s
> to the 1800s with the same brush just because the two bookends were like
> that. If they were so dead set on taking over Korea, wouldn't they have
> tried a few times in the 1600s, in the 1700s, and in the early 1800s? The
> Japanese (nor anyone else) planned for 300 years in the future back in
those
> days.
>
> > Nurnberg Gesetz for the Japanese just like the Germans - try them for
> > massive war crimes (including medical experiments)
>
> Try whom? Try Hirohito for the Manchurian medical experiments? It seems to
> me that General Ishii (?) is the one who ought to be on trial for that.
> There were in fact war criminal trials for the Pacific War. In fact, some
> two dozen Koreans in the Japanese military were executed for brutality
> against allied prisoners, while several hundred were imprisoned. Of
course,
> there were many more *Japanese* executed or imprisoned for such
activities,
> too. So, yes, there were war crimes trials. Were they a failure because
they
> didn't get Hirohito?
>
> > and make they pay $60
> > billion in reparations just like the Germans. Massacre of Korean
civilians
> > during Hirohito's rule.
>
> I think you have something here. But there's a snag. The Japanese did pay
> compensation of some kind (can it be called reparations?) back in 1965.
When
> Japan was recovering, it paid what it could. Now that it's super rich,
> people want more (and, I think, deserve more).
>
> But the money should go to the people who suffered. The families of the
> people who were killed. The Comfort Women themselves or their family
> members. My stomach turned when I read that some political group was
> demanding technology transfers from Japan as compensation for the Comfort
> Women.
>
> > British WWII survivors of Japanese forced labor  just protested last
week in
> > front of the Japanese Embassy in London. Is that current enough?
>
> They deserve compensation, yes, huge amounts of compensation in fact
> (calculating interest over 55 years) but from the people who did this to
> them and the companies that benefited. Isn't that what they're trying to
do?
>
> > Were Chun Doo Hwan and Kim Jong IL aligned with the Japanese during
their
> > occupation?..Better to have prosecuted Col. Kaneyama (Kim Suk Won), Jung
> > Hung, Kim Dae Suk, Jung Bong Duk et al and their Japanese commanders.
>
> I don't think Chun Doohwan and Kim Jong-il were old enough to be aligned
> with anything at that time. President/General Park Chunghee, though, was a
> Lieutenant Colonel in the Japanese army. However, there was a good
argument
> for Koreans becoming officers in the Imperial Army, and some (not me)
would
> argue that Korea may have ended up being better off for it.
>
> K U S H I B O
>
>