However, reading only the headlines might leave some people wondering why this article was afforded such extensive coverage. The lead section of the front-page story reveals the newspaper’s intentions:
The Defense Agency’s National Institute for Defense Studies library keeps written instructions and field diaries that show the Japanese military supervised and controlled the establishment of comfort stations and the recruitment of military comfort women during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, it was learned on January 10, [1992].
The Japanese government, during its answers to the Diet, has denied state involvement with Korean comfort women, saying civilian operators “were taking those women along.”
Last December, Korean former comfort women filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government, demanding compensation from the state. The South Korean government is also demanding that the Japanese government reveal the facts of this matter.
The discovery at the Defense Agency of materials indicating state involvement will jolt the stance the government has taken thus far and likely force the government to adopt a new approach. Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi now has a serious challenge awaiting him when he visits South Korea from January 16.6
