Historical Documents: U.S. troops used 'comfort women' after WWII

[nskripchun]

From CNN.com.

Hrmmm, US military forces exploiting women during post-war occupation? Why am I not surprised.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/25/comfort.women.ap/index.html

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Japan's abhorrent practice of enslaving women to provide sex for its troops in World War II has a little-known sequel: After its surrender -- with tacit approval from the U.S. occupation authorities -- Japan set up a similar "comfort women" system for American GIs.

An Associated Press review of historical documents and records -- some never before translated into English -- shows American authorities permitted the official brothel system to operate despite internal reports that women were being coerced into prostitution. The Americans also had full knowledge by then of Japan's atrocious treatment of women in countries across Asia that it conquered during the war.

Tens of thousands of women were employed to provide cheap sex to U.S. troops until the spring of 1946, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur shut the brothels down.

The documents show the brothels were rushed into operation as American forces poured into Japan beginning in August 1945.

"Sadly, we police had to set up sexual comfort stations for the occupation troops," recounts the official history of the Ibaraki Prefectural Police Department, whose jurisdiction is just northeast of Tokyo. "The strategy was, through the special work of experienced women, to create a breakwater to protect regular women and girls."

The orders from the Ministry of the Interior came on August 18, 1945, one day before a Japanese delegation flew to the Philippines to negotiate the terms of their country's surrender and occupation.

The Ibaraki police immediately set to work. The only suitable facility was a dormitory for single police officers, which they quickly converted into a brothel. Bedding from the navy was brought in, along with 20 comfort women. The brothel opened for business September 20.
Brothel was 'elbow to elbow'

"As expected, after it opened it was elbow to elbow," the history says. "The comfort women ... had some resistance to selling themselves to men who just yesterday were the enemy, and because of differences in language and race, there were a great deal of apprehensions at first. But they were paid highly, and they gradually came to accept their work peacefully."

Police officials and Tokyo businessmen established a network of brothels under the auspices of the Recreation and Amusement Association, which operated with government funds. On August 28, 1945, an advance wave of occupation troops arrived in Atsugi, just south of Tokyo. By nightfall, the troops found the RAA's first brothel.

"I rushed there with two or three RAA executives, and was surprised to see 500 or 600 soldiers standing in line on the street," Seiichi Kaburagi, the chief of public relations for the RAA, wrote in a 1972 memoir. He said American MPs were barely able to keep the troops under control.

Though arranged and supervised by the police and civilian government, the system mirrored the comfort stations established by the Japanese military abroad during the war.

Kaburagi wrote that occupation GIs paid upfront and were given tickets and condoms. The first RAA brothel, called Komachien -- The Babe Garden -- had 38 women, but due to high demand that was quickly increased to 100. Each woman serviced from 15 to 60 clients a day.

American historian John Dower, in his book "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of WWII," says the charge for a short session with a prostitute was 15 yen, or about a dollar, roughly the cost of half a pack of cigarettes.

Kaburagi said the sudden demand forced brothel operators to advertise for women who were not licensed prostitutes.

Natsue Takita, a 19-year-old Komachien worker whose relatives had been killed in the war, responded to an ad seeking an office worker. She was told the only positions available were for comfort women and was persuaded to accept the offer.

According to Kaburagi's memoirs, published in Japanese after the occupation ended in 1952, Takita jumped in front of a train a few days after the brothel started operations.

"The worst victims ... were the women who, with no previous experience, answered the ads calling for `Women of the New Japan,"' he wrote.

By the end of 1945, about 350,000 U.S. troops were occupying Japan. At its peak, Kaburagi wrote, the RAA employed 70,000 prostitutes to serve them. There are also suspicions -- though there is not clear evidence -- that non-Japanese comfort women were imported to Japan as part of the program.

Toshiyuki Tanaka, a history professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute, cautioned that Kaburagi's number is hard to document. But he added the RAA was also only part of the picture -- the number of private brothels outside the official system was likely even higher.

The U.S. occupation leadership provided the Japanese government with penicillin for comfort women servicing occupation troops, established prophylactic stations near the RAA brothels and, initially, condoned the troops' use of them, according to documents discovered by Tanaka.

Occupation leaders were not blind to the similarities between the comfort women procured by Japan for its own troops and those it recruited for the GIs.

A December 6, 1945, memorandum from Lt. Col. Hugh McDonald, a senior officer with the Public Health and Welfare Division of the occupation's General Headquarters, shows U.S. occupation forces were aware the Japanese comfort women were often coerced.

"The girl is impressed into contracting by the desperate financial straits of her parents and their urging, occasionally supplemented by her willingness to make such a sacrifice to help her family," he wrote. "It is the belief of our informants, however, that in urban districts the practice of enslaving girls, while much less prevalent than in the past, still exists."
The RAA collapses

Amid complaints from military chaplains and concerns that disclosure of the brothels would embarrass the occupation forces back in the United States, on March 25, 1946, MacArthur placed all brothels, comfort stations and other places of prostitution off limits. The RAA soon collapsed.

MacArthur's primary concern was not only a moral one.

By that time, Tanaka says, more than a quarter of all American GIs in the occupation forces had a sexually transmitted disease.

"The nationwide off-limits policy suddenly put more than 150,000 Japanese women out of a job," Tanaka wrote in a 2002 book on sexual slavery. Most continued to serve the troops illegally. Many had VD and were destitute, he wrote.

Under intense pressure, Japan's government apologized in 1993 for its role in running brothels around Asia and coercing women into serving its troops. The issue remains controversial today.

In January, California Rep. Mike Honda offered a resolution in the House condemning Japan's use of sex slaves, in part to renew pressure on Japan ahead of the closure of the Asian Women's Fund, a private foundation created two years after the apology to compensate comfort women.

The fund compensated only 285 women in the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan, out of an estimated 50,000 to 200,000 comfort women enslaved by Japan's military in those countries during the war. Each received 2 million yen, about $17,800. A handful of Dutch and Indonesian women were also given assistance.

The fund closed, as scheduled, on March 31.

Haruki Wada, the fund's executive director, said its creation marked an important change in attitude among Japan's leadership and represented the will of Japan's "silent majority" to see that justice is done. He also noted that although it was a private organization, the government was its main sponsor, kicking in 4.625 billion yen, about $40 million.

Even so, he admitted it fell short of expectations.

"The vast majority of the women did not come forward," he said.

As a step toward acknowledging and resolving the exploitation of Japanese women, however, it was a complete failure.

Though they were free to do so, no Japanese women sought compensation.

"Not one Japanese woman has come forward to seek compensation or an apology," Wada said. "Unless they feel they can say they were completely forced against their will, they feel they cannot come forward."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[santoki]

It's amazing that in Japan this system was shut down where as in Korea it still exists. I'm sure SB1 could contribute a lot about this topic (where are you??).
For those who haven't read the book "Sex among Allies" by Katherine H.S. Moon. Just last year there was a report from SBS (Korean TV Station) about those women. There are near the camps these days also centers for those women who used to work nearby the camps. I went to visit one last fall. It's depressing to see the whole thing.

[Dialectic]

This is some of the saddest and most enraging shit; even if men as a result of their upbringing can't relate directly, they just don't think about how it's someone's daughter or sister being coerced into this.

[nskripchun]

It's amazing that in Japan this system was shut down where as in Korea it still exists. I'm sure SB1 could contribute a lot about this topic (where are you??).
For those who haven't read the book "Sex among Allies" by Katherine H.S. Moon. Just last year there was a report from SBS (Korean TV Station) about those women. There are near the camps these days also centers for those women who used to work nearby the camps. I went to visit one last fall. It's depressing to see the whole thing.

Thanks for the book recommendation.... I found it on Amazon right here (http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Among-Allies-Katharine-Moon/dp/0231106432/ref=sr_1_1/102-2824704-5992140?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177629366&sr=8-1)... sounds interesting.

Imma see if I can find it the local library first.

[tkguy]

This shit is insulting. Comfort Women were not prostitutes, they were sex slaves. The difference is one gets paid and can quit any time the other will get shot if she quits. To intertwine the two is an obvious attempt to desentize us from the horror that was the lives of the Comfort Women. Pure propaganda.

I encourage all to learn about the Comfort Women, especially if you are corean. It was only 62 years ago when all this was happening.

However, the Japanese prostitute situation does show possibly how asian fetish took root in america.

[Hater Depot]

Thanks for the book recommendation.... I found it on Amazon right here (http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Among-Allies-Katharine-Moon/dp/0231106432/ref=sr_1_1/102-2824704-5992140?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177629366&sr=8-1)... sounds interesting.

Imma see if I can find it the local library first.

You can download it instead.

http://www.springerlink.com/index/T15764R070878850.pdf

[RebelAzn]

This shit is insulting. Comfort Women were not prostitutes, they were sex slaves. The difference is one gets paid and can quit any time the other will get shot if she quits. To intertwine the two is an obvious attempt to desentize us from the horror that was the lives of the Comfort Women. Pure propaganda.

I encourage all to learn about the Comfort Women, especially if you are corean. It was only 62 years ago when all this was happening.

However, the Japanese prostitute situation does show possibly how asian fetish took root in america.

Exactly and well said. Comfort women were sex slaves that did not have a choice in what they do. This is injustice in the worst way and I wonder if there is much we can do to help to support this issue.

Yul Kwon who won Survivor who has taken up the fight for comfort women in Washington D.C. I believe they have a march today. The guy is really turning out to be a good role model for Asian Americans and we definitely need more.

[atlasien]

I think the comfort women deserve full apologies and compensation from the Japanese government, and I also agree that calling this kind of forced prostitution in Japan "comfort women" is a misuse of terminology.

But as a side point I also think it's not useful to create firm distinctions between the different kinds of horrible situations of these women.

When it comes to global prostitution, maybe one woman becomes a prostitute in order to keep from becoming homeless and her children starving. Another does it because she's tricked, kidnapped and enslaved. Theoretically, one has choice and the other doesn't, but in practical terms there is not that much any difference. To me, the one woman is not more or less moral than that other woman.

Comparatively few women, mostly in industrialized countries, actually have real choice involved in whether to become prostitutes or not.

[Anansasem]

And all of you have the effrontery to act as though this has no place in poor American communities?

[atlasien]

:confused:

[Anansasem]

"Ignorance and escapism, the refusal to know and the refusal to listen." "No matter how many times it is presented to you," that last is what I'd add to that timeless definition.

[atlasien]

What are you going on about? You obviously feel very strongly about this issue, so I'd encourage you to try and be a bit more coherent.

[Anansasem]

Why? As soon as I say it your impressed criterion mindset will apply a stereotypical and ignorant representation of a social image based on a pervasive supposition. If I simply name it for you it will seem senseless, distant, and rhetorical. Though if you cognitively become aware of it on your own then it will have a greater impact on your perspective.

Simply contemplate yourself on what possibly similarities there are with that example of imposed prostitution and what you know, but are not aware of, in poor American communities.

[atlasien]

I could contemplate it better if you could write it less pompously.

Who here is saying that forced prostitution doesn't exist in poor American communities?

[DONKEY]

Why? As soon as I say it your impressed criterion mindset will apply a stereotypical and ignorant representation of a social image based on a pervasive supposition. If I simply name it for you it will seem senseless, distant, and rhetorical. Though if you cognitively become aware of it on your own then it will have a greater impact on your perspective.

then why even mention it?
"hey guys i have something meaningful to add to this conv but its beyond all of you anyways so n/m"

[Anansasem]

No, I'm implying a question that I want you to ask yourselves. I am not saying it is beyond you, just that it is veiled by an impressed social stigma.

[atlasien]

Asians have many powers but telepathy is not one of them :rolleyes:

[minbo]

Forsooth, thine insipid minds verily hath but insufficient prowess to comprehend the stupendous points of factuality of which I proffer forth! Verily though I may obfuscate the portent that mine text is brimful of vacuousness and abhorrence to purpose through expeditious and bountiful circumlocution, the derision of thine intellect instead suffices in my mind to provide equitable equvilance to reasoned discourse. If thee shall but cogitate upon my flowery and nonsensical prose, then thou shalt one day find thine horizons of perception of reality expanded to planes beyond thine current ruminations!

Hark! Hark!

[Anansasem]

How sad.

Simply put, "Pimps." I'm sure it causes an image of a cocky 'black' in a purple suit and felt hat. I'm sure the image appears comical, not as a representation of suppression and the physical and psychological degradation of women in this society. It is also not the representation of Asian women brought to a country that is unknown to them while being manipulated and controlled by apathetic people who will use them beyond their limits to sate their own insatiable desires.

Hispanics, 'Blacks,' Asians, and 'Whites' are not ammune nor to blame for this disgusting institution. All of it conveniently unknown, unrealized, and all but allowed. This is also not a matter of individual interests, but an entire enterprise of thousands of kidnapped and controlled 'black,' white,' Hispanic, and Asian women that operate in large and very real brothels in most any city.

[atlasien]

That's the oh-so-startling insight you were hiding? "Pimps exist"? Damn I can't believe I'm still participating in this ludicrous thread.

My last piece of advice: Anansasem, if you don't want to come off as a blithering idiot, stop pretending you're telepathic.

[minbo]

Overweaning dolor and woe upon us all! Beware the Ides of March!

Fellow 44's, harken unto my words without regard to sporfic effect, for I have neglected to properly peruse the not-very copious text entombed within this thread. As such, I shall expound with salubrious efficacy upon crimson and scarlet herrings so tangential and non-germane as to appear nonsensical. I will however persist in utilizing such writing as to be as opaque and possible, ever using derision so as to avoid direct confrontation in debate such that I shall never have to aquiese that which I prolifically expound upon is ill-considered or insufficiently cogitated upon to be unleashed upon unsuspecting masses, or at least presented in only a quarter-sensical fashion.

[Anansasem]

Of course, now comes the rhetorical attitude. The same with 'blacks' when you say "Our entire ethnicity is uneducated, we seem to have lost any progressive will, we find it attractive to degrade women and glorify violence. Oh, millions are also dying horribly in Africa." Typical 'black' response, "Yeah, we all know that, so what?" The usual general apathetic attitudes to things so far away that they can, of course, have no impact on any of you.It's really just the same here

Also, you look only at upper class Asian concerns and care almost nothing for the exploited and downtrodden lower classes. You hold almost the exact same classist views as the 'whites' you're supposedly trying to challenge. It's amazing you're surprised when most other minorities see you as 'white' lap dogs.

[Ike]

Anansasem,

I can see that this is a very sensitive subject for you because you're writing things out of anger. I like you (maybe it's because we're both young) and don't want to see you get banned, so I'm going to try to explain what's going on in this thread.

If you want to start a thread about present-day prostitution and exploitation of women, feel free to do so. There have been previous threads about that topic - it does not go unnoticed and unacknowledged. This thread was started with the intent of discussing the fact that US soldiers used comfort women. The reason you've been met with animosity is that you have jumped to incorrect conclusions about the people on this site as well as maintaining your superiority.

As for your quote:
It's really just the same here, you look only at upper class Asian concerns and care almost nothing for the exploited and downtrodden lower classes. It's amazing you're surprised when most other minorities see you as 'white' lap dogs.
I think it shows some preconceived notions about Asian Americans and raises the question of why you joined this forum. You've been on the site... 2 days? You obviously haven't read the majority of the posts, because then you would have realized that we DO post about issues that are not "upper class". We have even posted about how splintered the Asian American "community" is, and how much of a disjoint there is between the upper-middle class descendants of immigrant professionals and the people who come as refugees.

No one is surprised that other minorities see Asians as lap dogs to whitey. Too many of us work hard to "fit in" and not make waves. Many Asian American women strictly date and marry white men. There is no collective Asian American identity and no symbolic Asian American leader. We don't even constitute enough of the US population to make an economic impact. Those are all obvious reasons. But the people on this site are not the ones who roll over and play dead. The people responsible don't spend their time discussing Asian American activism, and I know that you know the difference.

Do you want to discuss things, or do you want to condemn and judge us? We welcome the first and don't take kindly to the second.

[minbo]

O my dorogoy chelloveck, rise off and brosay the shackles the bugatty has upon your grazzy mozg. They have made you filled your gulliver with gloopy with thoughts of lining your carman with cutter. Nadmenny mazz, unknowingly filling with the millicent, the ol' in-out in-out... Gooly from your dormy and dratsing the moodge, nachinat the oozhassny bitva, spill your krovvy, lest you snuff it poogly and oddy knocky, a strack nazz ded, mindlessly fondling your panhandle, feeling for the yarbles you left on the mantle.

[DONKEY]

The usual general apathetic attitudes to things so far away that they can, of course, have no impact on any of you.It's really just the same here
while we're talking about "impact", what impact can i personally have on the slave trade in the united states today?
what impact does the modern slave trade in the u.s. have on you? what impact have you had on it?
should i become a police informat, and become a "pest" to both the police who don't care and the criminals and possibly end up murdered or worse?
slavery in the u.s. today does not receive much attention but it's also not a huge secret.
what's your plan of action? let me know.
how many pimps and slaveholders/traffickers have you shot so far?

[blockthebox]

To Anansasem:

Don't be an asshole. This is a thread about women who were forced into prostitution by the Japanese during WWII. We recognize that there are pimps/ho's/women who are forced into prostitution elsewhere. That's not what this is about.

You've obviously got some chip on your shoulder about being black/white/asian/etc. Fine. But be constructive AND respectful. RESPECT.

P.S. Ellen: Let's start an unofficial Mimbo fan club. Let me be president.

[ellencho]

Fair enough. I loves me some minbo.

[Apollyon]

What about the children?? Won't somebody please think about the children???!!!

[Anansasem]

Why don't you just drop the pretenses and put the 'white' collar around your necks physically, as well. Hah.

[nskripchun]

To Anansasem:

Don't be an asshole. This is a thread about women who were forced into prostitution by the Japanese during WWII. We recognize that there are pimps/ho's/women who are forced into prostitution elsewhere. That's not what this is about.

You've obviously got some chip on your shoulder about being black/white/asian/etc. Fine. But be constructive AND respectful. RESPECT.

P.S. Ellen: Let's start an unofficial Mimbo fan club. Let me be president.

quoted for emphasis.

[Anansasem]

I understand now, I really should stop coming to these forums drunk. Don't worry I'm coherent now, and I apologize. I appreciate the civil disapproval from most of you.

Minbo and Apollyon, kill yourselves.

[JjampongMania]

The US gov is just as sickening as the Japanese government for doing this kind of shit. The US is a country that likes to pretend that it's a "goody two shoe" nation, when in fact, it's a racist country and has done many harms to other countries in the past. Heck, the US is still harming other countries to this day! (i.e. Iraq, Afghanistan, etc).

I have never known about US soldiers making sex slaves out of Japanese women.

However, I've read a document for my Japaense History class in college, about how there were used condoms strewn all over the place in Tokyo due to US GI's fucking a lot of Japanese girls. Disgusting! But this was probably due to the promiscuous behavior of the Japanese girls. Or, it may have been casual sex - though leading back to the Japanese girls' promiscuity.

Great! Now I doubt Japan's gov will listen to the US gov resolution to make Japan apologize for her WWII sex slave crimes on Korean, Chinese, Filipino and other Asian girls!!

[minbo]

Just a technicality, but it was the Japanese government that recruited and staffed the houses of prostitution. That in no way absolves the US, as the military command knew about and promoted the use of these facilities, and the facilities would not have existed without their tacit approval. It also in no way absolves Japan of their role in mass forced rape of women during the war or induced or forced prostitution in their own country. Guilt is not a "sum zero" situation. If you live in a glass house, you can throw stones, you just have to live with your windows being smashed as well.

I'm sure that the US military medical officers had thought to control STDs by emulating the military run red light district in Hawaii, which was IIRC the first legalized prostitution area in the US and was very successful in reducing the occurrence of STDs in military personnel stationed in Hawaii. Again, that in no way absolves the US military of the responsibility and moral culpability from their tacit approval and utilization of the facilities.

As for promiscuity/condoms in Tokyo, I don't know much about the situation, but I doubt that the Japanese women of the era, immediately post WW II were THAT promiscuous. In any military occupation there will be induced and forced sex. In WW II and Vietnam, something that you don't hear much of was the rapes of the Nursing staff and the women who attended USO dances, rapes of women in allied countries and rapes of German women in post-war occupied Germany. Even now in Iraq, we only hear about the cases in Iraq that result in a squad going crazy, killing the girl and their family. We do not often hear that the US female troops dying of dehydration because going to the bathroom after dark means that they will be raped by their "brothers" in arms, or the Iraqi women who are being raped but not killed.

Anansasem - You were pompous and uncivil. That people continued to address you civilly and reason logically with you when you obviously were not even attempting to be civil or logical in return is a credit to them. Your posts after continuing in that fashion certainly did not deserve it.

If you can't take a hit, then don't start a fight. If you can't man up and stand behind what you write, then don't write anything. If you can't control yourself when you are drunk or if you do things that you regret when you are drunk, then don't get drunk.

I'm not saying that my shit don't stink, but I'm willing to be proven wrong and am willing to admit publicly that I was wrong in those cases. I can take being called out for being a pompous ass when I behave as such. I am willing to apologize when I cross the line. None of those situations apply now. If you merit it through future coherent and civil posts, then I may decide I crossed the line at some point in the future, but I'm not going to hold my breath just yet and I doubt that you care anyway.

[Anansasem]

I know I was completely condescending, and I was even wrong in assuming none of you were truly aware. I also see that saying 'because I was drunk' amounts to the same as "I'm sorry officer I didn't notice 'cause I was drunk."

The problem I had with you and Apollyon was that you both mocked the issue, as it didn't deserve, instead of me, which I did deserve.

[minbo]

I was not making fun of the issues. As much as I would have liked to have been a bigger man and not have done so, I was mocking the content of your posts. "Argumentum ad hominem".

[Anansasem]

Then can we agree to 'bury the hatchet?'

[minbo]

No worries here mate, no grudges. I am scatterbrained, so I get by one post at a time. One post at a time.

[nskripchun]

In recent related news...

http://thehill.com/business--lobby/comfort-women-resolution-to-reach-foreign-affairs-panel-2007-06-20.html

‘Comfort Women’ resolution to reach Foreign Affairs panel
By Roxana Tiron
June 20, 2007

A months-long effort by a Korean-American grassroots lobbying campaign will culminate next week when the House Foreign Affairs Committee takes up a resolution calling on Japan to acknowledge formally and accept responsibility for sexually enslaving women during World War II.

In a twist, the campaign’s recent victory comes partly because a group of Japanese politicians and academics last week took out an ad in The Washington Post saying there is no proof women were forced into sexual enslavement.

The group published the ad despite opposition from others in the Japanese government and the Japanese Embassy in Washington, which has been trying to convince Congress not to take up the resolution, sponsored by Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) and insisting Japan already has apologized to the “comfort women.”

Several congressional sources said members who were ambivalent about Honda’s measure now support it. “Now there is more support for the measure than ever,” a congressional source, who asked not to be quoted by name, said.

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced at a Saturday fundraiser in Los Angles that Honda’s resolution, which currently has 140 cosponsors, will be marked up Tuesday.

The highest concentration of Korean-Americans is in California, particularly around Los Angeles. A large number of Korean-Americans live in the Bay Area as well. Lantos’s district office is in San Mateo, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) district is in San Francisco.

The grassroots campaign could propel Korean-American groups to the league of ethnic groups with strong lobbies and networks, such as the Cuban-Americans, the Jewish community and Taiwanese-Americans. In the first six months of the year, the Korean grassroots effort has raised about $100,000, much of which was spent on advertising campaigns.

During its occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands between the 1930s and World War II, Japan used as many as 200,000 young women from Korea, China, the Philippines and in some cases Western Europe for sexual servitude in a program designed to increase the efficiency and morale of Japanese soldiers. The women were subject to beatings, sexual violence and torture.

Honda’s bill says the “government of Japan should formally acknowledge, apologize and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces’ coercion of young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as ‘comfort women.’”

According to material provided by the Japanese Embassy, the Japanese government has extended official apologies on several occasions. One came in 1994 from then-Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama during the 50-year commemoration of the war’s end.

Outgoing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi sent personal letters to former comfort women to convey Japan’s remorse, according to the embassy.

The Asian Women’s Fund was established in 1995 to raise awareness and prevent such abuses, but supporters of the House resolution note that the fund is private. Tokyo argues that the fund was established with cooperation from the government and the Japanese people, and that the government contributed funds for the organization’s operating costs as well as its medical welfare support projects.

Some critics of the congressional action say a resolution would create tensions between the United States and Japan, America’s top ally in Asia.

Several sources have indicated that Lantos would not have taken up the resolution without Pelosi’s support. Lantos predicted at the Korean-American fundraiser held in his honor that the resolution will have a strong vote in committee and that the resolution will pass “by a very substantial margin” in the House.

Japan has less than a week to try to convince Pelosi and Lantos not to take up the bill. Once passed in the committee it would be hard to stop, according to a source close to Japan.

The White House is more interested and concerned about the resolution than it was before, the source said. The Bush administration considers the legislation to be potentially harmful to the U.S.-Japan relationship.

The Japanese Embassy has been working with Hogan & Hartson as well as Hecht, Spencer and Associates to raise awareness about what it has done to address the issue. It also hired the Fratelli Group to handle its PR in Washington for a limited period.

The group that took out the Post ad is not part of the Japanese political mainstream, according to the source. The politicians, considered a fringe mix of ultra-nationalists and ultra-conservatives, want to see the resolution passed to “drive a wedge between Japan and the United States — they think that Japan has been too friendly and compliant with the U.S,” the source said.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe alarmed many in the international community in March with comments viewed as denying the Japanese military’s direct role in forcing women to work in brothels throughout Asia. The Japanese government said Abe’s comments had been misunderstood and that he stands by an apology made by the government in 1994.

Before his visit to Washington, Abe raised the issue with President Bush, saying that he empathized with the victims.

Abe also met with a joint session of Congress in part at the behest of Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who opposes Honda’s resolution, saying that it would negatively affect Japanese-American relations. Inouye, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Lantos, Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) met with Abe, who raised the issue and said Japan made official apologies to the comfort women.

Inouye wrote a letter to Honda and Lantos expressing his position. “A lot of people in the Asian community were disappointed that he was against the resolution, but did not confront the senator publicly out of deep respect,” a source within the Asian-American grassroots effort said.