One of the three surviving Korean plaintiffs who won lawsuits over wartime forced labor during Japan's colonial rule agreed to accept compensation by a South Korean government-backed foundation, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
Survivors have been seeking an apology and compensation from the Japanese government but until now, none had accepted payment from the foundation.
Announced in March by Seoul to settle the wartime labor dispute and help improve ties with Japan, the foundation has seen backlash from the South Korean public.
Two Japanese firms -- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd and Nippon Steel Corp -- were ordered in separate rulings by South Korea's Supreme Court in 2018 to pay damages to former Korean laborers and their relatives over alleged forced labor during World War II.
Japan has maintained that all issues stemming from the 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula were settled "completely and finally" under a bilateral agreement in 1965.
The survivor will receive the damages on Friday, the ministry said. The individual decided to accept the payment after consulting with family members, a source familiar with the matter said.
Besides the one survivor, 10 family members of wartime laborers out of the 15 plaintiffs who won lawsuits have agreed and received compensation from the foundation, which is supported by donations from South Korean companies.
The ministry is seeking to persuade those who are refusing or have not yet accepted, including the two other survivors, to do similarly.
© KYODO
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Marc Lowe
Korea and Japan need to work things out. Seems like all the same issues get brought up again every time a PM changes in either country. The Korean population in Japan does not get a fair shake from either country, so it is nice to see that some benevolent Korean companies stepped up and will compensate the slaves for Japan's travesties against them. Shame on Nippon for its non-handling of this matter and for not returning Dokdo to its rightful owner (Korea). Takeshima is not Japanese.
OssanAmerica
South Korea and Japan are working things out. Both governments are determined to resolve the forced labor issue, and if the actual plaintiffs are agreeable as this article indicates, it is indeed a resolution.
This is a proper solutionand South Korea supports it because in accordance with the 1965 Treaty, Japan paid to compensate South Korean individuals who suffered under Japanese rule. The South Korean government kept that money and used it for infrastructure and to assist South Korean corporations.
Shame on people who persist in perpetuating a hatred based on false narratives.
Agent_Neo
OssanAmerica is right and Marc Lowe is wrong.
After the conclusion of the Japan-Korea Basic Treaty in 1965, Japan renounced all of the capital invested in Korea and the individual properties of the Japanese people, and contributed a total of 500 million dollars, 300 million dollars for free and 200 million dollars . and agreed to mutually waive claims.
However, in the end, Japan provided about $1.1 billion in economic aid.
The Articles of the Japan-Korea Basic Treaty say:
"I confirm that the issue of claims has been resolved completely and finally."
As long as this treaty exists, the claim rights of individual Koreans have not disappeared.
However, this is a demand of the South Korean government, not of the Japanese government.
The Korean judiciary ignored international treaties, issued a judgment that Japanese companies compensated Korean workers, and seized the assets of Japanese companies, but such a thing would never happen in a decent civilized country.
Koreans are called OINK because they can't understand it.
This applies to the reparations issue that all other Koreans are waging against Japan. Japan, which abides by international treaties, will not be able to move unless South Korea abolishes the Japan-Korea Basic Treaty if it asks Japan to respond again.