Andrew Bolt’s article about AJCN

Press Release

28 December 2016

Andrew Bolt’s article about AJCN

Articles in the Sun Herald (December 15, 2016/ Title: Now Japanese use our race law against a war memorial) and The Australian newspapers (December 19,2016 / Title: ’Comfort Women’ row shows absurdity of 18C) which attack the section 18C complaint brought by AJCN, miss the point. This has nothing to do with the great monuments to peace and remembrance of Australia's war dead, which Australian war memorials are.  It has nothing to do with debates between Koreans and Japanese about their wartime history.

Japanese Australians are feeling intimidated and humiliated by the display of the comfort women statue, as it singles Japanese out as perpetrators of shameful conduct towards women in wartime, of all the peoples who call Australia home.  This has been done deliberately.  We know this from the wording of the plaque accompanying the statue and the public statements made by Rev Crews before the media spotlight has fallen on the case.  He said he did it to make "the perpetrators" - being the Japanese – apologise in a video posted over the internet in April. He also said he did it out of a sense of outrage about the decision of Strathfield Council not to permit the exhibition of the statue at the public place, on similar grounds to our present complaint.  The statue was never exhibited in a good faith.

Naturally Japanese in Australia are offended and insulted by being singled out, alone amongst the people of the world, as perpetrators of sexual violence towards women during wartime.

We have been expressing our concerns to the Uniting Church since June. Rev Crews now says the statue is to help us all contemplate the lamentable scourge of sexual violence towards women in all wars, and even those women suffering domestic violence in today’s society.  So we have said to Rev Crews of the Uniting Church - make the message universal on the accompanying plaque, to match your own words as to what you say it commemorates. In its present form, it is causing fear in Japanese people based on their race.

We think the Uniting Church did not realise how comfort women statues abroad have been used as focal points for the racial abuse of Japanese people today, or to educate young people to hate Japanese people although we explained with many examples of those cases really happening.  We are very aware of that and we are doing everything we can to stop such practices being imported here. This past experience naturally makes us wary about the true motivations of those who imported the statue to Australia, and vigilant to protect ourselves from similar abuse here.

We have great hopes for the conciliation process at the HRC that the leadership of the Uniting Church will work with us to find a compromise. Let us all remember the female victims of war; there is no need to treat us Japanese living in Australia differently as we do so.


Tetsuhide Yamaoka
President
Australia-Japan Community Network

Australia: Korean Puppets are stalking Japanese

Mr. Michael Yon, a prominent journalist and familiar with the Comfort Women issue, posted an article on Facebook.

He traveled  around the world to investigate the issue of Comfort Women and plans to release the book regarding to this issue soon.  He visited also Australia last year, meeting with government officials and AJCN members.
Hence he is very knowledgeable about the Comfort Women issue in Australia as well. As a result of his survey, he realized there are
Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party behind the Comfort Women issue and Koreans are only puppets in a big picture drawn by Chinese Communists Party

It is said that Chinese Communists Party uses Comfort Women issue as a political tool utilizing the hatred sentiment of Koreans against Japan, and that the ultimate objective of China is the division of US,Japan, Australia, Southeast Asian democratic countries, and democratic countries in Far East.

https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage/posts/10154179176720665

Australia: Korean Puppets are stalking Japanese

For over two years now, I have written about the Comfort Women scam. There are many aspects to the scam. At the very highest level, there is China trying to make Koreans, Americans, and Japanese mistrust and fight each other. It is working on Koreans. 

Long story short, the Chinese puppet masters in Beijing deeply understand the Korean psyche. They realize that Koreans carry something called blood libel, or blood hate. 

First one must understand something about hatred. Hatred is a compound emotion consisting of two primary emotions. Those two emotions are ANGER and DISGUST. (There are seven primary emotions – as in primary colors, all the rest of the emotions are based on a mixture of the first seven.)

So, as a writer, if I want a reader to hate someone, first I must evoke disgust, and then anger (or the inverse), and nature will take it from there. It’s that simple.

Disgust normally has a very short half-life. We might be extremely disgusted by something today, and over it just hours or maybe days later. 

Anger can have a longer half-life, but still anger normally dissipates quickly. I have at times felt a serious flash of anger, but within a minute it is under control, and within just a couple minutes can literally be gone. 

For instance, both Clinton and Trump disgust me, but I have never been angry with them, so I have no hatred for them.

Hatred is extremely powerful, and persistent. 

The half-life can be in the generations, or even centuries. This is where blood hate arrives. If two men deeply hate each other, they might teach their children to hate the other family. Now we have a hate-tornado going that ripples through the ages.

Some cultures hang onto and nurture hatred. We see that with Black Lives Madness in the USA. 

We see it often with Koreans, and many sorts of Arabs (Arab being difficult to define). Scottish are famous for feuds. English less so – English are good at letting things go. 

Japanese as a people have a magical way of not carrying hatred or blood feuds, otherwise they would be blowing us up all around the world.

The Middle East is a cauldron of so many blood feuds that nobody is smart enough to track them all.

The Chinese realize that Korean culture nurtures blood feuds. Look at North and South Korea. They would love to nuke each other if they could get away with it. (Not that ROK has nukes.) 

So the Chinese puppet masters manipulate the Koreans and fan that hatred.

Earlier this year, I was in Nanjing researching this topic. I visited the massacre museum. That museum is a masterpiece of hate-building. It is incredible. 

If by the time you leave that museum, you do not hate Japanese, you have no soul. (Unless you are someone who realizes what is going on.) 

Conversely, I was also at the Flying Tigers Museum in Kunming. If by the time a person leaves the Flying Tigers Museum, if she does not love or at least feel warm for Americans, she has no heart. 

The Flying Tigers Museum makes our elders look so great that I was almost embarrassed. I could not have designed a better piece of pro-American propaganda. And this is in China, now. Then the Flying Tigers rugby team invited me to see them play! In China! Incredible, but I digress.

So, the Chinese are playing the natural fault lines. This is unconventional warfare 101. 

Others have spent much effort doing the same with us in America, trying to make whites and blacks hate each other. (It works for some, but not for most of us.)

I also flew to Australia researching this. I was told by an Australian government official that many Koreans want nothing to do with this fight. They either like Japanese, are neutral, or he also said some Koreans are big into prostitution in Australia and do not want the bright light.

I have spoken with many Japanese mothers. They are concerned that Korean students will go to violence. 

Some violence already is occurring, such as recent bombing and arson attacks in Japan. Some Koreans were just arrested for this, I think less than a week ago.

But now, when Japanese have to push back, this plays into the hands of the hate machine. 

Outsiders who do not realize what is happening often say, “Look at those dirty Japanese! Why don’t they apologize!” (They have apologized, many times, many years ago, and sometimes they apologize for things they did not do.)

So that is it in a nutshell. I could go on with 500 pages of detail and supporting documents and interviews, but in a nutshell the Chinese puppet masters are playing emotional Koreans as useful idiots.

Press release from a good Japanese organization in Australia. I spent much time with them. They are good people just trying to raise their kids:

https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage/posts/10154179176720665

Why do Korean children bully Japanese children?

Press Release

19 December 2016

Why do Korean children bully Japanese children?

Some journalists asked me if I would agree that the comfort woman statue itself could cause no harm.   Unfortunately the innocent looking girl is designed to be the symbol of Korean anti-Japan sentiment.  Her extremely young appearance is to suggest that such a young child was used as a sex slave by the Japanese military.  Korean teachers take their young students to the statue and teach them their version of the history.



As a result of the anti-Japan education, not only in South Korea but also in other countries, young Korean children grow up believing the comfort woman abduction story, and their anti-Japan behaviour is often encouraged and praised by their teachers and parents as you can see in this picture taken at a train station in South Korea.

Here is another example of such children. They created a YouTube movie which includes a scene of a Japanese soldier, acted by a Korean student, killing a comfort woman, acted by another Korean student, by stabbing followed by a close shot of a hand with pouring blood.







https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uicdRsUoD6s

위안부 5 - Comfort Women 5(Claire Lilienthal School 2016 UCC Contest 6th graders) www.youtube.com Sydney Lee (리나), Jino Chung (진오), Simone Willets (앵두), Noah Wise (다현), Sebastian Chai (세비), Devin Dunnigan (데빈)

This kind of story is no longer believed in Japan as the Asahi Newspaper, which disseminated the fabricated abduction story originally, admitted it was a fictitious story created by a con man called Seiji Yoshida.   But the story remains in Korean children's mind due to the anti-Japan education prevailing in Korean societies and they instinctively spit at Japanese counterparts and demand them to apologize.   Now Japanese people have begun experiencing similar bullying and intimidation in Australia since the comfort women statue became an issue here and this is what the local mothers are worried about.



This is the fundamental difference between ANZAC monuments and comfort woman statues.   Australian children learning history are never taught to hate former enemy countries and their descendants.  Unfortunately this is not the case with the comfort women statues, and so we are forced to defend our families from this kind of racial intimidation as best we can.



Accordingly it is impossible for us to consider the comfort woman statue as a statue that symbolises all women who suffered in war as Rev Crews insists.  The statue is never free from the intention and the motivation of the people who created and erected it.  The plaques that accompany the statue clearly accuse only the Japanese during World War II and there is no mention of the suffering of any other people forced into prostitution during wars, including for example comfort women during the Korean War and Vietnamese War under the South Korean government’s own military prostitution programme.  It is always important to learn from the past but we have to teach our children to positively construct the future as well.



This is not about dispute over historical facts.  Everyone can have his/her own view.  Yet we must refrain from threatening and adversely affecting other ethnic communities.  There are many cross cultural families in Australia. They are all worried about the safety of their children.



We would like the Uniting Church to rewrite the plaques according to what Rev Crews says himself and house the statue somewhere inside, more private and discreet to minimize the risk of adversely affecting the local communities.  Korean people can visit the statue commemorating women suffered in war in peace without offensive demonstrations.  This is rather a simple and reasonable request.



If you wish to further investigate this issue, please read the articles below:

“Comfort women articles by scholars “
http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/the-comfort-women-by-chunghee-sarah-soh.html





Tetsuhide Yamaoka



President

Australia-Japan Community Network

Comfort Woman Statue causing racial bullying to Japanese children

Media Release

15 December 2016 

Comfort Woman Statue causing racial bullying to Japanese children 

We release this statement to further clarify our position on this matter.

We received a couple of emails accusing us of using the 18C to challenge the historical facts and whitewash atrocities.  We restate the following.

War ended a long time ago.  Everything was legally settled and we moved on.  Everybody can have own views and interpretation over historical events.  We should be sensitive towards any traumas people carry on.  However we must make sure our local communities are kept in harmony.  We should refrain from using history to achieve political goals.  We stress again that young children are far more susceptible to racial hatred.

We hear from worried and distressed parents especially from North America where such statues were already erected and political demonstrations continuously take place.

Typical cases:

• Korean children surround a Japanese child and force him/her to apologize.
• Korean children spit at Japanese children and/or spit over lunch boxes of Japanese children.
• Korean children tell Japanese children “Japanese are evil race.”

Those Korean children think it is OK to do so watching what their parents say and do.


One case from Strathfield, NSW in 2015.

A Korean boy told his Japanese best friend “Let’s stay friends no matter what adults say and do.”


Another case in Sydney CBD

A Japanese mother visited a Korean own Japanese restaurant in Sydney CBD. Her half Australian daughter was served a boiling water in a cup with a straw.  As she burnt her throat and started crying the mother asked workers at the restaurant to give her water but she was ignored for a long time and she had to push very hard.


We must not allow this to happen in our local communities and we explained this in detail to the Uniting Church asking their cooperation but they did nothing merely saying “The statue is not targeting the Japanese.”  Such an attitude is totally irresponsible and we consider it culpable being a religious organization supposed to work for everyone’s welfare.

Accordingly we are forced to take a formal action.  It is a basic instinct of parents to protect their children.  AJCN is committed to support them.  We can always talk about historical interpretations but that is a separate matter.  Hence 18C is considered relevant in this case.  Please also refer to the attached bullying cases reported by a Japanese scholar who visited local Japanese parents in North America.


Best regards
Tetsuhide Yamaoka
President
Australia-Japan Community Network

About the Comfort Woman Statue

Media Release

14 December 2016

About the Comfort Woman Statue

As ABC reported AJCN has lodged a complaint against Uniting Church Australia at Human Right Commission.

Completely apart from interpretation of historical facts we have a numerous number of reasons to believe this statue has been promoted as a political tool causing unnecessary animosity and division to local communities. For this reason, Strathfield Council unanimously declined the Korean proposal in 2015 as more than 70% of residents voted No to the statue. More recently, Friedburg in Germany declined the similar proposal having realised that the statue is used as a political tool to put pressure on the Japanese government.
This kind of statues have been erected all over the world, and demonstrations taking place beside the statues are clearly political, racial and often violent. We consider this is a huge intimidation to the Japanese nationals. Please see the photos below for your references. What further concerns us is the fact that those specific Korean people promoting the statue are trying to break the governmental mutual agreement proposed by both Japanese and the South Korean governments. This agreement is implemented with the aim to provide assistance to the families of deceased comfort women and surviving comfort women, and Australian government officially announced that they also support this agreement as well. We hardly understand why we cannot let the two governments settle and build a better relationship for the future. This statue is a clear symbol with the intention of disregarding the governmental agreement.

Mr Abe beheaded beside the statue. Photography taken in South Korea

One of the ceremonies held in the U.S. to promote the “comfort women” statue.

Another point is that, we realised young children are naturally susceptible to racial hatred. We are deeply shocked by the fact that small children in South Korea are educated that Japan is an evil at a very young age in their Anti-Japan education system. The following photos are showing drawings by young Korean children which were displayed at a subway station outside Seoul.

We are frightened to see this kind of hatred has been publically displayed at the place of train station.

 

 These are placards held up by Korean and Chinese supporters at Strathfield extraordinary council meeting on 11th August 2015. These placards clearly indicate that this issue is far beyond peaceful, but strongly political.

Because of the factors described above, the comfort woman statue has never been a peaceful monument. It can easily trigger racial hatred and provoke discrimination especially amongst young children and student. In 2014, parents who are concerned with particular bullying and hatred their children experienced have sent a letter to Prime Minister Abe asking for a help. This happened in North America and we can easily assume this can happen in Australia, and this is the reason we have been objecting to the erection of statue since 2014. We must avoid it by all means.

In last 6 months we have been explaining these in detail to Rev Bill Crews and the Uniting Church at numerous occasions, however, so far our concerns have been flatly ignored. Hence we are forced to take a more formal action.

What Rev Crews publicly stated also hightens our fear. In a video Korean group submitted online, he appeared and said that he wants to erect the statue facing the public roads to make “perpetrators apologise.” We believe there are no perpetrators in Ashfield in regards to this issue and we are deeply shocked by being called “perpetrators”.

Later Rev Crews changed his words and stated in public that this statue was “representing not only comfort women but also all the women suffered in war, and even those women suffering domestic violence in today’s society.” We see this as an extremely deceptive and misleading act because the plaques attached to the statue are specifically blaming only Japan. This is clearly a form of racial discrimination by singling out the Japanese race.

The comfort woman issue and suffering of women in war is a universal issue that we should all seriously consider about it. However, it does not make sense if today’s mothers and children are subjected to racial hatred and discrimination because of such statue to honor women. Please let us say that we are only working for local parents who have been sensing tension and animosity since this matter was raised by the Korean group in 2014. We respect freedom of speech and thoughts, but we are also committed to protect our children and also maintain our local community harmony. This is the only thing what we are pursuing.

We would like the statue to be kept somewhere private and discreet so that people who are interested can visit but still we can minimise the risk of causing unnecessary harm to the local community which we should value the most. This should be a fair request.

Our message to fellow Australians is;

The world is increasing complex and turbulent. Our challenge is how to avoid importing foreign conflicts into Australia. For that purpose, the key is we put our community harmony first, not last.

I hope this media release help you understand where we stand. Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions.

Best regards

Tetsuhide Yamaoka

President

Australia-Japan Community Network

Media Release : Unveiling Ceremony of Comfort Woman Statue

Media Release

7 August 2016

Unveiling Ceremony of Comfort Woman Statue

It is regrettable that the Korean group disobeyed the conditions set by the council for the last minute approval of the unveiling ceremony. They used the car park and put offensive banners as many as they wanted while banners were banned. This is the typical nature of such a ceremony.

Having watched the ceremony and interviewed by media we realized we were facing the stereotype labelling.

1. Opposing statue means denying the history and women’s suffering.
2. Erecting statue means supporting women’s human right.

80% of the members of AJCN are mothers with children. They were deeply concerned with the aggression posed by the Korean group knowing Japanese children were subject to discrimination and bullying in the U.S. where such statues had been erected.

We heard of many stories such as Korean students are insulting Japanese students by calling them “rapists” and spitting over Japanese students’ lunch box. When Japanese mothers complain to the school their children are further bullied for revenge. A Japanese lady who opposed such a statue in her town received a letter from a Korean man saying “If you were not an old woman I would beat you up.” She had to report to police. This case will be heard in court. We also have received a couple of similar emails full of anger and hatred all ending with “I am disgusted with you.”
These are the common dark characteristic of statue supporters. (We also received supportive emails from Korean people)

Needless to say, it is always important to pay tribute to women who suffered in war. But it is also important to protect human right of women and children living now. That is why we founded AJCN and many Australian husbands joined to protect their Japanese wives and half Japanese children. This is what we are. Our slogan is “Harmony must come first”. Strathfield Council fully supported our idea and unanimously declined the proposal to erect a statue by the same Korean people.

It is hard to comprehend that those Korean people are aggressively demanding apology while they are opposing the governmental agreement. If you are genuinely concerned with women’s welfare you would support the agreement to move on. The Australian government is officially supporting the agreement. However there is no surprise because the group called Chon Dae Hyup based in Seoul erecting such statues all over the world and driving this move in Sydney is the one who opposed the past reconciliation efforts as well.

About twenty years ago the Japanese government established Asian Women’s Fund. They paid individual former comfort women and personally handed a Prime Minister’s apology letter. Yet Chon Dae Hyup pressured women not to receive money and insulted those women who received money as betrayer. Their persistent destructive behavior finally stalled the reconciliation efforts. This new agreement is making sure to succeed with the full commitment of the South Korean government. But they are trying to destroy again by erecting statues and holding such ceremonies full of accusation. Who do you think is benefiting from conflicts between Japan and South Korea? Why do they need to erect that many statues to commemorate women’s suffering? Do they really care about women’s human right after all?

We propose to honor women of all nationalities. We should not forget the Korean women treated as military supply by the South Korean government and Vietnamese women raped and slaughtered by South Korean troops. We should not forget the fact that the majority of comfort women were Japanese who never asked compensation. The Japanese government should compensate them as well. The Japanese government was forced to establish comfort stations for occupying soldiers as thousands of rape incidents were reported in the first month or two of the occupation after the WWII. We must not forget women living now, either. We should rescue those numerous number of young Korean prostitutes trafficked by Korean brokers deeply soaked in debt. We did point these out to the Korean Society but we received no reply.

Rev Bill Crew’s comment “"We are singling out those Japanese people that offended, we are not singling out Japanese people as a whole." is utterly nonsensical. Then why does he need to erect a statue in Ashfield? Isn’t it more relevant to erect a statue of all the young children sexually abused by Uniting Church Australia if they had paid 2 million dollars for compensation? Only the one who has never sinned should throw a stone.

We explained our concerns in full detail to Rev Crews but he never addressed them. He replied only once when we asked him how he was addressing the South Korean government’s own comfort woman system. He just said “I think all governments are bad.”

We do have a very serious reason to oppose the statue but it appears that neither the Korean group nor Rev Crews is prepared for a rational discussion. If they were genuinely working for women’s human right they would also reflect on their own acts and would not intimidate other ethnic groups in a third country. Having seen the ceremony and listened to their speeches we are convinced that the statue is a symbol of hatred and a tool of the people who need a conflict for their own political purpose and existence.

We seek a genuine sympathy and compassion to all the women who suffered in war. We must work towards reconciliation rather than endless accusation. We must work together to rescue women living now. Therefore we do not approve the statue and the superficial labelling. If we allow importing foreign disputes into local communities Australian multiculturalism will easily fall apart.

Tesshu Yamaoka
President
Australia-Japan Community Network

About the Comfort Woman Statue

Media Release

4 August 2016

About the Comfort Woman Statue

Last year Strathfield Council unanimously declined the proposal to erect a comfort woman statue with a genuine reason.  The statue was not only breaching council policy but also unwanted by the majority of the community simply because it was only dividing the community while the matter was totally unrelated to the community.  We should respect the decision.  One of the councilors who voted against said at the end of the extraordinary meeting in which the decision was made "Go home as Australian".  That is the spirit we represent. 

We have been deeply shocked by the fact that Rev Crews of Uniting Church Ashfield suddenly appeared over the Internet is publicly calling the Japanese “perpetrators” and demanding apology in public.  He does not explain why he is then supporting the Korean group trying to jeopardize the governmental agreement between Japan & South Korea to formally settle the matter.  It appears a sheer contradiction to us.  Rev Crews declared that he is going to erect the comfort woman statue on his church grounds facing the public road to pressure “perpetrators” to apologize.  Obviously he considers the local Japanese community “perpetrators”.  He also commented “It is dividing the community anyway, so just apologize.”  This is far more than just “honoring comfort women” and this is the clear evidence that the statue always comes with hatred and aggression.  It is extremely unfair for the Japanese community having to face this kind of one-sided intimidation while the matter has got nothing to do with the local community where we have been living in harmony with all other ethnic groups. It is in addition a breach of the Racial Discrimination Laws of Australia.

The Korean group has been running anti-Japan campaigns across Sydney.  They are driven by a political activist group based in Seoul sharply confronting their own government by trying to jeopardize the governmental agreement that Australian government also supports.  This is clearly a politically motivated activity rather than a pure commemoration.  It is also a contradiction that they demand apology while they try to boycott the governmental agreement by running anti-Japan campaigns.  Most former comfort women are welcoming the agreement and only some women under the activist group’s influence are opposing as they always do.   The Korean group does not seem to care the proven fact that the South Korean government was running their own comfort woman system during the Korean War and Vietnam War and still refusing to apologize to both Korean and Vietnamese women who were brutalized by South Korean soldiers.  The Japanese government offered apology many times. It is pointless and even hypocritical to one-sidedly blame others without reflecting on their own acts.   We should not discriminate women who suffered in war.  

Accordingly we do not consider the statue a “peace monument”, particularly in view of the aggressive language accompanying the discussion.  We are a group of mums and dads determined to protect our local community and our children from any racially agitated discrimination that already happened overseas where such statues were erected.  We can always talk about history but community harmony must come first. 

We request Rev Bill Crews immediately stop his irrelevant intimidation of the local Japanese community and simply support the efforts of the two governments trying to finally settle the sensitive matter.  There are many Uniting Church members opposing his acts and we do not understand why he is ignoring them.  We wish to avoid any further conflict by way of litigation and so we also urge the Korean Society of Sydney to peacefully hold whatever ceremony on Saturday inside their premises leased from the Council without any aggression and/or intimidation towards other ethnic groups and follow a number of conditions and the guide not to display the statue in public view even inside the building given by the Canterbury-Bankstown Council.  We all respect freedom of speech but at the same time we respect the Anti-Discrimination laws of Australia and we are responsible to maintain and protect community harmony that is the essential element of Australian multiculturalism. 

Lastly we express our appreciation for the efforts of the Council and in particular their letter to our lawyer Rick Mitry dated today in which conditions require activities in relation to the Statue to be discreet and say ‘Council has, is, and will always remain committed to all sections of our community without favour’. 

Tesshu Yamaoka

President, Australia-Japan Community Network

A scene of an unveiling ceremony in California

Placards carried by Korean activists