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Roundup: S.Korea Steadfast Against Japan's Distorting-History Textbooks
South Korea's demand of revision of 35 distorting-history passages in Japanese middle school textbooks and postpone of a South Korean-Japanese maritime exercise demonstrated its steadfast will and indignation against Japan's misdeed.
South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Han Seung-soo Tuesday morning summoned the Japanese ambassador in Seoul to convey a 36-page document demanding Japan take immediate steps to correct the distortions in eight middle school textbooks for future-oriented relations between the two countries.
Meanwhile, the South Korean Defense Ministry announced its decision to definitely postpone a South Korean-Japanese exercise on maritime search and rescue until Japan revises the textbooks.
The distorting-history textbooks approved by the Japanese Education Ministry on April 3 has outraged the South Korean people and pricked deep-rooted anti-Japanese sentiment in the country. The South Korean government, political parties and civic groups strongly condemned the approval, saying it threatened the base of friendship between the two countries.
The 35-point demand is the product of intensive work by a pan- government task force consisting of many historians and experts from South Korea's academic institutions and government departments, including the Government Committee for Compilation of History.
The South Korean government launched the task force on April 12 to review the textbooks. The force drafted a review on April 17, running to 241 pages and submitted it to the government committee for consideration. The committee condensed it to a 78-page draft on April 20 and then to the 36-page demand on April 30.
The demand was originally planned to go to Japan on May 4 after being confirmed at a government-ruling party conference on May 3, but it underwent three more days of modification as members of the conference wanted a separate classification for the "comfort women " issue and a stronger tone and title.
The government confirmed the demands at a second government- party conference on Monday morning and delivered it in the form of a memorandum to the Japanese ambassador Tuesday morning.
Through the close review, South Korea concluded that some of the history textbooks, particularly the edition written by an ultra right-wing group, failed to give an accurate description of Japan's World War II atrocities and contained whitewashing or justifying Japanese wartime crimes in many passages.
It pointed out that the approval betrays the spirit of "sincere reflection and apology" made by then Japanese prime minister Murayama in 1995 and the agreement of "partnership oriented toward 21st century" signed by two sides when South Korean President Kim Dae-jung visited Japan in 1998.
It also pinpointed that the approval violates a 1974 UNESCO protocol on education and human rights for mutual understanding and cooperation between countries, which stipulates that no textbook may incite contempt or hatred for any other country or group.
Seoul and Tokyo are expected to engage in intensive dialogues and diplomatic tug-of-war on the textbook issue, which has caused strong reaction from the world, especially, from countries which suffered a lot of atrocities by Japanese troops last century.
Japan will not easily accept the South Korean demand for revision as the situation in the country shows it has no sincerity in correcting the textbooks, said observers.
They predicted that Japan will modify only a few passages of minor importance at most.
Samples of the textbooks, to be used in Japanese middle schools from April 2002, will be submitted to various schools and regional boards of education for review and adoption from June this year.
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