일본, 사도광산 세계유산 추천서에 ‘조선인 강제노동’ 제외
Japan is reportedly pushing to get its controversial Sado mines listed as UNESCO world heritage… omitting how Koreans were subjected to wartime forced labor at those places.
The issue was discussed by foreign ministers of the two countries over the weekend, only reaffirming their differences.
Yoon Jung-min reports.
Historical disputes between Seoul and Tokyo look likely to continue… against what is seen by Korea as Japan’s whitewashing of the past.
Reports confirmed on Monday… that Japan is pushing to get the gold and silver mines on the Japanese island of Sado… listed as the world heritage for 2023, but only reflecting the period from the 16th to mid-19th century… and excluding the period of the Japanese occupation of Korea and the wartime period going up to the 1940s.
At least a thousand Koreans were subjected to forced labor in the mines by Japan during World War Two.
But it’s highly likely that those facts were left out… from Japan’s recommendation of the mines to UNESCO.
There have been calls for the broader context and history of the sites to be reflected.
The issue was discussed by diplomats from the two neighbors over the weekend.
South Korea’s foreign minister Chung Eui-yong met his Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi in Hawaii… before a trilateral meeting with the U.S.
There, Chung expressed “strong regret” over Japan’s UNESCO push for Sado mines… but Hayashi reportedly protested.
Seoul has been calling Tokyo to first fulfill its promise to honor Korean victims at other places that have been designated as UNESCO world heritage sites.
In 2015, Japan’s Meiji era industrial sites, including Hashima Island where Koreans were forcibly taken to work in coal mines, were designated as World Heritage Sites following Japan’s promise to acknowledge its use of forced labor… and honor the victims.
However, the Industrial Heritage Information Center in Tokyo displays documents aimed at showing that Koreans were not discriminated against… and it fails to honor the victims of forced labor.
Yoon Jung-min, Arirang News.
#Japan #UNESCOWorldHeritage #Sado_mine
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2022-02-14, 12:00 (KST)
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