South Korean dies from self-immolation near Japan's embassy

[soryang]

South Korean dies from self-immolation near Japan's embassy
By HYUNG-JIN KIM, ASSOCIATED PRESS SEOUL, South Korea — Jul 19, 2019, 5:38 AM ET

A 78-year-old South Korean man died hours after setting himself ablaze near the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Friday, police said, at a time of worsening tensions between Seoul and Tokyo.

The man, surnamed Kim, ignited a fire inside his car parked in front of the building where the Embassy is located. The man died later Friday while being treated at a Seoul hospital, police said.

Police said Kim had phoned an acquaintance earlier to say he planned to self-immolate to express his antipathy toward Japan.

Kim's family told investigators that his father-in-law had been conscripted as a forced laborer when the Korean Peninsula was under Japan's colonial rule from 1910-45, according to a police statement.

more: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/man-immolates-japan-embassy-amid-seoul-tokyo-spat-64430704

[Ghost Dog]

1. Mmm.

Hasn't Tokyo apologised, yet, for that history?

[soryang]

2. Not really

Some other than Abe have apologized verbally in a personal capacity. I think the real issue is whether the private claims of the individual victims were foreclosed by the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations. The current Supreme Court of South Korea says they were not.

The Japanese argue that that agreement settled all claims by Korean people against Japan. Just setting aside the legal arguments which I don't think non-Koreans are qualified to judge, the treaty was negotiated and signed on behalf of Korea by a military dictator, a former Japanese Imperial Army officer, a collaborator of the Japanese, who received awards from the Japanese government, and killed Koreans who fought against the Japanese occupation. That would be Park Chung Hee. Virtually, all monies received in settlement went to his pro-Japanese cronies. So there is no surprise in a political sense, that the current government of South Korea, democratically elected, doesn't regard the agreement as legitimate. It was not an arms length agreement. The pro-Japanese Park, gave virtually nothing to victims. So if an illegitimate pro-Japanese dictatorship forecloses victims human rights and civil rights to compensation for war crimes for a peppercorn, as a US legal expression goes, is that enforceable? Not in today's South Korea.

All of Park's friends told Eckert that to understand him, one needed to understand his Ilbonsik sagwan kyoyuk (Japanese officer training) as they all maintained Park's values were those of an Imperial Japanese Army officer.[17]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Chung-hee

His daughter former president, Park Geun Hye, continued the chin-il pa (pro-Japanese faction) tradition by selling out all the claims of all Korean women kidnapped during the Pacific War for sex services, tortured and murdered, the so called "comfort women, " for another peppercorn (9 million dollars). Moon Jae In repudiated the agreement as he said he would when elected President of South Korea.

The fact that Pacific War war criminals of Japan are commemorated in the Yasukuni Shrine, doesn't help much with the alleged apologies. Does Germany now maintain a shrine to Hitler, Goering, Himmler, and Goebbels? Do German political leaders visit to "pay their respects?" Do German school texts omit their war crimes in the 20th Century? Do German naval vessels yet fly the Nazi flag?

Due to the enshrinement of individuals found to be war criminals by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and an approach to the war museum considered by some to be nationalist, China, South Korea and North Korea have called the Yasukuni Shrine a microcosm of a revisionist and unapologetic approach to Japanese crimes of World War II.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Yasukuni_Shrine#Shinzo_Abe

[Ghost Dog]

3. I see. Thank you for providing that clarity,

Soryang. Much appreciated.

[Act_of_Reparation]

4. A more important question:

Who in the galloping fuck sets themselves on fire because somebody mistreated their father-in-law seventy years ago?

My father-in-law is lucky if he can get me to mow his lawn once a month.