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What does "Korean-Hibakusha" mean?
What does "Korean-Hibakusha" mean?
First, we need to make this definition clear.
At the moments of the atomic bomb attacks,
the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
were approximately 420,000 and 270,000, of
which 160,000 and 74,000 died according to
our estimates. And that includes many Korean
people who had been drafted into the Japanese
Military and forced to work as Japanese for
their aggressive war.
The estimate of the numbers of those poeple
in both cities are 50,000 and 20,000.
This means, over 10 % of Hibakusha were Korean
people. Now we see a different face of Japan's
self portrait as "The only nation of
Hibakusha".
40,000 of them were killed by the bombings.
The most of the survivors has returned to
their country after the war. They are now
called "Korean-Hibakusha" whose
origins are mostly South Korea.
Why are they special ?
.
Korean Hibakusha are not only the victims
of A-bombs.
They are also the victims of Jpanese Imperialism
that invated Korea. The history of Hap-chon,
where we call "Hiroshima in Korea"
for many Hibakusha redidents, gives us a
typical example of the tragic.
First, Japan totaly destroyed their self-sufficing
life.. They were foced to produce Japanese
rice, silkworms, and cotton without doing
their traditional tabacco making. Cutting
woods for fire was also restricted.
As the war
progressed and Japan started to loose, the
Japanese seizured their rice for military
use. and later on, this practice was applied
to humans..
The birth of Korean Hibakusha all came through
such a tragic path.
Another point that cleary discriminates Korean
Hibakusha from Japanese
Hibakusha, is that they have been neglected
by the Japanese Government for a long time.
In the case of Japanese, the victims basically
have been able to recieve free medical care
since 1957 in which "Medical Law for
HIbakusha" and "Hibakusha Card"
were issued. This protection have also been
improved by the establishiment of the aid
system based on "The Special Treatment
Plan" in 1960, and "Protection
Law" in 1994, which offered some money
to victims' families for condolences, although
we still think that was not enough.
The nation's budget for Hibakusha in 1995
exceeded 145 billion yen which is about a
billion in U.S.dollar. However, that budget
dose NOT support Korean Hibakusha but only
Japanese poeple. Now we should remember that
it was NOT Korean victims' intentions to
live in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, not by their
free wills, but by the force of the Japanese
Government.. Inspite of this fact, the Japanese
Government had not shown any willingness
to take responsibility for drafting people,
and kept trying to avoid answering the voices
of Korean Hibakusha, that are saying; "Give
us the same support as for Japanese people".
As a result, the Japanese Government's discriminating
attitude had continued, such as refusing
the issue of the Hbakusha Card against Korean
victims, until the Supreme Court ruled the
lawsuit in favor of the Korean Hibakusha
plaintiff, Son Sin-To in 1978. As we
all know clearly, that should have been the
very basic of Medical Law long time before
the victory. And that was still very unfair,
in comparison to Japanese Hibakusha, whose
aid had been costing over a billion dollar
per a year.
Needless to say, this inequality hurts Korean
victims so deeply.
How are they doing now and what can we do?
The yougest drafting age was 22. This means
all the Korean Hibakusha is over 70 today.
Their past lives, suffered from the colonialization,
suffered from the atomic bombs, suffered
from the long time neglect, are impossible
to restart anymore.
However, we still can recover their human
rights.
We would like to ask the Japanese Government
to appologize and take responsibility for
those three things.
1 Colonialization and Drafting.
2 Atomic Bomb suffering
3 50 years of Neglect.
Those are the mimimum requests as humans.
This is last 50 years of postwar, and many
of them are looseing their voices because
of their ages and sickness. In spite of that,
some of them traveled to Japan for Hibakusha
Cards overcoming their financial difficulties.
The number of those people has been increased
significantly in last two years.
What made them wait for such a long time
to come out?
It might be too much anger,
It might be too much anxiety,
It might be too much pain,
It might be too much hardship.
One certain thing is, they are realizing
that they have not much time left.
And we should remember that there are still
thousands of people waitig for help behind
this.
WE SHOULD NOT LET THEM DIE VOICELESSLY.
And this is also the last chance for Japanese
people to recover their least humanity.
Our request, "Treat them as equal humans"
The Korean Society of Human Rights has satarted
to send messages to the Japanese Government
and Dietmen since May 2001, which include
following requests;
1 To apply the Protection Law to Korean Hibakusha
Medical expences, special treatments, and
special funeral support should be guaranteed
to all the victims regardless of their races
or nationalities, following the sprits of
the Protection Law.
2 To take responsibility of postwar from
the root points.
Korean people were forced to work for the
country that had invaded their own. According
to our reserch, 107 out of 110 Hibakusha
in Seoul think that Japan is responsible
for atomic bomb sufferings, which is radically
different form the Japanese point of view.
We think that is very important. However,
for the first step, the Korean Society of
Human Rights only requests to fill out the
budget gap between Korean and Japanese which
has been piled up to 300 billion yen. The
calculation is based on the supporsition
that if Korean people had been equally treated
as equal humans to recieve equal aid. They
has requested 230 million already in 1987
based on the same idea..
The chairman of the Korean Society of Human
Rights, Chon San-Sok is telling us that
he would never surrender until all the Korean
people recover human rights that has been
destroyed by Japan.
Take action now!
As we already know, the atomic the bomb effects
1 Kill tons of people in a second
2 Destroy entire livng environment..
3 Keep damaging people for a long time over
generations.
We call this "the ultimate weapon".
In addition of that effects, Korean Hibakusha
have special problems as we have seen here.
Although the Smithsonian Museum failed to
realize the atomic bomb exhibition because
of too many oppositions in United States,
the anti-atomic movement is now very active
around the world.
Also in Japan, lawsuit activities for the
Military and Labor Draft against foreign
people during the war are in progress in
several different locations, typically in
Nagasaki, accusing Mitsubishi Company and
the Japanese Government. The head of the
plaintiff is Kim Sun-Gil of Pusan who is
also Korean Hibakusha.
Let us take action now to save suffering
people especially those of who have no aid
nor help.
Please join us.
(From "The untold story; The 50 years
of Korean Hibakusha" reviced edition)
Further information about the problems of
South Korean Atomic Bomb Victims.
Association of Citizens for Supporting South
Korean Atomic Bomb Victims.
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