This is where you go off and are wrong. A settlement of a claim is NOT compensation and Japan was quite specific on this point.

The archives also verified the existence of the so-called Kim-Ohira memo exchanged between then Japanese Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira and Kim Jong Pil, who was the chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency under the late Park Chung Hee government.

The memo stipulated that Tokyo agreed to provide Seoul with $300 million in grants and $500 million in economic cooperation fund, not for compensation.

It also showed that Seoul pledged not to demand any further compensation for wartime victims, thereby depriving individuals of the right to seek reparations from Japan.

Notice the specific wording. The money was deemed to be for cooporation between the nations and Korea, for getting this cooperation says they won’t sue Japan. But it was specifically NOT compensation.

Now, as mentioned before, is South Korea bound by this treaty signed by a military dictator’s regime and not by elected officials?

Also, can you truly include in this issues that were unknown at the time such as the comfort women issue?

Like most pronouncements ex cathedra effusio, there’s a lot of nonsense here, so we’ll have to sort through it topically, but first a little primer in legal vocabulary and reasoning 101 - really not much more than a light gloss on ordinary usage.

“Compensation” is a benefit, usually the payment of money or money’s worth, conferred by one party on another. In particular, and having reference to the issue at hand, it is such a payment made to offset the “damages” suffered by one party as a result of the conduct of the other. Such damages generally arise as a result of the infliction of bodily harm, property damage or the violation by one party of some other established legal right of the other. Such rights give rise to “claims” for their enforcement, either through the domestic judicial system or some other legitimated forum or procedure.

As between Korea and Japan that procedure was bilateral negotiation as mandated by the Allies and acquiesced in by Japan pursuant to the Articles of Surrender and the Treaty of San Francisco.

That process of negotiation eventuated in several agreements, reference to which already has been made, in which Korea agreed to settle all “claims” of the nation and its people in exchange for a lot of money and money’s worth.

[Bevers also makes the valid point that the real scope of such payments is understated because it does not take account of all the Japanese assets that were effectively appropriated by Korea at the conclusion of the war, not including such of those assets that could be described as having been re-appropriated, e.g., land either taken outright or by illegitimately coercive measure during the colonial period. The NORKS of course got very little of this, since the Russians carted most of their portion away.]

Anyway, both as a matter of ordinary usage and ordinary legal usage, such payments in settlement of such claims is compensation.

Does it matter that the so-called Kim-Ohira Memo allegedly does not refer to compensation in so many words and characterizes the Japanese payments as economic cooperation?

No, for two principal reasons:

1. Assuming arguendo that such memo is properly characterized in such manner, which I cannot confirm, it is profoundly irrelevant to determining how Japan’s obligations under the relevant treaty agreements should be characterized. It shouldn’t need to be said that such treaty agreements take precedence over any such memo. And the language of those agreements is clear. The language of the title, the precatory recitals and Article II(1) all explicitly state that the purpose of the agreements is both to provide for economic cooperation and the settlement of claims. [In fact, the two shouldn't be seen as mutually contradictory, the method mutually agreed by the parties to effect settlement of claims was to engage in economic cooperation, viz., by providing for a substantial portion of Japanese claim compensation payments to be in the form of in-kind economic assistance and in the kncok-on provisions that required the proceeds of Japanese monetary compensation payments to be used for the purchase of additional Japanese goods and services.

2. Thus the import of the Kim-Ohira Memo seems to have been primarily to further clarify, quoting Plunge's language, that no "further compensation" would be due or payable. Apart from the fact that the reference to "further compensation" itself puts paid to the idea that what was beinng provided under the treaty was not compensation, the intent of the Memo seems to have been to further docuemrnt the parties mutual understanding and intentions that the treaty was meant to foreclose any Korean state or Korean private claims for individual compensation.

Now we come to the gumsmack portions of Plunge's pronunicamentos.

An easy one is his suggestion that the treaties can't be deemed to have settled claims like those of the comfort women (which, if you think about it really means all individual claims) because they weren't known at the time. Huh? This is prepesterous on its face. It may not have been known to John Q. Public back in DesMoines or Pembroke, Ontario, but it was certainly known to many, many Koreans and Japanese, including the negotiators, who were the only parties in interest. Hell, even my uncles and cousins who found themselves in Japan and shortly thereafter in Korea at the end of the War knew about it.

As unfair as it may have seemed to the individuals involved, and as unpalatable to Monday morning quaterbacks like Plunge, the plain fact is that the Korean and Japanese negotiators intended to foreclose such claims. [Moreover, it should be noted that it is not only common but pretty much standard practice in crafting legal settlements that the parties agree to resolve all outstanding issues, known and unknown, existing and contingent, etc., etc.]

Second, I fail to see what is disingenuous about pointing out what the treaty provides and how doing so constitutes hiding behind it. Unless of course, you mean to say that people shouldn’t be held to their freely assumed legal obligations.

Which brings us to the real crux of this matter, which is whether South Korea - and, I think, Olunge really wants to say individual South Koreans - should be bound by a “treaty signed by a military dictator’s regime and not by elected officials.”

That’s a pretty big question, about which I’ll just make two observations. First, I hope the answer is yes, since the alternative would mean that no treaty signed by a country whose government is not democratically elected is valid - a position, I’m sure, that would delight whoever may be left from Germany’s Nazi Party in South AMerica and die-hard Japanese partisans of Dai Nippon alike, as well as make a shambles of what passes for international law.

Second, it points up, as I have said, before, that a more fundamental issue for Korea than the moot one of Japanese compensation, is attending to its own laundry.

Hundreds of thousands of Japanese lost their property and investments in Korea when they were forced to leave Korea in 1945. Factories and infrastructure worth millions and millions of dollars were left behind without compensation. I have read that the $800 million Japan gave Korea in 1965 is equivalent to about $10 billion today. Korea was well compensated for a country that suffered no war damage.

The 1951 treaty between Japan and the Allies obliged Japan to settle claims with Korea, which the Allies essentially stole from Japan. The 1965 Treaty stated very clearly that it settled all the claims between Korea and Japan. It is Korea who is being disengenuos by asking Japan to pay more money today.

Settlement of claims IS “compensation”. Japan thus acknowledged liability and paid restitution. And with the publication of the diplomatic record, Korea has finally (been compelled to publicly) acknowledge(d) that in fact all claims of both the nation and its people were in fact completely and finally settled, notwithstanding that Korea itself choose to use the proceeds not to compensate individuals but to jump start its economic development program.

This is where you go off and are wrong. A settlement of a claim is NOT compensation and Japan was quite specific on this point.

The archives also verified the existence of the so-called Kim-Ohira memo exchanged between then Japanese Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira and Kim Jong Pil, who was the chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency under the late Park Chung Hee government.

It also showed that Seoul pledged not to demand any further compensation for wartime victims, thereby depriving individuals of the right to seek reparations from Japan.

Notice the specific wording. The money was deemed to be for cooporation between the nations and Korea, for getting this cooperation says they won’t sue Japan. But it was specifically NOT compensation.

Now, as mentioned before, is South Korea bound by this treaty signed by a military dictator’s regime and not by elected officials?

Also, can you truly include in this issues that were unknown at the time such as the comfort women issue?

There is a lot that is wrong with the 1965 treaty and hiding behind it is disengenuous.

I would say, though, that in Gerry’s case it is the exception that proves the rule.

I note how that Gerry is always calm, never engages in personal attacks, and always puts forth points that have a solid rational underpinning.

You failed even to get this right:

Yes, it is a fucked-up story about a fucked-up custom. I can excuse starving North Korean for eating dogs, but sexually inadequate South Korean “ajoshis,” don’t-tell-us-what-to-do nationalists, and go-native, Korean-wanna-be’s should not be eating them.

Overall, though Gerry’s been mostly a gentleman, much more so than me.

of course you don’t, gerry. the guy made you look like a fricken fool. as for where the debate occured, somewhere at kushibo’s place. find it yourself.

‘my website…’gerry

you maintain a website that has a heading of ‘korean sex’. anytime you see that, you know you got a nut on your hands no matter how ‘rational’ he may come off.

***

1, koreans don’t have to thank the japanese for anything.

2, western understanding is not needed nor asked for.

3, though westerners did suffer under the japanese, their suffering is not germain.

4, japan must come to terms with it’s past on the same level as germany.

Also, people in the Philippines and India are self-confident enough to recognize the positives that came from their being colonized by the Spanish/Americans and Brits, although they may not say it was all sweetness and light.

The fact that nulji (and most of his fellow aggrieved comrades) can only counter this with ridicule speaks volumes.

Yes, I have a Web site, but I do not pay for it, and it has been a while since I have maintained it. Here is the link. Maybe it is time for me to start updating it. As for “Ku’s” destruction of my arguments, maybe you could provide the link since I do not remember reading it?

In my opinion, Korea and the Korean media have a problem with honesty and fairness, especially when dealing with the following subjects:

1) The US and the US military
2) Japan
3) Isreal
4) Foreigners in general
5) Human rights in North Korea
6) Korean colonial history
7) Korean prostitution and sexual slavery
Foreign investment and trade

There may be some other subjects, but I cannot think of them at the moment.

On an individual basis, Koreans are some of the friendliest people I have ever met, and there is no friend more loyal than a Korean friend. Also, on an individual basis, they are open to reason, but there is a group mindset in Korea that the Korean media and the Korean education system has created over the decades that is almost impervious to reason. It is that mindset that I dislike.

When you have close to 50 million Koreans claiming the same thing, a foreigner unfamilar with Korea will assume there is truth in what they are saying, but that is not necessarily the case. North Korean and South Korean propaganda are different, but both countries have been very successful at creating a group mindset that can deflect bullets.