
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 25, 1990                   TAG: 9005250079
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: TOKYO                                LENGTH: Short

JAPAN, S. KOREA STAGE 'APOLOGY SUMMIT'

The leaders of Japan and South Korea staged an elaborate show of historical reflection - and Japanese contrition - Thursday, making tense and carefully measured remarks aimed at putting an unhappy past behind the two East Asian neighbors.

The occasion may go down in the history books as the "apology summit." South Korean President Roh Tae Woo began an emotionally charged visit after weeks of controversy over whether the Tokyo government would meet his demands that Emperor Akihito offer a clear apology for Japan's brutal colonization of the Korean peninsula earlier this century.

Akihito made a tightly restrained expression of "regret" during a state banquet in Roh's honor.

It remains to be seen how well the emperor's statement will be received in South Korea, where bitterness about the 1910-1945 period of Japanese colonization remains strong. Thousands of students demonstrated in three South Korean cities Thursday, shouting anti-Japanese slogans, burning Japanese flags and denouncing Roh's trip, according to news reports.

Akihito's father, Hirohito, reigned from 1926 until his death at age 87; Koreans were forced into subservience, for the most part, under his name.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu reminded Roh of his government's decision to expand legal rights for new generations of Korean residents in Japan, and said that Japan was considering a plan to donate about $26 million to a fund for medical treatment of Korean survivors of the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

by CNB