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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 19, 1995                   TAG: 9507190059
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: TOKYO                                 LENGTH: Medium

JAPAN GIVES WAR APOLOGY

Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama apologized Tuesday to all women who were forced into prostitution to serve Japan's armed forces during his nation's warfare decades ago in Asia.

``I wish to deeply apologize to all those who ... suffered emotional and physical wounds that can never be healed,'' Murayama said in a statement he issued as supporters inaugurated a private fund to atone to the victims, who have come to be known as ``comfort women.''

Japan's actions in the period just before and during World War II, which ``seriously stained the honor and dignity of many women,'' the prime minister added, ``cannot be excused.''

Murayama's declaration came as the government appointed nine prominent Japanese as executors of a special fund and 20 others as ``petitioners'' to collect donations from the public to compensate victimized women from Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, China and the Netherlands. Of an estimated 200,000 women forced into prostitution, about 1,000 are believed still alive.

No details were announced Tuesday. But, earlier, officials said they hoped executors of the fund can collect at least $22.7 million, or enough to pay each victim $22,700. That sum is close to the compensation both the United States and Canada paid to their citizens of Japanese descent they interned during World War II.

Although the plan to collect donations was carefully structured as a private initiative, the move was the first time that Japan has moved to pay compensation to individuals for its wartime acts.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Kozo Igarashi, in a meeting with foreign correspondents last week, repeated the government's position that all claims against Japan had been settled by peace treaties. ``But it is impermissible to say we don't need to do anything about these problems,'' he added.

Separate from the new fund, the government will make welfare and medical care payments directly to women victims, Igarashi said. Murayama also will send a letter of apology to each woman when the atonement payments are made from the new fund, he added.

``The word 'apology' - not a euphemism - will be used,'' Igarashi said.

by CNB