TOKYO (AP) — UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee made the decision Saturday to list Japan’s disputed Sado gold mine as a cultural heritage site after the country agreed to accompany it in an exhibition about its dark history of abuse. against Korean personnel in World War II. .
The move marks an improvement between Tokyo and Seoul.
The mine, located on an island off the coast of Niigata in northern Japan, operated for about 400 years and was the world’s largest gold producer before its end in 1989. It was also similar to Japan’s abuses of Korean personnel during the war.
Committee members, plus South Korea, voted unanimously in favor of the board at Saturday’s annual meeting in New Delhi, India. They said Japan provided more information, made mandatory adjustments to the plan and consulted with South Korea about the mine’s wartime history.
The Japanese delegate told the assembly that Japan had set up new exhibition stands “for the difficult operating situations (of Korean workers) and don’t forget their tricks. “
Japan claimed that the Koreans were subjected to greater responsibilities in the mine shaft, resulting in the deaths of some of them. Many of them also received scant food rations and hardly any days off.
A memorial service will be held at the site for all gold mining personnel on Sado Island, Japanese officials said.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said in a statement that she was “really delighted” with the designation of Sado Island, noting its “extraordinary value as a remarkable cultural heritage. “But the minister has avoided referring to the history of the mine.
The South Korean delegation said the country hopes Japan will fulfill its commitment to be fair to history and show “both the wise and bad sides” of the Sado mine to help relations in the long term.
In Seoul, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry called on Japan to continue to fulfill its mine-related promises and take additional steps to boost better bilateral relations.
Japan had to demonstrate its commitment to confronting the atrocities of war in order to enlist the help of South Korea, which had opposed UNESCO’s candidacy because of wartime abuses against Korean workers. These long-standing disputes have constantly strained bilateral relations. Seoul said some Koreans brought to Japan by the colonization of the Korea Peninsula between 1910 and 1945 were subjected to hard forced labor in the mine.
Historians say Japan used thousands of Korean painters, including those forcibly brought from the Korea Peninsula, in Japanese mines and factories to make up for a shortage of hard work, most of them older men. to the shipment of paintings to the war fronts of Asia and the Pacific. Sado among them.
The Japanese government has long been criticized for its reluctance to talk about the war’s atrocities, adding sexual abuse of Asian women known as “comfort women” and Korean forced laborers.
The Japanese government praised the Sado Island mine for advances in mining generation before and after industrialization, but did not mention its connection to abuses against Korean personnel during World War II.
Japan had first hoped to have the Sado Island mine listed as a World Heritage Site last year, but the documents submitted were deemed inadequate and required more information.
The International Council on Monuments and Sites, which advises the UNESCO committee, in June asked Japan to provide a more complete account of the Sado mines. However, the data requested was basically technical details, it was advised that the site reflect the complete information. History of the mine.
Another debatable Japanese site identified through UNESCO in 2015. Gunkanjima, or Battleship Island, in Nagasaki Prefecture, a former coal mine identified as vital to the Meiji Industrial Revolution in Japan. South Korea protested that the site did not mention Koreans running on the island. triggering a UNESCO resolution urging Japan to provide a more balanced history.
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AP Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed.