Japan Can Never Cover up Crimes Committed against Korea: KCNA Commentary

Pyongyang, January 21 (KCNA) -- 97 years have passed since the Japanese imperialists poisoned Kojong, emperor of Feudal Korea. Well aware of the fact that the treaty fabricated through fraud and swindle could take effect only after Emperor Kojong examined and ratified it, Hirobumi Ito, chieftain of aggression, made desperate efforts to force the emperor to sign it and put the seal of the state on it. On Jan. 22, 1919 the Japanese imperialists finally poisoned 67 years old Kojong and killed two waiting maids who had witnessed how he was poisoned. The Japanese imperialists' poisoning of Kojong, supreme representative of the then sovereign state, was a blatant encroachment upon Korea's sovereignty, unprecedented state-sponsored terrorism and unpardonable insult to the Korean people. Japan is obliged to admit its state and legal responsibility for its war crimes and hideous unethical crimes including the sexual slavery and make honest apology and reparation acceptable to all victims. However, it is claiming that the "issue of the sexual slavery was finally and irreversibly settled" through the recent "agreement" made with south Korea to settle the issue of the sexual slavery for the Imperial Japanese Army. It was the international hideous crime against humanity that Japan forced women of various countries including at least 200 000 Korean women into sexual service. Japan would be well advised to seriously repent of its past crimes committed against the Korean nation and make honest apology and reparation and stop at once taking the lead in the anti-DPRK campaign, while whetting the sword of reinvasion. -0-