At the 44th meeting of the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women held on July 23, its members demanded Japan honestly apologize for the crimes related to sexual slavery and make reparation for them. But the Japanese delegation tried hard to shun apology, claiming that the Japanese government has already expressed "remorse," adding that the issue had been legally settled.

How preposterous it is!

If the issue of "comfort women" is to find a legal settlement, Japan should fully admit the crimes and make apology and reparation for them.

But it is keen to keep them buried into oblivion, far from making an honest apology and full reparation for them.

All the information about the crimes related to the sexual slavery perpetrated by imperial Japan so far known to the international community is not available through the investigation conducted by Japan itself but was obtained through the testimonies and probes made by its victims, bereaved families of the dead and international organizations. Whenever the above-mentioned crimes were exposed and condemned by parliaments of different countries and international meetings, the Japanese authorities desperately hampered the solution of the issue.

The Abe regime went the lengths of totally denying the crimes.

How can Japan dare say about a solution and "remorse" as it refuses to admit the most hideous human rights abuse recognized by the world?

Japan cites "Murayama's statement" made in 1995 as an example of apology. If this were an honest state apology made by Japan for the crimes related to the sexual slavery, it should have been accompanied by sincere state reparation for them.

But Japan was so mean as to project a non-governmental fund for this purpose. It is now creating impression that this fund helped fully settle the above-said issue. This is an intolerable mockery of the victims and the international community. It clearly indicates what extent Japan's spiritual and moral degradation has reached.

Conscience represents a mirror showing one's conduct and a barometer distinguishing truth from lies.

Conscience is now getting blemished and discarded in Japan just as what happened in the past when it regarded 200,000 Korean women as war supplies and expendables and its Imperial Army committed crimes related to the sexual slavery unprecedented in history in their brutal and despicable nature.

That is why Japan is letting loose a spate of lies, far from feeling ashamed of those crimes just as its troops mercilessly violated the dignity, integrity and chastity of so many women of Korea and other Asian countries and killed them.

The serious and dangerous nature of the issue lies in that Japan is plagued with the same spiritual and moral degradation as that prevailed there in the last century when it turned many parts of Asia into shambles of war and scenes of genocide.

History records a lot of wars and not a few countries which earned the ill-fame of being war criminal states. But none of them are so mean and brazen-faced as Japan which has made a mockery of the victims of the monstrous atrocities and their descendents with a wordplay without redeeming its past crimes. Germany, once a fascist state like Japan, and Italy, architect of fascism, turned over a new leaf after settling their inglorious past.

As seen above, it is only Japan that has an axe to grind, still in the mire of mental and moral degradation.

Japan is not entitled to talk about conscience unless it has made an honest and adequate apology and reparation for such hideous crime as the sexual slavery.

Japan will never be able to escape the curse and isolation from the international community if it continues playing sleight of hand, seized with the wicked and brazen-faced disposition inherent to an island country and an anachronistic wild ambition for domination and expansion.

The army and people of the DPRK will surely force Japan to pay for all the thrice-cursed crimes related to the sexual slavery committed by the Japanese imperialists in the past.