In those days the Japanese imperialists left no means untried to make legitimate the "Ulsa (1905) Five-point Treaty, a product of their policy of colonizing Korea, and but faced strong opposition of Kojong.

Kojong stubbornly rejected the treaty, declaring that "he would not accept it, though he may die at the Royal Ancestral Shrine as to allow the conclusion of the treaty is little short of pushing the country to ruin".

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.

Meanwhile, Kojong categorically rejected the "treaty" to the last and conducted secret diplomacy to have it nullified. In 1907 three emissaries of Kojong such as Ri Jun went to the 2nd International Peace Conference where they declared "the treaty" null and void and laid bare the Japanese imperialists' crude infringement upon Korea's sovereignty.

Japan regarded such incident as an occasion of finally depriving Emperor Kojong of his authority.

Ito hatched a plot in real earnest to dethrone Kojong, absurdly claiming that it was mockery and insult to Japan that Korea dispatched emissaries to the international conference without the permit of the "resident-general" as the latter "transferred" the right to diplomacy to the former.

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.

In 1921, the truth about the poisoning of Kojong was disclosed by the "2nd declaration on independence" worked out and published by the "Korean Provisional Government" in Shanghai and the personal letter from a child of Kojong's concubine.

Recorded in the diary of Yuzaburo Kuratomi, director of the auditing bureau at Japan's royal office in 1919, which was opened to public at an international scientific symposium a few years ago is information that he was told that Terauchi, the first "governor-general" of Japan in Korea, ordered Hasekawa to poison Emperor Kojong for adamantly refusing to recognize the treaty.

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.

All the crimes committed by the Japanese imperialists against the Korean people during the whole period of their occupation of Korea were thrice-cursed crimes against humanity.

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.

"The agreement" is intended to cover up the sexual slavery with deceptive apology and payment of a petty amount of money. It is absolutely intolerable as it is a product of politically motivated bargain in which international justice and victims' just demands were ignored.

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.