by Liu Fang


THE HAGUE Nike Air VaporMax Plus Men's White , Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Japan should acknowledge the Japanese military atrocities during the occupation of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and compensate surviving Dutch victims, J.F. van Wagtendonk, president of the Hague-based Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts told Xinhua.


Earlier in January, the Dutch foundation has sent such a petition addressed to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe via the Japanese ambassador in The Hague after Japan and South Korea reached an accord to purportedly bring an end to a lengthy dispute between both countries over the former's culpability and accountability for the "comfort women" issue.


"Apparently Japan has the funds to compensate its war time victims. Money alone does not compensate the immeasurable and painful experiences and incurable physical and psychological wounds. Nor can it be limited to Korean 'comfort women' only. Other victims of the Japanese military during World War II demand from Japan acknowledgement and compensation," said the petition.


For the Dutch from Dutch East Indies, the Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts can, with the Japanese government, establish a Foundation for the purpose of providing moral and financial support to the surviving victims of the Japanese military atrocities and destruction. Japanese war time companies could contribute to the Foundation too, thus settling Japanese honorary debts, concluded the petition, of which Xinhua has got a copy.


Between 300,000 to 350,000 Dutch people were in the former Dutch colony in 1942 when Japan invaded. Between 100,000 to 120,000 were sent into concentration camps, and about 40,000 military and civil servants were locked up in Prisoners of War camps. More than 160,000 were oppressed outside of the concentration camps, but suffered as badly of the Japanese military terror. More than 45,000 Dutch died and more than 75,000 of the surviving Dutch suffered incurable disorders, according to statistics from the foundation.


"This is only a rough estimation. They are still finding secret cemeteries there [in Indonesia]. Besides, Indonesia lost 2 million people or even more during the war," said Mr. Van Wagtendonk.


"The Japanese military were brutal. They conducted deliberately war crimes and one of the crimes was 'comfort women'. We estimate there were about 400 Dutch girls taken from the camps to become 'comfort women'," he added.


The majority of the Dutch "comfort women" did not come forward to tell their stories because of pains and shame. For those who had came forward, 78 Dutch girls and a small number of Dutch boys were compensated by the Asian Women's Fund, a private fund set up in 1994 to distribute monetary compensation to "comfort women", which was partly financed by the Japanese government and dissolved in 2007.


"Administratively it was done correctly, but this was a not real apology. One of the Dutch 'comfort women', Ellen Corry van der Ploeg, who is dead now, refused to accept the compensation," Mr. Van Wagtendonk told Xinhua.


Ms. Van der Ploeg was one of the few Dutch "comfort women" who came forward in the 1990s. "I was very annoyed with the Japanese people for their lack of self-criticism and responsibility. This is why I refused to accept the money the Japanese government offered to the Dutch victims of forced prostitution," she explained when telling her story in a brochure entitled "Eyewitness of War" published by the Japanese Honorary Debts Foundation.


As part of a latest deal reached last December, Japan agreed to pay 1 billion yen (8.3 million U.S. dollars) from its national budget to create a new foundation to support the former "comfort women".


"Women were coerced to be sex slaves, but in the deal 'coercion' is not mentioned any more. And the deal links the compensation with the removal of the statue 'Young Comfort Woman' erected in front of the Japa