South Korean Court Orders Mitsubishi of Japan to Pay for Forced Wartime Labor

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/world/asia/south-korea-wartime-compensation-japan.html

By Choe Sang-Hun
Nov. 29, 2018

South Korea’s Supreme Court ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan on Thursday to compensate South Koreans forced to work in its factories during World War II, the second such ruling in a month that has bedeviled relations between the two key American allies in Asia.

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Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910 until Japan’s 1945 surrender in World War II, and in the decades since, South Korea and Japan have been locked in highly sensitive territorial and other disputes rooted in that colonial era.

The rulings on Thursday had been expected since the Supreme Court issued a landmark verdict on Oct. 30 finding Japan’s Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal guilty of exploiting forced labor during Japan’s colonial rule.

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Hundreds of thousands of Koreans were forced to work for Japan’s war efforts in Japan, China and elsewhere, according to South Korean historians.

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President Moon Jae-in of South Korea has argued that the 1965 agreement should not prevent the victims of the Japan’s colonial rule from seeking redress. This month, his government decided to shut down a Japanese-funded foundation created to help Korean women who were forced to work in brothels for Japan’s military during World War II

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