Seijuro Arafune 荒舩 清十郎 | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | November 25, 1980 | (aged 73)
Nationality | Japanese |
Occupation(s) | Politician, Cabinet Minister |
Seijuro Arafune (荒舩清十郎, Arafune Seijūrō, March 9, 1907 - November 25, 1980) was a Japanese politician and a Minister of Transport. He was a member of Liberal Democratic Party. Arafune resigned the Minister of Transport by the alleged abuse of power in 1966. Among these was requiring a National Railway express train to make regular stops at a station located in his own parliamentary constituency.[1]
Among his most controversial actions was making a now discredited claim about the death toll of comfort women. This statement has been widely spread, with many books writing that "142,000 (or 145,000) Korean comfort women were killed by the Japanese army" or "Only about 25 per cent of Comfort women have survived".[2]
He was born in Katashino village, Chichibu District, Saitama currently Chichibu, Saitama in 1907.[3]
He made a public speech at his home constituency regarding the death toll of Comfort women in 1965:[2]
They (Korean) say Koreans were drafted by Japan during the war and taken from Korea to work, and those who worked well were used as soldiers, and 576,000 of those soldiers are now dead. There are claims that 142,000 Korean comfort women are dead, killed by the Japanese military's sexual abuses.[2]
None of the figures given by Arafune have any basis whatsoever.[2] During the 1965 Korea-Japan Treaty negotiations, Korea's position was that 1,032,684 Koreans had been recruited to serve as laborers, soldiers, and personnel, and that 102,603 of these had been injured or had died. This figure differs with the one he gave by 576,000. Moreover, at that time, no mention was made of comfort women.[2] However, many reports and books cited this figure directly or indirectly without fact-checking it. Some examples are as follows:
His tale is attributed to his propensity to use irresponsible numbers when making public speeches. The former speaker of the House of Representatives Hajime Tamura wrote the following in his book:[15]
I have been to Mr. Arafune's constituency to help him in an election campaign. Mr. Arafune says "That party was financed by the Soviet Union" and indicated the amount of money in quite small details like "some million some hundred thousand". However listening the numbers carefully, he said completely different numbers each time he made a speech. So I asked him "Mr. Arafune, why are the numbers in your inside's stories completely different each time?" Then he answered "As I said random numbers, they won't be consistent. I forgot the numbers I said at the previous place." I said "However your numbers have specific fractions." He answered "People don't believe the numbers without fractions."[15]