TOKYO, 27 Jul: The UNESCO World Heritage committee on Saturday decided to register Japan\u2019s controversial Sado gold mine as a cultural heritage site after the country agreed to include it in an exhibit of its dark history of abusing Korean laborers during World War II.
\nThe decision signals an improvement in ties between Tokyo and Seoul.
\nThe mine on an island off the coast of Niigata in northern Japan operated for nearly 400 years and was once the world\u2019s largest gold producer before closing in 1989. It was also linked to Japan\u2019s wartime abuse of Korean laborers.
\nCommittee members, including South Korea, gave unanimous support to the listing at Saturday\u2019s annual meeting in New Delhi, India. They said Japan provided additional information, made all necessary amendments to the plan and consulted with South Korea over the mine\u2019s wartime history.
\nThe Japanese delegate told the meeting that Japan has installed new exhibition material \u201cto explain the severe conditions of (Korean laborers\u2019) work and remember their hardship.\u201d
\nJapan acknowledged that Koreans were put to more dangerous tasks in the mine shaft, which caused some to die. Many of them were also given meager food rations and nearly no days off.
\nA memorial service for all the workers at the Sado Island gold mines will be held annually at the site, Japanese officials said.
\nJapan\u2019s Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said in a statement that she was \u201ctruly delighted\u201d by Sado island\u2019s designation, underscoring its \u201cextraordinary value as an exceptional cultural heritage.\u201d But the minister avoided referring to the mine\u2019s history.
\nThe South Korean delegation said the country expects Japan to keep its pledge to be truthful to history and to show \u201cboth the bright and dark side\u201d of the Sado mine in order to help improve relations over the long term.
\nIn Seoul, South Korea\u2019s foreign ministry called on Japan to continue living up to its promises on the mine and take additional steps to sustain the momentum in improving bilateral ties.
\nJapan had to demonstrate a commitment to face its wartime atrocities in order to gain support from South Korea, which had opposed the UNESCO bid because of the wartime abuse of Korean laborers. Such disputes over history that have consistently strained bilateral ties. Seoul has said some Koreans brought to Japan during its 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula were put to forced labor at the mine.
\nHistorians say Japan used hundreds of thousands of Korean laborers, including those forcibly brought from the Korean Peninsula, at Japanese mines and factories to make up for labor shortages, as most working-age men were sent to battlefronts across Asia and the Pacific. Sado was among them.
\nJapan\u2019s government has long been criticized for its reluctance to discuss wartime atrocities, including the sexual abuse of Asian women known as \u201ccomfort women\u201d and Korean forced laborers.
\nJapanese authorities have hailed the Sado Island mine for advancements in mining technology before and after industrialization but made no mention of its connection to the abuse of Korean laborers during WWII.
\nJapan initially hoped to get the Sado Island mine listed as a World Heritage site last year but filed documents were deemed insufficient and needed more information. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TOKYO, 27 Jul: The UNESCO World Heritage committee on Saturday decided to register Japan\u2019s controversial Sado gold mine as a cultural heritage site after the country agreed to include it in an exhibit of its dark history of abusing Korean laborers during World War II. The decision signals an improvement in ties between Tokyo and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-245186","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}