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MESSAGE FROM THE CONVENORS
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| The Women's International War Crimes Tribunal will run across the 8th - 12th of December, the last month of this century. We approach the 21st century with hope-hope for peace. Women especially yearn for peace because our situation in armed conflicts today is no better than it was for our sisters at the time of the Second World War. It makes us angry that a male-dominated world allows crimes like systematic rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy and child rape to persist and remain unpunished - partly because grave violations of women's human rights are callously accepted as if they were inevitable consequences of war. Japan's conduct has exemplified this lack of accountability for grave war crimes against women. With unprecedented brutality, the Japanese Imperial Army committed crimes of violence against women on a scale so massive, its officials could not have been ignorant of these violations. There is historical evidence to prove this. The testimonies of women survivors confirm this. Despite this, the post-war Japanese government has refused to conduct a thorough investigation and has refused to officially acknowledge these crimes while it pretends that it has shown genuine remorse. The Japanese state has never brought its own war criminals to court. On the contrary, many of these criminals have become eligible for government pensions, others have even been allowed to return to high public office and Japanese officialdom continues to insist that it has fulfilled its responsibility to the victims of its aggression. In the last decade of the 20th century, women survivors have filed numerous cases in Japanese courts. None have succeeded. Most of the victims are aged and now believe that there is no hope for their cause in these courts. A number of them have already passed away and those that remain wonder if the Japanese state is simply waiting for them to die, hoping for the problem to die with them. We cannot allow this impunity to go unchallenged. The Women's International War Crimes Tribunal will be survivors' truest day in court. It will establish and affirm the legal basis for the prosecution of crimes of violence committed against women in situations of war and armed conflict. This Tribunal will become, in times to come, a genuine symbol of people's conscience and indignation, despite it's inability to enforce its judgements, which will be rendered in summary on the final day of the Tribunal, and in full on International Women's Day, March 8th, 2001. We are grateful to all the judges, prosecutors, legal advisers, advocates, and supporters forheeding the call of women survivors of war crimes and lending their invaluable support to this effort. Together, we all honor the courage of the survivors and offer them our most profound gratitude for coming forward. Their courage certainly contributes to ending the impunity with which sexual violence and other crimes against women have been committed and helps recover justice and dignity for all women in the hope that we will see the day when violence against women is no more. |
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December 8 2000 Tokyo
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