Another Attempt to Deny Japan’s History

ニューヨークタイムスの新年３日の社説を引用いたしました。
最初と最後のフレーズだけ意訳しておきます。
英文と完全に相関性をもたせる翻訳は時間の浪費なのです＾＾。
ここは、英文のまま、味わうのが趣（おもむき）というものです。
謝ったり、開き直ったり、これも人間の性（さが）でしょう。
それでも、自由にものを言う権利は、まだ保証されております。
中国ではこうは行かないのです。

cite from Newyork Times Editorial

Another Attempt to Deny Japan’s History
歴史を歪曲する阿部首相の問題発言
Published: January 2, 2013

Few relationships are as important to stability in Asia as the one between Japan and South Korea. Yet Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, seems inclined to start his tenure with a serious mistake that would inflame tensions with South Korea and make cooperation harder. He has signaled that he might seek to revise Japan’s apologies for its World War II aggression, including one for using Koreans and other women as sex slaves.
日韓関係はアジアの安定にとって、とても大切なものである。
安倍首相の不用意な発言で韓国との関係の緊張が高まっている。
すでに決着している慰安婦問題、日本の戦争責任、謝罪を見直そうとしているのだ。

In 1993, Japan finally acknowledged that the Japanese military had raped and enslaved thousands of Asian and European women in army brothels, and offered its first full apology for those atrocities. A broader apology by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama in 1995 conceded that “through its colonial rule and invasion,” Japan had caused “tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations.”

In an interview with the Sankei Shimbun newspaper, Mr. Abe, a right-wing nationalist, was quoted by Reuters on Monday as saying he wants to replace the 1995 apology with an unspecified “forward looking statement.” He said that his previous administration, in 2006-7, had found no evidence that the women who served as sex slaves to Japan’s wartime military had, in fact, been coerced. However, at a news conference last week, the chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said that Mr. Abe would uphold the 1995 apology but hinted he may revise the 1993 statement.

It is not clear how Mr. Abe, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, might modify the apologies, but he has previously made no secret of his desire to rewrite his country’s wartime history. Any attempt to deny the crimes and dilute the apologies will outrage South Korea, as well as China and the Philippines, which suffered under Japan’s brutal wartime rule.

Mr. Abe’s shameful impulses could threaten critical cooperation in the region on issues like North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Such revisionism is an embarrassment to a country that should be focused on improving its long-stagnant economy, not whitewashing the past.
安倍首相の、この恥知らずの発言はいただけない。
関係諸国との関係を悪化させるし、それで北朝鮮核ミサイルの抑止措置等にも支障が出る。
歴史の事実を歪曲するようなうわべだけの手法で日本が再生できるのか！
日本を再生させるために、もっと他にやることがあるはずだ。