SADO, Niigata Pref.: The South Korean government held on Monday morning its own ceremony to remember workers at the now-defunct gold mines on Sado Island in the central Japan prefecture of Niigata, which have been put on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
The event followed a similar ceremony held by the Japanese side on Sunday.
In Monday’s ceremony, held at the site on the island of an accommodation facility for mine workers from the Korean Peninsula, some 30 people, including South Korean Ambassador to Japan Park Cheol-hee and nine bereaved family members of the workers from the peninsula, offered silent prayers and flowers.
In an address at the ceremony, Park vowed not to forget the tears and sacrifices of South Korean workers behind the history of the mines. He stressed that the Japanese and South Korean governments must make sincere efforts to ensure that the painful history will continue to be remembered.
On Sunday, a Japanese organizing committee held for the first time a ceremony to remember all Sado gold mine workers, including those from the Korean Peninsula, with the Japanese government represented by Parliamentary Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Akiko Ikuina. The South Korean side decided to skip the event at the last minute on Saturday.
Seoul is believed to have regarded as a problem media reports that Ikuina has visited Tokyo’s war-related Yasukuni Shrine in the past.
Also, South Korean media criticized Ikuina’s speech at Sunday’s ceremony, saying that there was no mention of the workers being “forced” to work at the mines.
Claiming that the Sado mines were a site of forced labor for workers from the Korean Peninsula, the South Korean government had opposed their inscription on the heritage list. After the Japanese government promised to hold an annual memorial ceremony for all Sado mine workers, the South Korean government turned to tolerate the inscription.
JIJI Press