Did S. Korea operate “comfort stations” in the Vietnam War?

Posted on : Apr.25,2015 13:12 KST Modified on : Apr.25,2015 13:12 KST

“That Turkish bath was a ‘welfare center’ set up by the South Korean military exclusively for South Korean troops.”
Did South Korea run prostitution facilities similar to the Japanese
military’s “comfort stations” in Saigon and other cities during the
Vietnam War? This question is drawing new attention after a Japanese
magazine report on the discovery of records suggesting so by the US
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
At one level, the report comes across strongly as an attempt to draw
attention away from Japan after South Korea’s persistent efforts to
demand action from Tokyo to resolve the issue of “comfort women”
forcibly mobilized as sexual slaves to the Japanese military. But the
issue warrants investigation by the South Korean government - and if the
allegations prove true, a serious effort should be launched to resolve
the matter.

The report in question was printed in an extra-large “spring special”
edition on Apr. 2 by the Shukan Bunshun weekly newsmagazine, one of the
leading forces in promoting anti-Korean sentiment in Japan. The article
was written by Noriyuki Yamaguchi, chief of the Washington bureau of the
Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS). Yamaguchi explained that he wrote the
piece after hearing advice from an acquaintance he met before taking his
post in the US capital. “There are unconfirmed reports that the South
Korean military operated ‘welfare centers’ all over South Vietnam during
the war,” he recalled the friend telling him. “If it’s possible to
support this with data from the US government, then that makes South
Korea ‘perpetrators’ on the comfort women issue. If President Park
Geun-hye and the South Korean public can regain their objectivity and
approach the comfort women issue seriously, then the situation could
change.”
Yamaguchi proceeded to track down White House and State Department
diplomatic documents from the war through different branches of the
NARA, as well as trial and crime records. In July 2014, the long and
difficult process paid off when he finally located a letter sent to Gen.
Chae Myeong-sin, the South Korean military’s first commander in Vietnam
between 1965 and 1969, by the US military command stationed in Saigon
(now Ho Chi Minh City). While it did not indicate the exact date the US
military wrote it, Yamaguchi said the surrounding circumstances
suggested it would have been written “between January and April 1969.”
According to the article, the letter makes reference to the illegal
diversion of large amounts of US supplies by the South Korea military in
Vietnam. One of the places mentioned as a backdrop for the crime was a
“Turkish bath for South Korean troops” located in central Saigon. The
letter also reportedly refers to “acts of prostitution taking place” and
“Vietnamese women working” at the Turkish bath. “While it is a welfare
center exclusively for South Korean troops, US troops are also able to
make special use for a fee of US$38 per visit,” the letter is quoted as
saying.
After inquiring with US veterans who were aware of the situation in
Saigon at the time, Yamaguchi heard reports that the “Turkish bath”
there was a prostitution facility, as well as accounts that “the
Vietnamese women who worked at the facilities were all very young and
came from farming villages.”
Concluding the piece, Yamaguchi writes, “If President Park Geun-hye
truly sees the comfort women issue as a human rights issue rather than a
tool for domestic politics and diplomacy . . . then she will take the
lead in investigating [the allegations] as with the example of the South
Korean comfort women. Otherwise, [South Korea] would be proving to the
international community that it is a country that ignores truths that
are inconvenient to itself and refuses to confront history.”

Distasteful as it may be, the argument is also difficult to refute. Now
it’s time for Seoul to sit down with Vietnamese authorities to find out
the truth not only about the civilian massacres that took place during
the Vietnam War, but also about the extent of military authorities’
involvement in operating and managing “welfare stations” for their
troops - and to take appropriate follow-up action.

By Gil Yun-hyung, Tokyo correspondent

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