South Korean survivor of Japan’s forced labour finds himself at the centre of diplomatic row after court awards compensation

Nearly eight decades after he left the steel mills of Japan, Lee Chun-sik is still driven to tears by the memory of the beatings, burns and forced labour he endured.

He left his native South Korea, which was a colony of Japan from 1910 to 1945, when he was just 17 years old for the promise of being trained as an engineer. But when he arrived in Kamaishi in 1941 he was a virtual prisoner. Lee says he was subject to beatings by Japanese guards if they were unsatisfied with his work, for which he was never paid.

“I can’t think back to those days,” he said. “And trying to think of the past makes me choke up, feel sad and cry.”

Now Lee is at the centre of a developing diplomatic rift between South Korea and Japan, just as the United States is working to shore up alliances in Asia in an effort to create a united front against North Korea and its nuclear programme.

Last week South Korea’s Supreme Court ruled that Lee and three others were entitled to compensation from Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corporation of 100 million won (US$90,000) each, in a case that dragged on for nearly 14 years. Since it was first filed the three other men who sued along with Lee have died, a fact he only learned on the day of the verdict. The trip to Seoul, where the court sits, was so taxing on the 94-year-old that he was too ill to speak to journalists when he returned home.