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Community Corner

Korean Group: No Remaining Objections to Proposed Comfort Memorial

KACE said this week that it will drop some of its objections to the proposed Comfort Women Memorial, and struck a conciliatory tone toward borough officials.

Following a now nearly month-long controversy surrounding the proposed Fort Lee Comfort Memorial, Korean American Civic Empowerment (KACE) is now striking a more conciliatory tone and deferring to local groups on some aspects of the design to which it previously objected.

The Fort Lee Korean American Vietnam War Veterans originally proposed the memorial honoring 200,000 women forced into sexual service by the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War. KACE, based in New York and Hackensack, says that it became involved because the proposed wording of the monument was “inappropriate.”

The controversy deepened when KACE president Dongchan Kim said in a letter that the council would “face a strong opposition from the Korean American community” at the polls should the wording go unchanged.

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Mayor Mark Sokolich stressed that the council’s position has always been for the groups involved to reach a consensus on the wording and design of the memorial before its consideration for approval.

“Government has always been steady,” he said. “We’ve always said that we wanted a consensus. We left it last when we told the groups in attendance that they are to present in writing the language they want on the memorial, confirming that they are all in agreement with it.”

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KACE announced two weeks ago that a consensus had been reached on the wording of the memorial, but further objections to the design had remained and the group sought additional inscriptions of first hand testimony on the back of the memorial.

KACE program director Nuri Han struck a more conciliatory tone in an interview with Patch earlier this week, saying that the group has agreed on a design created by the local groups, and regrets any ill will between their group and borough officials stemming from the controversy.

“We really appreciate the Fort Lee government,” she said, “and their willingness to have this memorial and educate the Fort Lee residents about this inhumane history.”

She explained that the letter had been released due to miscommunications with the borough, and to ensure the opportunity to air their concerns in a meeting with officials.

“If they feel they are threatened by us, our president told us he wants to apologize,” Han said. “But the purpose of the letter is not threatening anyone. The purpose of the letter was to set up a meeting with the Fort Lee government. We tried to meet with them but we couldn’t do it.”

Sokolich said that the controversy has reached a point that wrongly pits the government against the memorial, and though he stressed that approval is still pending, he says the plan will be reviewed once a final design is submitted that meets the approval of the local groups involved.

“A lot of folks took a lot of different liberties, and we’re now tired of it,” Sokolich said. “And it’s going to be done this way if it’s even done at all.”

Han said that though there had been some objections to the design, which depicts a woman and a Japanese imperial flag - the group had feared inflaming interethnic tensions - KACE will defer to the local groups that initiated the memorial.

"If we erect it, we have to erect the right one, so that takes time," she said. "The design is set."

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