THE keepers of the Yasukuni shrine, where rising sun flags stir in the summer breeze and towering gates salute the souls of fallen soldiers, have a new rival in the battle for Japan’s conscience.

A group of Japanese women braved threats from right-wing extremists this weekend to open a museum exposing the crimes of the imperial Japanese army. Their aim is to force the public to face the facts about sexual slavery in the second world war.

It is a politically loaded gesture, one week before Japan commemorates the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which led to the announcement of the country’s unconditional surrender on August 15, 1945.

“It’s the 60th anniversary and yet right now I see a movement to wipe out the memory of the war of aggression,” said Nishino Rumiko, the woman behind the project.

“The failure to bring the Showa Emperor (Hirohito) to account for the war continues to haunt Japan today and it’s still a taboo,” she said.

Her centre is small compared with the grandeur of Yasukuni, whose museum was recently renovated at great expense to present an impassioned and unrepentant view of all Japan’s wars since 1866.

However, Rumiko, 53, hopes her exhibition will show the world that many Japanese understand the violent fury that has gripped China and South Korea in recent months about visits to the shrine by Junichiro Koizumi, the prime minister.

“It’s natural they should be angry,” she said. “Our soldiers had contempt for people in colonial Korea and in the occupied countries.”

One living witness has her fight for justice chronicled in the exhibit. She is 82-year-old Song Shin Do, a Korean who was trapped into sexual slavery in one of the notorious “comfort stations” provided for Japanese troops in China.

“I was only 16,” Song recalled last week. “I was so shocked that I had no tears. I serviced Japanese soldiers. Sometimes there were 50 or 60 a day.”

In a 10-year legal case in which she has demanded an official apology, Song testified that she saw one woman drink poison and another murdered for refusing to have sex with a soldier.

“I had three babies,” she said in a bleak, flat tone. “All were boys. One was stillborn. The other two were left behind in China.” She never found her sons, who if they survived would now be in their sixties.

The Supreme Court finally ruled against Song in 2003, but she said she would fight to the end of her days to force the Japanese state to utter the word hansei, which can be translated as reflect, repent or regret.

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