Japan pays Korean forced laborers 99 yen each for work from 1944 to 1945.

From the 세계일보.

From the Korea Herald, an article a couple commenters told me is not about the so-called "comfort women," as I originally misread:

Victims of forced labor under Japan's colonial rule expressed resentment at Tokyo's recent payment of 99 yen ($1.08), or 1,280 won, in welfare pension refund.

Tokyo sent the money to seven Korean women who filed a suit against the Japanese government in 1998 to claim the value of a welfare pension fund that they paid into while working at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries between October 1944 and August 1945.

The plaintiffs and the civic group that supports them denounced the Japanese government for not reflecting the inflationary value of the amount they had paid.

"It is just mortifying beyond words that 99 yen is the result of my 65 years of waiting," 78-year-old plaintiff Yang Geum-deok said in a press conference in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul yesterday.

Yang flopped down on the ground as she sobbed while several other victims threw coins in anger at the Japanese embassy.

Paying 99 yen is an insult, a move so unbelievably crass that it would have been wiser to not have paid anything at all. About the repeated demands of compensation and apologies from the Japanese government, I understand of course holding Japan accountable for its history and for accepting responsibility for what it did in the first half of the 20th century (just as I would like an honest reckoning of all countries' histories). Part of an honest reckoning, then, would require some of this outrage to be directed at the Korean government.

After all, in 1965 the Korean government accepted lump-sum payments from Japan in exchange for dropping further individual compensation claims, and used most of the money---including that intended for compensation---for development projects. Here's an excerpt from the Korea Times in August:

The issue of forced labor during the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945) is creating a new battle ― this time between the victims and their families and the South Korean government.

In response to the petitions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade came out publicly after a long silence and said the government isn't willing to increase the amount of compensation.

The government's current compensation is based on an estimate in 1945, and victims have challenged it to raise the amount.

Successive governments have remained silent for many years, coming under attack as a result. Many victims and their families have also filed lawsuits against the Japanese government.

But, surprisingly, this time the government admitted that Japan had already paid compensation.

The administration said it came in the form of economic assistance of $3 billion, separate from the $5 billion in official development assistance that Japan gave to Korea in line with the reconciliation treaty in 1965.

Former President Park Chung-hee used all the funds to lay the foundations for economic development, such as building POSCO, according to the government.

The government gave only 300,000 won to each family of the dead during the colonial period, which the victims and their family members said was minimal.

That lump sum came with the agreement that no more claims could be made against the Japanese government. It's mentioned in the Herald article from December 25th:

The eight plaintiffs had filed a compensation suit for damages against the Japanese government in 1999, but a Japanese court turned it down last year, saying the 1965 Korea-Japan Treaty cleared all compensation for colonization.

Here's what Wikipedia says about the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea signed in 1965:

In January 2005, the South Korean government disclosed 1,200 pages of diplomatic documents that recorded the proceeding of the treaty. The documents, kept secret for 40 years, recorded that South Korea agreed to demand no compensations, either at the government or individual level, after receiving $800 million in grants and soft loans from Japan as compensation for its 1910–45 colonial rule in the treaty.[1]

The documents also recorded that the Korean government demanded a total of 364 million dollars in compensation for the 1.03 million Koreans conscripted into the workforce and the military during the colonial period,[2] at a rate of 200 dollars per survivor, 1,650 dollars per death and 2,000 dollars per injured person.[3] However, the South Korean government used most of the grants for economic development,[4] failing to provide adequate compensation to victims by paying only 300,000 won per death in compensating victims of forced labor between 1975 and 1977.[5] Instead, the government spent most of the money establishing social infrastructures, founding POSCO, building Gyeongbu Expressway and the Soyang River Dam.[6]

Some may argue now that the 1965 agreement was signed when South Korea was in a position of relative weakness, and that it should be open to renegotiation. However, it was also signed at a time when national development was more important than individual rights and, evidentally, the claims of forced laborers. Looks like they should take some of those banners and those projectiles down the street.