Decisions, decisions.
Via ABC News:
The mayors of San Francisco and Osaka are battling over whether to maintain their “sister city” relationship after a fallout over a “comfort women” statue.
Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura of Osaka, Japan, sent a letter to Mayor London Breed this week that told her of his intention to end formal ties between the cities because of the Comfort Women Memorial statue in San Francisco.
“I am convinced that it is my duty … to disclose the bitter process leading up to the much regrettable conclusion to terminate our sister city relationship,” the letter read.
The statue depicts three females, ages 12 to 20, atop a steel base with an older woman, Kim Hak-sun, the human rights activist, standing to the side. It symbolizes women who were forced into sex slavery at brothels for the Japanese military during World War II.
In its inscription, it reads: “This monument bears witness to the suffering of hundreds of thousands of women and girls euphemistically called ‘comfort women,’ who were sexually enslaved by the Japanese Imperial armed forces in 13 Asian-Pacific countries from 1931 to 1945.”
But Yoshimura said in the letter that the monument presents a “one-sided” message as historical facts, such as the number of people affected and the extent of the Japanese military’s involvement.
Breed responded in a statement that Yoshimura — or any mayor, for that matter — doesn’t have the power to end the relationship.
“One Mayor cannot unilaterally end a relationship that exists between the people of our two cities, especially one that has existed for over sixty years,” she said.