Japan’s Sado gold mine gains Unesco status after Tokyo pledges to exhibit dark WWII history

The Unesco World Heritage committee on Saturday decided to register Japan’s controversial Sado gold mine as a cultural heritage site after the country agreed to include it in an exhibit of its dark history of abusing Korean labourers during World War II.

The decision signals an improvement in ties between Tokyo and Seoul.

The mine on an island off the coast of Niigata in northern Japan operated for nearly 400 years and was once the world’s largest gold producer before closing in 1989. It was also linked to Japan’s wartime abuse of Korean labourers.

Committee members, including South Korea, gave unanimous support to the listing at Saturday’s annual meeting in New Delhi, India. They said Japan provided additional information, made all necessary amendments to the plan and consulted South Korea over the mine’s wartime history.

The Japanese delegate told the meeting that Japan had installed new exhibition material “to explain the severe conditions of [Korean labourers’] work and remember their hardship”.

Japan acknowledged that Koreans were put to more dangerous tasks in the mine shaft, which caused some to die. Many of them were also given meagre food rations and nearly no days off.

A memorial service for all the workers at the Sado Island gold mines would be held annually at the site, Japanese officials said.

The South Korean delegation said the country expected Japan to keep its pledge to be truthful to history and to show “both the bright and dark side” of the Sado mine to help improve relations over the long term.

Japan had to demonstrate a commitment to face its wartime atrocities to gain support from South Korea, which had opposed the Unesco bid because of the wartime abuse of Korean labourers. Such disputes over history that