2007 Annual APHAFIC Meeting

The APHAFIC held its annual meeting  in the evening of May 12th , Saturday, at Jasmine Chinese Seafood Chinese restaurant. Nancy Lo gave an annual report of the activities from June 2006- May 2007, which can be found on APHAFIC new website: http://aphafic.org.  Jack Meng, VP and the chair of outreach program, gave a brief report of the activities of the outreach program at San Diego High school and Northern County Chinese School. The keynote speaker was Ms. Jean Chung, a human rights activist working for the victims of World War II war crime victims. She is president of Historical Justice Now (www.historicaljustice.org) and U.S. coordinator of the International Solidarity Council demanding the Settlement of Japan's Past, a network of 8 countries' civilian organizations working for the redress movement for Japan war-time atrocities and historical disputes. 

Ms. Chung’s presentation included two parts: Justice for comfort women: progress of HR 121 and Her interviews with may comfort women in Korea. Ms. Chung elaborated Japanese government's attitude toward 'Comfort Women' and the House Resolution 121 proposed by House Representative Michael Honda (CA ¨C 15) early this year plus the recent activism which brought up the changes in public opinion in the United States. She called for supporting of this HR 121. This resolution calls on the government of Japan to formally and unambiguously apologize for and acknowledge the tragedy that comfort women endured at the hands of its Imperial Army during World War II.  She pleaded to the audience to write to their congress representatives to co-sponsor this resolution. Note as of May 24, 2007, there were a total of 129 House Members from both Parties Co-sponsor H.Res.121 including all five congress representatives in San Diego ( http://rnrc.org/SexSlavery.htm ).   Among those comfort women interviewed by her, some of them were fragile and one of them died recently.                             

Many high schools students attended this dinner meeting to learn about WWII history, among them are Jesse Yang, Vivian Feig, Crystal Chiang and Lian Guo. Jesse Yang was one of students in the credit class of Northern County Chinese School (NCCS), who attended lectures on WWII arranged out APHAFIC outreach program in March and May this year. One of the requirements for the class was to write an essay on WWII history in Asia. Jesse’s excellent essay won him two history books of his choice from APHFIC: ‘A plague upon humanity’ by Dan Barenblatt and ‘My hitch in hell’ by Lester Tennney. APHAFIC thanks NCCS for collaboration of APHAFIC outreach program. Among 60 attendees to the annual meeting were special guest: John Vromen, a WWII Flying Tigers pilot and Air Group one Col. Carl Silber. Vromen talked about his experience in Kunming, China during WWII and Col Silber announced the upcoming exhibit of C-46, the "CHINA DOLL" and the P-40 "FLYING TIGER" at the Gillespie Filed, El Cajon on June 16 and 17^th.

Location: Jasmine Restaurant, 4609 Convoy St.  San Diego,  858-268-0888.

Time: 6:30pm-9:30pm, May 12, Saturday, 2007

Program: Dinner, Annual report, Outreach program, keynote speech and book display

Cost: $25.00/member, and $30.00/non-member  

Ms. Jean Chung, President of Historical Justice Now

speaks on “­­­Justice for 'Comfort Women'  - The U.S. House Resolution 121 and its Significance”
         

Ms. Chung will  talk about Japanese government's attitude toward 'Comfort Women' and the House Resolution 121 proposed by House Representative Michael Honda and the recent activism which brought up the changes in public opinion in the United States. ’

For reservations, please write a check payable to APHAFIC and mail the check to Hongfang Sha (沙紅芳), 11404 Fairwind Ct. San Diego, CA 92130 before May 3rd. For further information, please call  Hongfan Sha, 858-509-1888 or Jack Meng 629-421-5964(eve).

Board of Directors:  Pao Chin Chu,  Jack Meng,  Michael P. Lee,  Daniel Chang,   Lilin Wang,  Alex Chuang,  Hongfang Sha, Lucia Yau, Mary Lee and Nancy Lo.