The statement, quoted by South Korean news agency Yonhap News, said the Korean people should oppose Japan's distortion of history, its ambition to pursue a military power, and sovereignty claim over Dokdo Island in the East Sea.

The plea was adopted during an academic seminar entitled "Protection of Sovereignty over Dokdo and Korean Nationals Tasks to Liquidate Japan's Past Wrongdoing" at Sheraton Walker Hill Hotel in Seoul.

During its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula (in the early 1900s), Japan had committed anti-human criminal acts of devastating the Korean Peninsula, looting precious cultural assets and properties, imposing forced labor on about 6 million Korean youths and infringing upon chastity of some 200,000 Korean women, said the statement.

Besides, the statement also indicated that Japan now is making fresh wrongdoing of manipulating the history, dispatching its soldiers abroad and building up armament.

The statement strongly claimed sovereignty over Dokdo Island, saying it is their land and a part of their nation.

The Japanese government early April amended the textbooks for the middle school claiming Japanese sovereignty over Dokdo Island,which aroused opposition on the Korean Peninsula.

(Xinhua News Agency August 16, 2002)