JAPAN-NORTH-KOREA: Wrong Bones Trigger Calls for Sanctions

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Dec 22 2004 (IPS) - Japan has every reason to be fuming at North Korea after the bones returned by Pyongyang, of two missing Japanese abducted more than two decades ago, turned out to be that of different people. Now, angry Japanese officials plan to travel to the country on Saturday to confront the North Koreans with DNA results to prove their case.

According to the Japanese official news agency ‘Kyodo’, foreign ministry officials plan to meet with their North Korean counterparts in Beijing to provide the results and convey the Japanese government’s views on the remains.

Quoting sources, the news agency said DNA evidence and a report would be given to the North Koreans stating: ”The Japanese government considers the documents and material evidence on the abductees provided by North Korea in bilateral talks last month in Pyongyang contain unnatural and questionable points.”

North Korea handed over the bones at talks in Pyongyang in November, saying they were the remains of Megumi Yokota and Kaoru Matsuki, two of 13 Japanese whom Pyongyang has admitted abducting in the 1970s and 1980s to teach its spies about Japan.

Japan, which does not have diplomatic ties with North Korea, lodged a protest with Pyongyang and demanded clarification on the fate of 10 Japanese who Tokyo believes were kidnapped and are still unaccounted for.

The government of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is now under considerable pressure domestically to impose sanctions on North Korea over the kidnapped Japanese.

A sizeable number of Japanese citizens favor economic sanctions on North Korea, media polls have shown. But Koizumi is taking a cautious stance and told visiting South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, on Friday, that he will give Pyongyang more time to resolve the dispute before contemplating sanctions.

The ‘Yomiuri Shimbun’ newspaper last week revealed that 74 percent of respondents to a nationwide survey believed Japan should impose sanctions on North Korea if there was no progress on the abduction issue, up from 68 percent in September.

At stake now, if Japan decides to go ahead with sanctions, is the stalled six-party nuclear talks on the Korean peninsula. The North Koreans have made it clear that if Tokyo proceeds with sanctions, Pyongyang will call for the exclusion of Japan from talks on its nuclear arms programmes involving North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

”The North Korea issue today is a symbol of the simmering divisions in East Asia. An unpopular move by Japan is detrimental to future collaborations for security,” said Masao Okonogi, a senior analyst of Korean issues at Keio University.

Prof. Yasuyo Sakata, an expert on East Asian studies at Kanda University of International Studies agrees with Okonogi.

”Economic sanctions are too risky given the volatile nature of North Korea. Reports indicate that the country is at the brink of economic collapse,” she told IPS.

She added economic sanctions by Japan would not bring the desired result of forcing change in North Korea and sought to remind Tokyo that the Pyongyang regime had not faltered despite years of international isolation by the United States.

China also opposes sanctions and even the U.S. is reported to be urging restraint.

At the forefront for the demand of economic sanctions is a possible ban on the visits of North Korean ships, the most prominent of which is the Mangyongbong-92 passenger and cargo vessel – which Tokyo suspects brings spies into the country.

The 9,672-ton ship that regularly calls at Niigata port, is the only ferry operating between Japan and North Korea. It is a main target of Japanese law enacted in June that allows the government to ban port calls by ships considered a security threat.

Japan is home to more than 600,000 second and third generation Koreans who arrived before the division of the peninsula into the communist North and democratic South.

But keeping the delicate act of appeasing the public and not upsetting Japan’s alliance with East Asia is not proving easy for Koizumi.

In a press conference last Friday, Foreign minister Nobutaka Machimura said Japan will continue with its policy of exerting both pressure and dialogue with North Korea despite the domestic tension.

”Our basic stance is that North Korea must show sincere efforts to solve the problem of the Japanese civilians it has kidnapped. We have told them there is no need to continue a meaningless dialogue,” he said, adding that he is also painfully aware the ruling Liberal Democratic Party faces bitter criticism for delaying action for several decades to solve the issue.

Leading the call for an economic blockade are the aging parents of Yokota. Shigeru, 72, and his wife Sakie, 68, talk constantly of the pain of loosing their only daughter in 1977, who disappeared one evening on her way back from school.

And their grief has affected the psyche of a nation.

”We are determined to force Tokyo to slap economic sanctions. Only this can prevent these hideous crimes committed by North Korea against the Japanese people,” said Hidekazu Araki, spokesperson for the Group for the Return of Abducted People by North Korea.

He estimates there are hundreds of Japanese who have been kidnapped by North Korea in the past and letting go of this latest upheaval will send the message of ”a weak Japan once again”.