JAPAN: Scepticism Rises during North Korean Abductees’ Visit

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Oct 18 2002 (IPS) - Scepticism has cooled the early outpouring of euphoria across Japan that followed this week’s homecoming of five of its nationals who were abducted by North Korea a quarter century ago.

The five returnees – two couples and a woman – are the only confirmed survivors among 13 Japanese nationals that Pyongyang has admitted to having abducted in the seventies and eighties. They were kidnapped to train North Koreans on speaking and acting like Japanese prior to slipping into the country as spies.

On Tuesday the abductees were reunited with their Japanese relatives. They will be in the country until Oct. 27, when they return to North Korea, where their children live.

Their dramatic return follows the historic Sep.17 visit by Koizumi to Pyongyang, during which North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted – and apologised for – the abductions.

But the euphoria surrounding the historic homecoming has failed to quell concerns over the fate of eight other Japanese nationals whom Pyongyang says it abducted but who, it insists, died years later.

Meetings between the returnees and the families of the still missing nationals have not gone wel. Relatives of the missing are expressing disappointment about not being able to learn more information from the returnees about their still missing children.

”Anything related to politics as well as the abductions was totally rejected (by the returnees),” said Shiego Iizuka, 64, whose sister Yaeko Taguchi was abducted in June 1978 and listed by North Korea as having died. ”They did not look at us directly and looked down when they spoke. I am happy that they have temporarily returned, but disappointed at their reaction,” he added.

The abductees have said that they all had Korean names, spoke only Korean and did not communicate much with their neighbour. While the group of abductees lived within close proximity to each other they never revealed their true identities or that they were Japanese, they said.

Despite several press conferences, the returnees only offer piecemeal information to the families of the other kidnapped persons.

Teraki Masumoto, the 47-year-old younger brother of Rumiko Masumoto, who was abducted in August 1978 and also listed as dead, asked the five abductees about their kidnap and how they have been treated since.

Masumoto said the only account the five offered was that they did not experience any violence at the hands of their North Korean captors and that they have been treated with respect.

”The Japanese government asked North Korea to let us return and then the North Korean government suggested to us we should visit our parents, so that is why we are here," Yasushi Chimura, 47, told a gathering in his hometown in Fukui prefecture, 350 kilometres west of Tokyo.

Chimura, who said he works as a translator in North Korea, and his wife Hamamoto, 47, both disappeared while taking a seaside walk near their home.

Engaged at the time of their abduction, they were separated for more than a year in North Korea before they were allowed to marry in November 1979. They have three children.

Special events and celebrations have been scheduled for the abductees in their hometowns.

For instance, the Sado High school decided to issue a diploma to Hitomi Soga, 43. Soga was kidnapped at the age of 19 in August 1978 and lives in Pyongyang with her husband, a former U.S. serviceman who defected to North Korea in 1965, and two daughters.

The Japanese media said the returnees are withholding information about North Korea and the fate of the other eight abductees as they fear reprisal against themselves or their children left behind.

The Japanese-language daily ‘Asahi Shimbun’ reported on Thursday that the Japanese government has assigned an official to attend each abductee, and officials are under instructions to refrain from pressing them to answer questions from the foreign ministry or the police about the kidnappings.

Scepticism also surrounds official and anecdotal information offered about Megumi Yokota, the youngest and most well-known person on the official missing list.

Yokota was 13 when she was snatched from her coastal home by North Korean frogmen in 1971. Japanese investigators learned last month that Yokota committed suicide in 1993 in a mental institution, leaving behind her North Korean husband and daughter.

Returnees have also been willing to offer clues to the Yokota family about Megumi.

Hitomi Soga revealed that she had at one point lived with Yokota, went to the movies with her and had seen her walking her baby in a stroller.

Other abductees told the Yokota family that they had met Megumi, but that she was always appeared quiet and looked weak, and that they had heard rumours that she had died.

But Sakie, Megumi’s mother, does not believe the reports. ”My daughter is alive, as none of the abductees have confirmed her death. We will keep fighting on,” she said.

Professor Toshi Shigemura of Takushoku University says the reason behind Japan’s flooding of information concentrating only on the Yokota case is North Korea’s overwhelming desire to move forward on bilateral relations with this country.

”North Korea, desperate for cash, is eager to quickly clear away the Yokota case in order to get economic aid from Japan,” he said.

Shigemura says Japan is unlikely to extend aid so soon as the return of the missing Japanese have only fuelled more desire for information and revenge from the Japanese public.

Pressure is also mounting on Koizumi to raise dozens of other reported abduction cases.

After Pyongyang’s admission in September of the abductions, Tokyo plans to go ahead with talks with North Korea on Oct. 29 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but also wants to see progress on Pyongyang’ curbing of its nuclear weapons development programme.

But far less certain is whether ordinary Japanese feel the time has come to reciprocate North Korea’s overtures and disclosures so far with economic aid and diplomatic recognition.

JAPAN: Scepticism Rises during North Korean Abductees’ Visit

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Oct 18 2002 (IPS) - Scepticism has cooled the early outpouring of euphoria across Japan that followed this week’s homecoming of five of its nationals who were abducted by North Korea a quarter century ago.
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