Abductees to stay indefinitely in their native land
OBAMA, Japan (AP) – Five visiting Japanese who were abducted decades ago to North Korea will stay indefinitely in their native land, Japan announced Thursday in a move that delighted long-separated family members but could further rankle relations with its communist neighbor. The decision comes amid an intensifying tug-of-war between Tokyo and Pyongyang over the returnees, who arrived in Japan on Oct. 15 expecting to stay no longer than two weeks.
The visit hit an unexpected snag, however, when family members in Japan began pressuring the government to keep the abductees in their native land for good. The families also demanded that Tokyo press North Korea to let the abductees’ children join them permanently in Japan.
Together, the abductees have seven children – all in their teens or 20s – who were left behind in North Korea.
Calling the return of all family members to Japan “indispensable and urgent,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said the Japanese government would work to settle them here.
“The five abductees will stay in Japan,” Fukuda said. “We will strongly urge North Korea to ensure the safety of families remaining in North Korea and their early return.”
Fukuda said Japan would ask North Korea to set a date for the abductees’ families to come to Japan when both sides meet next week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for talks on establishing diplomatic relations. In the meantime, the abductees would remain in Japan.
Family members were ecstatic at the news.
“The dream I have hoped for over the last 24 years has finally come true,” said Tamotsu Chimura, whose son Yasushi was kidnapped from his hometown of Obama in 1978.
Yuko Hamamoto, whose sister Fukie was abducted with Chimura and later married him in the North, praised the government’s decision to keep the abductees in Japan.
“We should definitely not let them return,” Hamamoto said. “If they are told to return, we will kidnap them back.”
The five are the only known survivors of 13 Japanese whom North Korea acknowledges abducting in the 1970s and early 1980s. The visit to Japan followed North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s surprise admission at a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi last month that the North’s agents had carried out the kidnappings.
Both the Japanese and North Korean governments have said the returnees are free to come and go as they wish. But they may have a hard time persuading North Korea to let them and their families resettle in Japan.
None of the abduction victims has clearly expressed the desire to stay in Japan.
But family members say that’s to be expected. The abductees, they say, are self-censoring their true thoughts because they fear retribution against their children in North Korea.
In preparation for a possible permanent stay, all five abductees obtained Japanese passports last week, and entered their children’s names into official family registries at town halls this week.
According to media reports, a North Korean Foreign Ministry official said Pyongyang will allow the five Japanese to return here permanently with their children if they choose.
But the reports said the official balked at sending the children to Japan right away.
, and criticized Japan for overreacting to the abduction issue. He said it was much less significant than Japan’s often brutal colonial rule of Korea from 1910-1945, the reports said.
Koizumi said it was unclear how Thursday’s decision would affect next week’s normalization talks with North Korea. Fukuda, the government’s top spokesman, said the issue would be a “top priority.”
Further complicating matters were DNA test results released Thursday that confirmed another abductee’s child is alive and well in North Korea. The child’s mother, Megumi Yokota, was abducted in 1977 and is listed by North Korea among the eight abductees who have died.
In Tokyo, Yokota’s parents reacted with excitement when they received word of the results showing they have a 15-year-old granddaughter, Kim Hea Kyong, who lives with her father in Pyongyang.
Shigeru Yokota, the girl’s grandfather, said he wants to bring Kim to Japan.
“Since she’s junior high school age, she will be interested in seeing Tokyo Disneyland. I want to take her to theme parks and Kyoto,” he said, beaming.
But he also said he doubts the North’s claim about his daughter Megumi’s death.
Kidnapped when she was just 13 while on her way home from junior high school badminton practice, Yokota is the youngest known abduction victim.
According to North Korea, she married a North Korean man after being taken to the communist country, but suffered from severe depression and killed herself at a psychiatric ward in 1993.
Also Thursday, news reports said Tokyo was considering granting permanent resident status to the American husband of the fifth returning abductee, Hitomi Soga.
The husband, Charles Robert Jenkins, of Rich Square, N.C., is one of four Americans who allegedly deserted their army posts in South Korea in the 1960s. Japanese officials say Jenkins, 62, is reluctant to leave the North for fear he will be extradited to the United States.
Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe told reporters that Japan would negotiate for Jenkins and Yokota’s daughter to be allowed to come as well.
After hearing that Tokyo wanted the abductees to stay longer in Japan, Soga released a statement saying: “Receiving this sudden notification, I was surprised and embarrassed.”