Innocents Lost: North Korea Admits To Kidnapping Japanese Citizens 25 Years Ago  –Susan Yee  5/2003
Learn more. Visit THINK http://think.trycomp.net

On Saturday, April 19, 2002, a small group of Japanese citizens visited Los Angeles to bring to a light an issue that few Americans have even heard about—their relatives were abducted by the North Korean government in the 1970’s and 80’s for the purpose of training spies to pass for Japanese nationals. Why would they do that? The unsettling reason makes Bush’s seemingly misplaced “Axis of Evil” speech echo in your ears—they did it as part of a coordinated effort to propagate terrorism. One of these spies, Kim Hyon Hui, who was posing as a Japanese citizen, was convicted of planting the time-bomb that brought down Korean Airlines Flight 858, killing 115 in 1987. He identified his Japanese teacher as Yaeko Taguchi, a 22-year-old bar hostess who disappeared in 1978 after dropping her kids off at day care.

The rumors of North Korean abductions began to take strength in 1993, when a defector named An Myong-jin claimed to have seen Megumi Yokota (on our cover) in a training institute for intelligence agents in 1988. Yokota was walking near her home in 1978 when she disappeared at the age of 13.

The story broke in earnest in 2002, when North Korean President Kim Jong II admitted that such abductions did indeed occur, apologizing and casting blame on “reckless” special-forces agents.

It sounds like the plot from a Tom Clancy novel, not a dirty secret suspected for years on the international foreign policy circuit. But it is unfortunately true, and the the nightmare is far from over. Five surviving abductees were recently allowed to return to Japan for two weeks. At the end of their term, they did not want to return to the country that had held them captive for over 25 years. But their families, which include one American citizen, are still in North Korea, and the North Korean government has so far denied their requests to have their families rejoin them in Japan.

Below we present information from the THINK website, a non-political, non-profit organization based in Tokyo. At Sushi & Tofu, we hope that this information will be your first step towards more research and more activism, so that we can do what we can to right this unbelievably heinous wrong.

Help Us Retrieve Our People Abducted by North Korea

Imagine yourself on a date with your lover on a beautiful sandy beach, or walking down the street to your local grocery store. Suddenly you are grabbed, blindfolded, gagged, and stuffed in a bag. You are taken on a small boat and later on a cargo vessel to a land where nobody speaks your language and no one allows you to contact your family for a quarter of a century.

That’s what happened to the citizens of Japan. They were abducted by the North Koreans under the order of their leader, Kim Jong Il. And WE WANT THEM BACK.

5 of them returned on October 5, 2002, after 24 long years. ONLY 5 of them. And the North Korean leader said, without showing any credible evidence, that 8 others had died because of illness and accidents and added that there were no more abduction cases. He is not allowing families of the 5 survivors, including former American soldier Mr. Charles Robert Jenkins of North Carolina, to come and rejoin their loved ones in Japan.

There are many, many more Japanese who believe their family have been abducted by North Korea. Investigative Commission on Missing Japanese Probably Related to North Korea, a citizens group looking into the issue, recently submitted a list of approximately 200 citizens who have disappeared between 1953 to 1997 to the National Police Agency and urged for investigation.

We, as Japanese, want to retrieve every one of our citizens as soon as possible.

Please look through this website ( http://think.trycomp.net ) and find out more about this terrible act by a terrorist nation headed by a dictator. Please tell everyone about what’s going on in Asia.

This is an ad that ran in the New York Times.

THIS IS A FACT

Dear Readers:

Many years before September 11, 2001, a wave of evil acts swept the beaches of northern Japan. Young Japanese were abducted near the waterfront and taken away from home. Those acts were not done by terrorist organizations. They were done by a nation. North Korea has been held responsible.

On November 15, 1977, 13-year-old Megumi Yokota vanished on her way home from school. Twenty years later her parents were told that their daughter had been abducted and taken to North Korea for indoctrination and help in spying activities.

Imagine, that can happen to you or your child in this age of global terror.

Megumi was just one victim of alleged abductions. North Korea admitted that it had abducted 13 Japanese nationals and said that eight abductees had died, including Megumi.

Some sources say that dozens of Japanese might have been kidnapped by North Korea.

All of the victim families in Japan believe what North Korea has said is hoaxes. North Korea claimed that the remains of all but one of the deceased abductees were washed away by floods. Medical examiners in Japan concluded that the only remains available were those of another person.

Despite North Korea’s stance that the abduction cases have been closed, they still remain in limbo. Five surviving abductees have returned home after 24 years, but their families are still in North Korea. North Korea has not disclosed any information about the other cases. North Korea has not delivered the remains of the deceased abductees to the families in Japan, either.

We would like to share the information above with the readers of the New York Times and people all over the world.

To Chairman Kim Jong Il, the National Defense Commission

We demand that you do these things immediately as the head of the state:

1. Accept an abduction investigation mission delegated by the Government of Japan or by the United Nations.
2. Disclose all the information on the abduction cases including the whereabouts of missing Japanese nationals.
3. Return unconditionally all the abductees and their families including the children born in North Korea to Japan.

On September 17, 2002, during bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Pyongyang, you admitted that your country’s special forces had abducted Japanese.

And now, the Government of North Korea under your control claims that the abduction cases have been closed.

THE CASES ARE NOT SETTLED, YET.

The children of the five returnees to Japan have been forced to stay in North Korea. They are not allowed to come to live with their parents. No evidence or information has been provided for the eight abductees your government claims to have been dead.

Shigeru and Sakie Yokota, the parents of Megumi Yokota are still spending sad days worrying about their missing daughter. Sakie says “Megumi was forced into the dark hold of a spy ship and taken away to North Korea. I am told that she was shouting for help, wailing ‘Mom, Mom’ and scratched the wall of the hold until her fingernails peeled off. How desperate and terrified she felt.”

As a parent, you should feel something at the center of your chest.