North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens
Abductions of Japanese citizens from Japan by agents of the North Korean government took place during a period of six years from 1977 to 1983.
[8] Most of the missing were in their 20s; the youngest, Megumi Yokota, was 13[9] when she disappeared in November 1977, from the Japanese west coast city of Niigata.
[5][13][14] For a long time, these abductions were denied by North Korea and its sympathizers (including Chongryon and the Japan Socialist Party) and were often considered a conspiracy theory.
There are claims that this issue has been used by Japanese nationalists, including former Japanese Prime Ministers Yoshihide Suga and the late Shinzō Abe, to "further militarize", push for revision of the Constitution to reduce constitutional limits on the army, revise the Basic Education Law, and pursue other political goals.
[5] To facilitate normalization of relations with Japan, Kim admitted North Korea had abducted at least 13 Japanese citizens[18] and issued an oral apology: "We have thoroughly investigated this matter.
It is my understanding that this incident was initiated by special-mission organizations in the nineteen-seventies and eighties, driven by blindly motivated patriotism and misguided heroism.... As soon as their scheme and deeds were brought to my attention, those who were responsible were punished....
What was intended to be a gesture of honesty was met with outrage within both the Japanese government and the general public, as the allegations that were previously thought of as conspiracy theories had proved to be true.
The victims (whose identities were confirmed by DNA testing, dental records, and fingerprint analysis) were returned to Japan on October 15, 2002.
[5] However, the Japanese Government, listening to the pleas of the general public and the abductees' families, told North Korea that the victims would not be returning.
Her husband, Charles Robert Jenkins, was a defector from the United States Army who fled to North Korea where he eventually met and married Soga.
However, the independent scientific journal Nature published an article highly critical of this testing, which was performed at Teikyo University by Tomio Yoshii, a relatively junior faculty member (lecturer) in a forensics department, without a professor being present.
Sin reportedly told police in South Korea that he had been personally ordered by Kim Jong Il to carry out abductions.
[23] In March 2006, Osaka police raided six facilities, including the North Korean Chamber of Commerce, in an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the June 1980 disappearance of one of the alleged abductees, Tadaaki Hara.
However, the Japanese government claims that the issue has not been properly resolved and that all evidence provided by North Korea is forged.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a speech given in the Japanese Diet on February 24, 2004, mentioned the issue, sympathized with the victims and their families, and expressed wishes for a complete settlement.
The next day, Yokota met with US President George W. Bush to ask for the United States' help in resolving the abduction issue.
Most importantly, "Tokyo has kept conditioning its provision of economic incentives, widely deemed to be crucial to a comprehensive and lasting solution of the nuclear conundrum, on the establishment of diplomatic relations with North Korea—a development which in turn hinges on a resolution of the abduction issue.
[42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50] In March 2015, after talks with North Korea failed to produce results, Japan extended its sanctions for another 24 months.
These include barring North Korean ships from entering Japanese ports and limits on trade with the country.
In February 2019, it was announced by Japanese government sources that Minoru Tanaka, a restaurant worker believed to have been kidnapped in or around 1978, has been living in Pyongyang with his wife and children since then.
North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui restated Pyongyang's policy of rejecting any contact with Japan on March 29, 2024, and declared that holding discussions with Tokyo is of minimal importance to her country.
[7] There is also some evidence that suggests that a missing American citizen, David Sneddon, was kidnapped while traveling in China in 2004 by North Korean agents and brought to somewhere just outside Pyongyang to be the personal English language tutor for Kim Jong Un.
The Chinese government reportedly has not officially requested the repatriation of any of these victims, a policy the CDNK describes as aimed at preserving harmony in the countries' bilateral relations.
But in February 2005, the British scientific journal Nature published an article in which the Teikyo University DNA analyst who did the tests, Tomio Yoshii, acknowledged that the results could be inconclusive.
[75] The protagonist of the novel The Orphan Master's Son spends several years during the early part of the book helping with and organizing abductions of Japanese citizens to North Korea.
