Korean Abductees

From USA Today:

"Relatives seek rescue of Japanese mother, sister abducted by North Korea"

Yaeko Taguchi was last seen in downtown Tokyo leaving work at a cabaret in 1978. Only decades later did her son learn that she was among an unknown number of Japanese citizens kidnapped and spirited to North Korea to work in captivity for the country's rulers and spy agencies. Now, 37 years later, Taguchi's son, Koichiro Iizuka, 38, says it’s time to bring her and the others home. Iizuka and Takuya Yokota, whose sister, Megumi, then 13, was kidnapped by North Korean agents in 1977, will tell their stories Wednesday at the United Nations in New York to bring attention to 17 confirmed cases of abducted Japanese, a dozen of whom are believed to still be in North Korea. In all, the reclusive nation is suspected of being behind 894 such disappearances since the 1940s, according to the National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea, a group based in Tokyo.

“We hope the world will use this opportunity to also pay attention to the abduction issue,” said Yokota, secretary general of another activist group, the Association of Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea. “We are expecting North Korea to ask Japan for economic assistance, in return for which we hope to rescue the abductees and my mother,” Iizuka said Monday in an interview. Most of the 17 confirmed cases involve disappearances along Japan’s central-west coast, in the area closest to the North Korean mainland, according to a map produced by the Japanese government on the issue. Of the 17 cases, five people were returned to Japan in 2002, during a visit to North Korea by Japan’s then-prime minister Junichiro Koizumi. Japan at the time agreed to provide two years’ worth of food and medical supplies as a humanitarian gesture to the impoverished nation, with promises of further economic assistance if relations improved. North Korea said six of the people it abducted died of heart attacks or in accidents, and no record exists of four others entering the country. It claimed that Yokota’s sister committed suicide and that Iizuka’s mother was killed in a traffic accident. But DNA testing showed that remains returned by North Korea did not belong to the two women, said Katsunobu Kato, Japan’s minister for the abduction issue. Kato said some victims appear to have been snatched in error, but most abductions were carried out after careful planning and selection. According to evidence provided by defectors and a captured North Korean operative, the victims were chosen so they could provide language and other technical training to North Korea’s spy and terrorist network. Kato said the international community should pressure North Korea to engage in talks with Japan that could lead to normalized relations, payment by Japan of World War II reparations and economic assistance to North Korea, plus the return of abductees to Japan. Japan and South Korea now work together to bring attention to North Korean human rights, including the abductee issue, which also affects South Korea, he said. Many of the victims and their families are aging, and some have died without seeing their loved ones again, Kato said. "We constantly remind ourselves we have no luxury of time to rescue the victims."

^ This is a very sad story that the international community (especially China, Russia, the US and Japan) should press North Korea on. The abductees deserve to be reunited with their families in Japan. ^

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/05/03/relatives-seek-rescue-japanese-mother-sister-abducted-north-korea/83873534/