It will rank as a stunning confession to one of the most bizarre crimes ever committed by a state. This week North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-il said his country’s special forces abducted at least a dozen Japanese nationals during the 1970s and 1980s in a fit of patriotic overzealousness.
Incredibly, the victims of these snatch-and-grab operations were of no military, scientific or political value. Instead, they included a beautician, a schoolgirl and couples on romantic seaside dates who were whisked off to the most secretive country on Earth.
For years stories of courting couples being carried off from beaches in the night by North Korean frogmen have filled the Japanese media. At first few gave much credence to the tales, which seemed to be among the most unlikely of Cold War fantasies.
But the rumours persisted and reports of failed abductions and testimonies of captured North Korean spies proved convincing enough for the Japanese government to draw up a list of 11 of its nationals who it suspected were abducted by its reclusive north-east Asian neighbour.
On Tuesday the worst fears were confirmed as Kim ended a decade of denial in an attempt to win economic aid from Japan and remove his country from United States President George W Bush’s ”axis of evil”.
In a historic first summit with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Kim admitted that over- enthusiastic military units had carried out the abductions. He said eight of the missing were now dead, while four were living in Pyongyang and would now be free to return to their homeland. The whereabouts of one man were unknown.
”The special forces were carried away by a reckless quest for glory. It was regretful and I want to frankly apologise,” said Kim.
The confession is a step towards clearing up some of the region’s most emotive and politically charged mysteries, but it raises as many questions as it answers.
Megumi Yokota, the first of those on the list provided by the North Korean authorities, was 13 when she failed to return from a badminton class in 1977. She was last seen walking home along a coastal road in Niigata, northern Japan.
For 20 years her parents thought she was one of the thousands of people who go missing each year, but then reports started to emerge that a Japanese woman of her age and appearance had been seen in Pyongyang.
One captured agent told them that Megumi had been carried off by boat and that she had struggled so hard that she arrived in North Korea covered in blood from trying to scratch at the hull.
Her parents had been hopeful that she was still alive. Instead, they were told that she had married, had a daughter and died. ”I had high hopes for this summit, but the outcome fills me with grief,” sobbed her father Shigeru Yokota. ”All this time, North Korea denied abducting her, but they lied. And now I can’t believe she is dead.”
He was joined in his anger by other bereaved families demanding to know who was responsible for the abductions, why they had been carried out and when and how the victims died.
Kim claimed the victims were seized so that they could serve as language instructors for North Korean agents and provide identities for spies who wanted to enter South Korea, but this does not explain why they chose a 13-year-old girl.
Considering the high number of deaths there are also suspicions that the state may have murdered the victims after stories of the abductions started to become an international embarrassment in the 1990s.
Kim’s confession is likely to tell only part of the story, as he was reportedly head of the special forces in at least part of the period concerned.
”When I think of the grief that the families must feel, the pain is unbearable,” Koizumi said, but added that he was impressed by Kim’s frankness.
The abduction issue has been the biggest obstacle to the normalisation of relations between the two neighbours and a breakthrough had been expected at the summit.
The grimmer-than-expected outcome overshadowed progress in other areas, including Kim’s promise to indefinitely extend a moratorium on missile test launches, to respect international agreements on nuclear weapons inspections and to halt operations by spy ships in Japanese waters.
In return, Koizumi expressed remorse for Japan’s 1910 to 1945 colonial rule of the peninsula. In place of compensation, Japan agreed to extend economic aid, expected to be between $5-billion and $10-billion.
But the political risks Koizumi faces in pursuing such an accommodating strategy were apparent in Tokyo, where news of the abductions and deaths generated a wave of mourning, fury and suspicion.
Katsue Hirasawa, who heads a group of lawmakers involved in the abduction issue, said it was now out of the question to establish friendly relations with North Korea. ”This is unforgiveable,” he said. ”Japan has completely failed in its duty to protect its citizens. The perpetrators must be punished. Simply saying sorry is not enough.” — (c) Guardian Newspapers 2002