politics

Abduction issue raised in historic summit but challenges loom for Japan

15 Comments
By May Masangkay

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Well, it’s a difficult issue for Japan. There’s a lot of money to be made in the opening up of NK. No one in their right mind is going to not participate in the very lucrative endeavor ‘just because they have our kidnapped people’. Here’s where the backtracking will occur. Rather than guns and threats a great strategy will be to be nice. A little TLC does go a long way.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Abductee issue with NK has as much chance of being resolved for Japan as the comfort women issue has of being resolved for SK.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Megumi is dead, but Abe cannot let her alone. Good luck in his meeting with Kim Jong Un now that Donald has declared the summit as a historic success and Kim as someone he trusts. How much should Abe trust Trump?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

There’s a lot of money to be made in the opening up of NK. No one in their right mind is going to not participate in the very lucrative endeavor ‘just because they have our kidnapped people’. Here’s where the backtracking will occur.

Yes, back in the early 90s the LDP were fully aware of the abductee situation but the issue was totally ignored because of a possible reconciliation with North Korea. LDP politicians accepted bribes from Kim Il Sung and the Japanese media was complicit in not reporting the abductee issue. Keidanren was busting a gut to normalise relations as the possible profits in modernizing the North were astronomical. The fate of a dozen or so citizens counted for nothing at the time.

http://articles.latimes.com/1990-09-27/news/mn-1432_1_north-korea

2 ( +2 / -0 )

@AgentX

The issue of blatant kidnapping of citizens in peace time is completely different to what happened during WW2 and before.

If Megumi Yokota died, then the least they can do is send her remains back.

Seems like when Trump talks to NK everyone wants him to demand opening of the gulags and video evidence of every missile being dumped into the sea by the weekend, but Japan is supposed to be quiet and not offend in the slightest.

North Korean’s crept into Japanese territory and kidnapped citizens. One of them was a 13 year old girl.

If it were your daughter, you would see things differently.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

The issue of blatant kidnapping of citizens in peace time is completely different to what happened during WW2 and before.

How so?

If Megumi Yokota died, then the least they can do is send her remains back.

I totally agree. I think international diplomatic issues like this should be solved with expediency. This sentiment extends to the comfort women debacle and other atrocities that the J-government has never properly faced up to.

If it were your daughter, you would see things differently.

Under no circumstances is that 'OK'. But my point here being that this issue is simply being used as a political tool. Those in government care little for the victims of those kidnappings, the same as they do for those who suffered at the hands of the IJA.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

If Megumi Yokota died, then the least they can do is send her remains back.

The problem is this :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megumi_Yokota#History

Yokota was alleged to have died at the age of 29. However, the death certificate provided in support of this assertion appears to have been falsified, and DNA tests on the remains said to be hers were not a positive match.[1]

An interview in the 3 February 2005 issue of Nature revealed that the DNA analysis on Megumi's remains had been performed by a member of the medical department of Teikyo University, Yoshii Tomio. Yoshii, it later transpired, was a relatively junior faculty member, of lecturer status, in a forensic department that had neither a professor nor even an assistant professor. He said that he had no previous experience in the analysis of cremated specimens, described his tests as inconclusive, and remarked that such samples were very easily contaminated by anyone coming in contact with them, like "stiff sponges that can absorb anything". The five tiny samples he had been given to work on (the largest of them 1.5 grams) had anyway been used up in his laboratory, so independent verification was thereafter impossible.

And the 2005 Nature article :

https://www.nature.com/articles/433445a

Yoshii, who has no previous experience with cremated specimens, admits his tests are not conclusive and that it is possible the samples were contaminated. “The bones are like stiff sponges that can absorb anything. If sweat or oils of someone that was handling them soaked in, it would be impossible to get them out no matter how well they were prepared,” he says.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Besides, the United States does not show any signs of willingness to broker talks between Japan and North Korea to resolve the issue.

Who is asking them to do so? What a pointless and stupid comment. It is obvious to anyone with half a brain that only direct JPN-NK talks will resolve the abduction issue. NK is fully aware that any normalization of relations with Japan will require discussions on the subject, and have already stated that they are willing to do so. The only time that Japanese abductees were released from NK was when Japan established direct relations and talks with Kim Jong Il under the Koizumi administration. Abe accompanied the J-PM back then. If the 6/12 summit between Trump and Kim moves forward and NK moves to normalize relations with SK and the US, JPN will obviously need to establish direct talks and have already said they will.

Meantime I really think the J-govt and J-media should stop pushing the idea that the abductees are all alive, and can and will return to Japan. Even if the subject is resolved, many or all may be dead and that's something for which the people should be prepared.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

All abductees were dead, thats is for sure otherwise why North Korea kept it secrets until now. And these people could have been subjected under tortured. Remember Warmbier? How he demised is unknown! It is strange that Trump didn't discuss with K.J. !

1 ( +1 / -0 )

AgentX, I totally agree with your posts!

People, for god’s Sake, do you really think Trump, the most selfish person in the world, will be Japan’s errand boy?

If this thing works, Trump will be too busy making money in North Korea to spare time in order to defend 12 Japanese citizens.

I had no idea that this DNA analysis had been made by someone so inexperienced. Why didn’t they send it to an expert! Weird!!!!
1 ( +1 / -0 )

This issue will never be resolved : there's a very little chance that any abductees are still alive, I doubt any traces like documents or pictures still exist, and as Kim Jong Un wasn't even born at the time of the abduction, he may even not have any detailed knowledge of it.

And, whatever the North Koreans do about it, the japanese government and the families will not accept it, just like before.

Anyway, if North Korea really opens up, japanese companies will be encouraged to invest there, and the abductee issue will just be forgotten in a blink.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Oops, I meant (...) it to an expert???

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Besides, the United States does not show any signs of willingness to broker talks between Japan and North Korea to resolve the issue.

Who is asking them to do so? 

OssanAmerica - I don’t recall seeing the abduction issue mentioned in any depth in US-focused news, but I’ve seen a lot of time spent in Japan-based news over the years on asking the US to resolve the abduction issue. The families have met with US representatives, including Trump, asking that the US resolve it.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

That’s not true that the US is unwilling to broker the issue. President Trump says he will.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

BTW, what's the latest on the Jiminto scandals?? Surely Abe and his cronies are not using the NK abductees mess as a means of distraction away from their own homemade scandals?

Also, as the party is interested in full disclosure about the abductees, does that mean it would also be appropriate timing for NK to bring up comfort women and other atrocities from the past?

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

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