No closure yet for the Sogas

曽我さん一家の問題、幕引きならず

So far fate has been very unkind to the four of them. We hope that they will be able to lead happy lives without being restrained by anyone. The prefectural and municipal authorities should do their utmost to help Mr. Jenkins find a job locally, because that is what he says he wants to do, and to assist the daughters in their university studies.

In addition to support from public authorities, it is important that the local people create a warm environment for the family. In a trial by court-martial, Mr. Jenkins received a 30-day prison sentence for deserting the U.S. Army in South Korea in 1965, when he was a sergeant, and fleeing to North Korea. He served the sentence, which was shortened because of good behavior, at the U.S. Navy's Yokosuka Base. He was then returned to the U.S. Army's Camp Zama.

Now that the case of Mr. Jenkins, which had been a sensitive issue between the Japanese and U.S. governments, has been settled, full efforts must be made to uncover the truth about 10 other missing Japanese abductees, including Ms. Soga's mother, who North Korea says never entered the country. Ms. Soga once commented, "What a difficult life it has been." The curtain won't close on her and her family's "difficult life" until the fate of Ms. Soga's mother is confirmed. North Korean authorities should clarify the truth about all abductees.

North Korea's insincere attitude is made clear in an interview that Mr. Jenkins gave in a recent issue of Time magazine. Mr. Jenkins says the North Korean government enrolled his daughters in Pyongyang's elite Foreign Language College with the intention of training them as spies and sending them to South Korea. When Mr. Jenkins traveled to Indonesia from North Korea to meet his wife, he said, "They promised me all kinds of things if I came back with my wife. They would give me a new car, a new house, new clothes, a new television. They told me everything I wanted would be Kim Jong Il's gift."

Hearing testimony like this, one cannot help but be suspicious of the explanations that North Korea has given in three rounds of working-level consultations with Japan on the abduction issue. In the third round of consultations, held in Pyongyang in November, North Korea did not offer any new information to alter its position that of the 10 missing Japanese nationals "eight died and two never entered the country." The only progress on that occasion was North Korea's delivery of some remains that it said were those of abductee Ms. Megumi Yokota — some photographs of her and a few things relating to other abductees.

An analysis of this evidence has been attempted, but apparently the remains are insufficient and had been burned at a high temperature. On Dec. 8, the government announced that DNA testing found that the remains said to be of Ms. Yokota were of a different person. There are suspicions about whether a man interviewed by the Japanese delegation was Ms. Yokota's husband.

Ms. Yokota's parents and the families of other abductees are becoming impatient. At a joint meeting of the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea and the National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea, it was pointed out that results of the reinvestigation by North Korea contained up to 60 dubious and contradictory points. The associations urged the government to impose economic sanctions on North Korea.

Meanwhile, in a special committee on the abduction issue set up in the Lower House during the last extraordinary session of the Diet, committee members called for sanctions against North Korea. In response, the Rodong Shimbun, the official organ of the Korean Workers' Party, has described the reinvestigation of the abductees as a "problem of dead people" and commented, "We have made the utmost efforts and handed over everything that can be handed over to Japan."

If this is North Korea's official position, then Pyongyang should understand that not a single Japanese is convinced.

The Japan Times Weekly
Dec. 18, 2004
(C) All rights reserved

      新潟県と佐渡市は氏の仕事探し、2人の娘の大学での勉学についてできるだけ支援すべきだ。また地元住民が一家を温かく迎えることが望まれる。

      ジェンキンス氏は1965年に駐韓米軍を脱走して北朝鮮に渡った罪で30日の刑を受け、米軍横須賀基地に収監されたが、刑期を短縮された。

      ジェンキンス氏の問題が解決された今、北朝鮮に拉致された疑いのある10人の行方不明者について真相を究明しなければならない。このなかには曽我さんの母親も含まれている。

      米誌タイムが掲載したジェンキンス氏とのインタビュー記事によれば、北朝鮮政府は氏の娘2人を工作員として訓練し、韓国に潜入させる目的で外国語大学に入学させたという。

      北朝鮮は11月の第3回日朝実務者会議で、行方不明者10人について「8人死亡、2人は入国の記録なし」との立場を変えず、横田めぐみさんの「遺骨」を含む行方不明者の関係資料を提出した。

      政府はDNA鑑定の結果、めぐみさんの遺骨とされた骨は別人のものと発表した。日本代表団が面接した、めぐみさんの「夫」とされる人物の真偽についても疑問がある。

      拉致被害者家族会、拉致被害者を救う会は、北朝鮮が発表した調査結果には60もの疑問、矛盾点があるとして、北朝鮮に対して経済制裁を実施するよう政府に求めている。

      衆院拉致問題特別委員会は、北朝鮮に対する経済制裁を求める決議を採択した。これに対し北朝鮮の労働新聞は、拉致被害者の再調査は「死亡者問題」として「日本に引き渡すべきものはすべて引き渡した」と述べている。

      それが北朝鮮の公式の立場とすれば、同国政府は日本人はだれひとり納得しないことを知るべきだ。