It is now well known that the North Korean government has in past decades engaged in the abduction of foreign nationals, notably from neighbors Japan and South Korea. While it would be expected that any responsible government would pursue the repatriation of its citizens who have disappeared abroad, Japan and South Korea have reacted in opposite ways. In Japan, the government has remained committed to negotiating “firmly” (gizen to) on the abductions issue, so that it has taken center stage in the country's North Korea policy, even to the point of freezing Japan out of regional efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis. In South Korea, however, recent administrations have downplayed the abductions issue, instead following a policy of “quiet diplomacy” (choyonghan woegyo). The contrasting responses are all the more surprising given that nearly 500 South Korean citizens remain detained in North Korea, compared to fewer than 20 known abductions from Japan. What accounts for the different approaches to this issue in Japan and South Korea—both U.S. allies that share democratic commitments?
The key to understanding the divergent responses to the abductions lies in the politicization of specific, ostensibly apolitical demands for the state to fulfill its core duty to protect citizens. In neither Japan nor South Korea has the abductions issue made its way into public debate as only a problem of protecting citizens. Instead, the maneuverings of political actors in both countries have made it inseparable from broader agendas. In particular, the proximity of the abductions issue to key nationalist themes, which politicians in each country use to mobilize support, prevents the matter from being addressed in a neutral way. In Japan, the issue easily generates sympathy for the right-wing agenda of restoring Japan to the status of “normal” nation, and it is therefore quickly seized upon by political actors with that agenda. In South Korea, the issue inevitably raises questions about ongoing reconciliation with North Korea. Some politicians who push for a tougher stance on North Korea embrace the issue, while most who favor reconciliation suppress it. The strength of feelings about pan-Korean nationalism makes progressive and even many conservative politicians reluctant to touch the issue. The forces politicizing the issue are strong enough to push Japan to the point of undermining its own national interest in participating in efforts at regional cooperation, and in South Korea, to drive away public debate on the issue.
In order to elucidate these political maneuverings, this article examines the activities, organization, and political connections of groups lobbying for responses to the abductions. The article documents how specific requests for more information on family members and possibly repatriation have been absorbed by a major political movement in Japan, and how in South Korea, such demands have been met with near silence. The material presented here—based on media accounts of organizations and individuals involved in the abductions issue, official documents, as well as interviews conducted in Japan and South Korea with representatives of the relevant organizations—is used to piece together the connections between civil society organizations, political lobbies, and individual politicians.
The article begins with a brief overview of the abduction and detention of Japanese and South Korean citizens by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). This is followed by a discussion of current nationalisms in Japan and South Korea, focusing especially on their political significance and how the abductions issue fits into nationalist discourses. The core of the article outlines the key organizations participating in the repatriation movement in both countries and examines the responses of more powerful political actors to their demands. For each country, it is shown how the specific demands by families for information and for repatriation of those detained in North Korea are channeled into high politics, where they become embedded in far broader issues.
Genesis of the Abductions
North Korean plans to abduct Japanese citizens were first devised in the mid-1970s. The Japanese abductions were a by-product of the failed assassination attempt on South Korean President Park Chung-hee in August 1974. The would-be assassin, Mun Se-gwang, was an ethnic Korean resident of Japan (Zainichi) and a sympathizer of the North Korean regime. In the aftermath of this incident, the South Korean government initiated a more thorough program of background checks on Zainichi Koreans seeking entry into the country and strengthened security measures against North Korean spies. The North Korean intelligence community was forced to look elsewhere for recruits and began targeting Japanese citizens in order to steal their identities and educate their own agents in the subtleties of Japanese language and culture to facilitate this process (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, January 19, 2003, 34).
The first suspected North Korean abduction of a Japanese national was that of Kume Yutaka, a fifty-two-year-old security guard who disappeared near the coast in Ishikawa Prefecture in September 1977. This marked the beginning of a six-year period in which another sixteen Japanese citizens vanished under mysterious circumstances. The abductees fell under three broad categories: (1) individuals, some of whom may have been deliberately targeted (Matsumoto Kyōko,Footnote 1 October 1977; Yokota Megumi, November 1977; Taguchi Yaeko, June 1978; Tanaka Minoru, June 1978; Soga Miyoshi and Hitomi, August 1978; Hara Tadaaki, June 1980); (2) couples on dates (Chimura Yasushi and Hamamoto Fukie, July 1978; Hasuike Kaoru and Okudo Yukiko, July 1978; Ichikawa Shūichi and Masumoto Rumiko, August 1978); and (3) Japanese in Europe (Matsuki Kaoru 1980; Ishioka Jun, May 1980; Arimoto Keiko, July 1983). The three Japanese travelers in Europe were lured to North Korea by Japanese women who themselves had previously been enticed to the Stalinist state to marry members of Japan's Red Army Faction (Sekigunha), which was responsible for the hijacking of a Japanese airliner in 1970 (see Steinhoff Reference Steinhoff2004). While relatives and a few supporters had their suspicions, the circumstances surrounding the missing Japanese would remain shrouded in mystery for more than two decades.
The situation of South Korean citizens taken and detained in North Korea is quite different from those from Japan. Most of the South Korean cases occurred more than three decades ago, and in fact, only twenty-four of those still missing were taken after the first suspected kidnapping of a Japanese in 1977 (Lim et al. Reference Soon-Hee2006).Footnote 2 For the purposes of this article, we are concerned only with South Koreans who were detained in the DPRK at some point after the Korean War. This definition excludes prisoners of war (POWs) as well as the tens of thousands of South Korean civilians who were taken North during the war.Footnote 3 Since the 1953 armistice, 3,790 Republic of Korea (ROK) citizens are believed to have been detained in North Korea against their wishes. Most were returned, but 485 abductees are thought to remain in North Korea. Some may have been taken to be trained as spies (Lim et al. Reference Soon-Hee2006, 251).
The vast majority of abductees—433 of the remaining 485—were fishermen. In many cases, the DPRK asserted that their ships had crossed over into North Korean waters. In 1969, North Koreans hijacked a Korean Air flight with fifty-one people on board, of whom twelve remain in North Korea. The following year, twenty South Koreans were taken from a naval ship. The kidnappings most reminiscent of the Japanese cases involved five high school students who disappeared from a remote coastal area in 1977 and 1978, and who were known only by the late 1990s to have been taken by the DPRK. Finally, several ROK citizens were kidnapped overseas, including in West Germany, Norway, and China, and twelve of these abductees remain in the North.Footnote 4 It is likely that the actual number of South Koreans detained in North Korea is higher than that recorded. Four former abductees have returned to South Korea, and one of these, Kim Pyǒng-do, was not on the list of known missing people.Footnote 5
According to the DPRK government, no South Korean citizens have been taken against their will. As a DPRK newspaper put it, “Even if there are people who have entered North Korea [ippukcha], there are no abductees [nappukcha]” (Rodong sinmun, cited in Segye ilbo, December 15, 2009). In South Korea, the issue is further complicated by the possibility that the ROK government itself kidnapped North Korean citizens. At least until the 1990s, the South Korean government was equally suspicious of Koreans with contacts on both sides of the demilitarized zone. Alleged spies from North Korea were, of course, detained in South Korea. That South Korean authorities have never acknowledged taking North Korean citizens is by no means solid evidence that it was only the North that engaged in this type of activity.
Nationalisms: “Restorationist” and Ethnic
Since the early 1990s, Japan has been swept by a rising tide of nationalism. While certainly not a new phenomenon in postwar Japan (McVeigh Reference McVeigh2001), the increased prominence of nationalist sentiments and the generally more assertive national mood—partly attributable to a certain sense of anomie that has gripped the nation as established and trusted institutions have failed to cope with unprecedented (apart from the immediate postwar period) socioeconomic malaise and political uncertainty (see Kingston Reference Kingston2004; Leheny Reference Leheny2006; Nathan Reference Nathan2004)—has created a milieu more receptive to the activities and arguments in favor of a broad range of items, some formerly taboo subjects, that feature prominently on the nationalist agenda.
Throughout the Cold War, the socialists and their allies were able to check the conservatives' revisionist tendencies and block reforms such as those pertaining to the national flag, the national anthem, and the constitution, which were designed to restore to Japan the symbolic trappings of statehood, as well as the status of a “normal” power. However, Japan's political landscape has been reshaped, and this has been made possible by what Rikki Kersten refers to as “[t]he narrowing of the Japanese ideological spectrum in parliamentary politics to the point where there is a near vacuum on the Left” (1999, 202). The demise of the political Left was precipitated by the collapse of international communism following the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War and, more directly, by the domestic “marriage of convenience” that was the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)/Japan Socialist Party (JSP)/Shintō Sakigake coalition government that saw JSP chairman Murayama Tomiichi assume the premiership in return for renouncing long-standing socialist party policies. The declining political fortunes of the parliamentary Left, coupled with the demise of politicians within the LDP, such as former factional powerbroker Nonaka Hiromu, who adopted a relatively moderate stance on the abductions issue, has robbed Pyongyang of important allies and created a policy space that right-leaning political actors have been eager to fill.Footnote 6 The incremental moves further to the right along the domestic political continuum have contributed to the hardening of Tokyo's stance on the abductions issue.
The conservative policy-making agents and associated rightist organizations that have ensured the abductions issue constitutes a core component of Japanese policy toward North Korea gained prominence within this political environment from the mid- to late 1990s. New and reliable information surrounding the abductees, especially Yokota Megumi, and, since late 2002, a sensationalist mass media, which has helped to mold a sympathetic domestic audience through its “narrow, biased saturation coverage” (Lynn Reference Lynn2006), also aided their cause. Before the emergence of these hard-line policy advocates, however, the Japanese government's stance on the abductions issue was characterized primarily by moderation and pragmatism as policy makers and self-interested elites sought to insulate policy from the influence of the victims' families and their supporters. This approach was manifested in several ways, including the acceptance of Pyongyang's position by members of a bipartisan Japanese delegation visiting North Korea in September 1990 and the Japanese government's perception of the abductions as just one of several unresolved bilateral issues, the most important of which was North Korea's missile and (then) alleged nuclear weapons programs (see Bridges Reference Bridges1993, 152–54).
While “restorationist nationalism” has grown as a political force in Japan, politicized ethnic nationalism has been on the rise in South Korea (Shin, Freda, and Yi Reference Shin, Freda and Yi1999). During South Korea's authoritarian period, national identity hinged on an anticommunism that was reinforced strongly by the government. As the ROK made the transition to democracy in the 1980s, activists turned to Korean culture—a culture shared with North Korea—as a source of national pride. Many South Koreans started to see North Koreans more as their brothers than as their enemies. In this view, the nation is defined as the entire Korean peninsula, and the dream is peaceful unification of the two sides of the peninsula, which they call “national (or ethnic) unification” (minjok t'ongil).
Ethnic nationalism has been adopted especially by progressive political actors, including those in the administrations of Kim Dae-jung (1998–2003) and Roh Moo Hyun (2003–8). A major part of the progressive platform in recent years has been reconciliation with the North. Left-leaning leaders also question the relevance of the alliance with the United States, although in practice, national leaders have not sought to alienate the ROK from the United States. Indeed, it was the apparent progressive Roh Moo Hyun who sent troops to Iraq. The South Korean right, in recent years represented by current president Lee Myung-bak's Grand National Party (hannara tang, or GNP), does not dismiss ethnic nationalism but continues to urge a tough stance on North Korea and close cooperation with the United States.
Ethnic nationalism is not the only reason for recent South Korean administrations to pursue reconciliation with the North; neither does reconciliation necessarily imply that the ROK must be silent on the abductions issue. Yet the ethnic nationalism emphasized by progressive politicians is clearly part of the story, at least as an indirect factor, because it helps set priorities for relations with the DPRK. For many South Korean citizens—voters included—the priority is no longer the North's offenses against the South, but the opportunity to find solidarity with North Koreans. As years have passed since the Korean War and a new conception of the nation has emerged, many South Koreans might simply be ready to forgive the DPRK's past actions, including the abduction and detention of ROK citizens.Footnote 7
The Japanese Rescue Movement
Kazokukai
It is the lobbying and public relations activities of three highly interconnected organizations, one of which is also arguably guided by ulterior motives, that has ensured the abductions issue remains prominent in Japan.Footnote 8 The first organization, the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea (Kitachōsen ni yoru Rachi Higaisha Kazoku Renrakukai, hereafter Kazokukai), was established in March 1997 when family members of the suspected abductees decided to launch a campaign to rescue them following revelations about Yokota Megumi's existence in North Korea in late 1996. The smallest of the three organizations, Kazokukai was formally headed by Megumi's father, Shigeru, who with his wife, Sakie, emerged as central figures in the national rescue movement, demanding that the Japanese government pursue a hard-line policy toward North Korea (McCormack Reference McCormack2005a). In late March Reference McCormack, Haruki and Feffer2006, Shigeru, citing poor health, announced that he would step down should the abductions issue remain unresolved by the time of his seventy-fifth birthday on November 14 (Niigata Nippō, April 22, 2007). Needless to say, Yokota Shigeru did step down and was replaced by Iizuka Shigeo, the older brother of Taguchi Yaeko.
Sukūkai
Kazokukai enjoys an especially close relationship with the most prominent of the three bodies, the National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea (Kitachōsen ni Rachi sareta Nihonjin o Kyūshutsu suru tame no Zenkoku Kyōgikai, hereafter Sukūkai). This organization emerged in April 1998 as a loose amalgam of several local groups that were established throughout Japan with the objective of providing support for Kazokukai. Sukūkai comprises several local “rescue associations” that operate nationwide, as well as a youth organization. The relationship between the Tokyo office and the local groups is not hierarchically structured; it broadly approximates a confederal structure in which the local branches are formally independent bodies that work together with the Tokyo office to resolve the issue (interview with the secretary general of Sukūkai, Hirata Ryūtarō, June 11, 2007).
Sukūkai has been described as a “combination support group and political action committee” (Johnston Reference Johnston2004), and it is headed by Satō Matsumi, a former Japan Communist Party member who was active in the movement to repatriate Zainichi Koreans to North Korea until 1984—twice being awarded the DPRK Red Cross Medal of Honor for his efforts—before turning to the Right following the belated realization that he was sending these people to “hell, and not heaven on earth” (Satō Reference Katsumi1995), as depicted in North Korean propaganda.
Sukūkai actively pursues a range of public relations and lobbying activities, including running seminars and conferences, publishing newsletters, and internationalizing the abductions issue by sending delegations (with Kazokukai) abroad to elicit support for Japan's position. Particularly noteworthy are Sukūkai's and Kazokukai's efforts at fostering relations with their South Korean counterparts, which have resulted in a series of reciprocal visits and joint symposia. Despite the common objective of securing the return of the abduction victims, tactical differences have overshadowed cooperation, occasionally escalating into mutual recrimination. In one instance, following Japanese criticism of the mother of a South Korean abductee for expressing a desire to visit her son in the North, the leader of one of the South Korean support groups suggested that organizations in Japan were seeking to exploit the abduction issue for political purposes (Rengō Nyūsu, July 18, 2006).
In a striking parallel with the broader political objectives underpinning the news operations of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Sukūkai has been broadcasting Japanese- and Korean-language radio programs in North Korea under the banner of “Free North Korea Broadcasting” (Jiyū Kitachōsen Hōsō) since late 2003. The programs provide, inter alia, information that is considered useful to potential North Korean escapees and emphasize to Pyongyang elites the priority that Japan places on the abductions issue. Sukūkai funds these consciousness-raising activities through donations, attendance fees at mass rallies, and the sale of memorabilia such as blue ribbon badges, books, flags, and towels.Footnote 9 The total revenue from these activities amounts to tens of millions of yen but has declined recently (Sukūkai 2005, 2008). While memorabilia sales provide the nationwide rescue movement with much-needed funding, the items themselves possess a broader significance; they also represent “condensational” symbols that are designed to “evoke strong emotions” and “broaden the scope and intensity of public involvement” in the abductions issue (Bennett Reference Bennett1996, 86).
Interestingly, Sukūkai has no formal membership system, relying instead on a vast number of supporters. According to Hirata Ryūtarō, this is because such a system would convey a sense of organizational permanency, which is something Sukūkai is eager to avoid, given its objective of seeking the expeditious return of the abductees, the achievement of which would enable the organization to dissolve itself (interview, June 11, 2007). More than 5.5 million of these supporters have signed petitions and donated just over 40 million yen in 2006 (approximately US $340,000) (see Sukūkai 2007).
Sukūkai, in turn, is closely affiliated with the Modern Korea Institute (Gendai Koria Kenkyūjo), to the extent that the latter has been described as its de facto parent organization (Takashima Reference Nobuyoshi2003, 21). That Satō serves concurrently as the institute's director underscores the close bonds between the two bodies. The Modern Korea Institute was established in 1961, and while it purports to pursue the ostensibly benign goal of “promoting research on the neighboring Korean peninsula across a wide range of issues, including politics, economics, society, culture and resident Koreans in Japan, from a Japanese perspective” (Gendai Koria Kenkyūjo n.d.), the institute has been accused of striving “to sabotage any moves toward Japan-North Korea normalization” (Hughes Reference Hughes1999, 184). In the abductions, it would appear it has found the perfect tool to undermine potential moves toward reconciliation. Since 1982, the Modern Korea Institute has published a journal entitled Modern Korea. It was Modern Korea that published an article in 1996 that recounted the story of a former North Korean agent, An Myŏng-jin, who claimed to have seen Yokota Megumi alive in the Stalinist state. Since the uncovering of the Yokota Megumi story, the journal has become a forum for propagating the views of those involved in the campaign to rescue Japanese abductees believed to be still alive in North Korea.
Rachi Giren
The third major organization in the nationwide rescue movement is located in the parliamentary arena, comprising a nonpartisan group of Diet members.Footnote 10 The first such organization, the Parliamentary Members Alliance to Help Japanese Allegedly Abducted by North Korea (Kitachōsen Rachi Giwaku Nihonjin Kyūen Giin Renmei, hereafter Rachi Giren I), was established in April 1997 and headed by the LDP's Nakayama Masaaki, a former transport minister in the Obuchi and Mori cabinets. While it was ostensibly created to provide organized political support to the Japanese rescue movement, Rachi Giren I also included members of the conciliatory Japan-North Korea Friendship Parliamentary League (Nakayama also headed this body) and, as such, found it difficult to speak with one voice on the issue. Rachi Giren I became the subject of widespread criticism in the aftermath of comments made by Nakayama that North Korea was not involved in the case of one of the abductees, Arimoto Keiko. Condemnation arising from Nakayama's comments, coupled with the group's general inactivity, led to its disbanding in April 2002 (Yomiuri Shimbun, April 12, 2002, 2).
The group was soon reconstituted by former members who favored a more hard-line approach toward North Korea on the abductions issue. Koizumi Junichirō's Pyongyang visit in September 2002 confirmed Japanese suspicion of North Korea's involvement in the abductions. Subsequently, the next issue for those in the rescue movement to address pertained to the specific measures designed to recover the missing Japanese. The new group wanted this shift in focus from “suspicion confirmation” to “action” reflected in its title and renamed itself the Parliamentary Members Alliance for the Swift Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea (Kitachōsen ni Rachi sareta Nihonjin o Sōki ni Kyūshutsu suru tame ni Kōdō suru Giin Renmei, hereafter Rachi Giren II) (Yomiuri Shimbun, April 12, 2002, 2). Rachi Giren's 200-plus members ensure the abductions issue remains high on the legislative agenda by lobbying their parliamentary colleagues to pass resolutions, issuing declarations, and inviting members of Kazokukai and Sukūkai to give testimony before the Diet. Institutionalized political support for the cause has also been replicated at the subnational level with the establishment of the Regional Parliamentary Members Association for the Swift Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea (Kitachōsen ni Rachi sareta Nihonjin o Sōki ni Kyūshutsu suru Chihō Giin no Kai).
Nonpartisan parliamentary groupings are neither a recent phenomenon in nor, of course, unique to Japan. These bodies have traditionally been established by like-minded lawmakers with a desire to promote friendship and cooperation with other countries. Despite the long-standing enmity and animosity characterizing bilateral relations, there is, as mentioned earlier, even a Japanese parliamentary league that ultimately seeks to normalize relations with North Korea, although given the current anti-Pyongyang climate in Japan, it has been forced into a state of dormancy. Rachi Giren II represents a departure from this traditional goal and is perhaps the most prominent among a new wave of parliamentary bodies established in recent years that are primarily concerned with security issues, as well as a host of right-wing causes including history textbooks, the Yasukuni Shrine, and Chongryun-affiliated financial institutions. While these like-minded bodies are formally autonomous, there are signs of emerging cooperation among them (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, September 9, 2004, 5; Sankei Shimbun, April 25, 2002). These parliamentary groups are another manifestation of the more assertive national mood in present-day Japan.
Abe's Role
While Rachi Giren has played an important role in rallying support for the abductions cause in the corridors of power in Japan, it was the political rise and maneuverings of Abe Shinzō that provided the most significant public boost to the nationwide rescue movement. Abe's first direct exposure to the issue is thought to have come in the autumn of 1988, when he was serving as a secretary to his father, former foreign minister and LDP heavyweight Abe Shintarō. Arimoto Keiko's parents visited the senior Abe's office seeking his help in their daughter's case shortly after they received a copy of a letter that another abductee, Ishioka Jun, sent to his parents in September 1988 suggesting that their daughter was alive in Pyongyang. Abe admits that he was initially skeptical about the general notion of states abducting foreign nationals, but his subsequent investigations into the matter convinced him of North Korea's guilt. Following his election to the Japanese Diet in 1993, Abe committed himself to working toward a resolution of the abductions issue (Abe Reference Shinzō2006, 44–45).
In a domestic environment that was primarily concerned with the potential threat posed by North Korea's suspected nuclear program, Abe began quietly supporting the family members of the abductees (Johnston Reference Johnston2004). Abe had no direct electoral incentive to involve himself in the abductions issue. None of the suspected abductees hailed from Abe's constituency, Yamaguchi Fourth District. While a local branch of Sukūkai is located in Abe's constituency and would be critical of any politician who was less than zealous in his or her approach to the issue, Abe was active in the nascent abductions movement well before Sukūkai's establishment. Rather, Abe's primary motivation appears to have derived from a sense of indignation that Japanese sovereignty had been violated and that the lives of innocent Japanese citizens had been taken (Abe Reference Shinzō2006, 46).
Abe further demonstrated his commitment to the cause, becoming deputy bureau chief of Rachi Giren I and raising the issue during Diet hearings in the period shortly after the Yokota Megumi story broke. However, as a junior LDP lawmaker, Abe's impact on policy making was limited. Abe's opportunity seemed to have arrived with his appointment as deputy chief cabinet secretary in the second Mori cabinet in July 2000—a position he retained following Koizumi's ascension to the premiership in April 2001. However, unbeknownst to Abe, Koizumi, who was not particularly eager to pursue a hard-line policy toward North Korea, had sought to find a way to break the impasse over the abductions issue and had entrusted the director of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, Tanaka Hitoshi, with the task of conducting clandestine negotiations with Pyongyang to this end (Yakushiji Reference Katsuyuki2003, 23). Abe, who was already developing a reputation as a hard-liner, allegedly was not informed of the negotiations until August 2002—just one month before Koizumi's historic Pyongyang visit (McCormack and Wada 2006, 84). It is possible to surmise that this was attributable to fears that Abe might attempt to sabotage the clandestine negotiations.
While Abe was excluded from the inner circle of policy makers in the lead-up to Koizumi's visit to North Korea, he made his presence felt during the course of the one-day summit. Japanese media and public attention was focused on whether the North Korean side would, in fact, acknowledge its role in the abductions of the missing Japanese. Evidence suggests that the initial North Korean attitude was not conciliatory. The original draft of the Pyongyang Declaration allegedly made no direct reference to the abductions or to North Korea's guilt (Shioda Reference Ushio2006, 128). Abe was disturbed by this, and he was able to persuade Koizumi to adopt a more forceful position: if the North Koreans did not formally admit their role in the abductions, the Japanese would refuse to sign the declaration (Kitachōsen Shuzaihan 2006, 24; Shioda 2006, 129). Kim admitted North Korean guilt in the affair and apologized, but the admission turned out to be bittersweet when it was revealed that eight of the thirteen abductees had died.
Back in Japan, Abe took the lead on the abductions issue after the chief cabinet secretary, Fukuda Yasuo, was criticized for making comments that the abductions had occurred “under conditions akin to a continuing state of war,” which some interpreted as suggesting that they had been unavoidable (Sankei Shimbun, September 18, 2002). Abe used his enhanced authority to pressure Koizumi into reneging on an agreement reached in Pyongyang, according to which the five abductees would travel to Japan temporarily to meet with relatives before returning to North Korea, where they would make a decision regarding their future. In addition to insisting that the abductees remain in Japan, Tokyo also demanded that North Korea allow the abductees' children to join their parents and come clean on the other suspected abductees—decisions that are also believed to have borne Abe's imprimatur. The Japanese public appeared to support this hard-line policy, with opinion polls, while supportive of Koizumi's decision to meet Kim, showing that the government should negotiate “firmly” (gizen to) on the abductions issue and not rush normalization negotiations (Yomiuri Shimbun, September 20, 2002, 1; Mainichi Shimbun, September 23, 2002, 3; Sankei Shimbun, September 20, 2002).Footnote 11
Abe cultivated the image of a staunch defender of the national interest through his hard-line stance on the abductions issue, which contributed to his rising popularity among the Japanese public and support within the LDP. As chief cabinet secretary, Abe took the initiative in implementing wide-ranging sanctions against North Korea in July 2006. While the sanctions were ostensibly in response to a North Korean missile test, they were also motivated by Pyongyang's “insincere response” to the abductions issue (Nishioka Reference Tsutomu2006, 65–66). The emphasis that Abe placed on resolving the issue was also reflected in a number of organizational reforms. In order to facilitate a government-wide approach to the issue, a Special Abductions Issue Team (Rachi Mondai Tokumei Chīmu) was established in January 2006, encompassing all ministries and agencies (apart from the Imperial Household Agency) under the authority of the chief cabinet secretary.
Abe was elected by his LDP colleagues to succeed Koizumi as prime minister in September 2006. The families of the abductees and their vast network of supporters were buoyed by the decision to install as prime minister a trusted figure who considered it absolutely imperative to resolve the issue, believing it to be a “divine dispensation” (ama no haizai). Clearly dissatisfied with Koizumi's efforts, Satō declared, “One could not hope for a better administration to resolve the abductions issue” (Kitachōsen Shuzaihan 2006, 24). Seeking to live up to these expectations, Abe continued the organizational changes, creating a ministerial position responsible for the abductions issue immediately following his elevation to the premiership, and also appointed a special advisor. In the same month, Abe also established an Abductions Issue Countermeasures Headquarters within the Cabinet Secretariat, installing himself as the head (Kitachōsen Shuzaihan 2006, 24).Footnote 12 Finally, in a move mirroring his earlier efforts to pressure national broadcasting company NHK to tone down a documentary on Japan's sexual enslavement of foreign “comfort women,” in which he arguably acted unconstitutionally, Abe ordered Japan's national broadcaster to highlight the abductions issue in its international radio broadcasts.
Instrumentalizing the Abductions to Achieve Nationalist Goals?
The three main Japanese organizations outlined earlier have established links with other sympathetic individuals as well as groups seeking to instrumentalize the issue to further their own nationalist political agendas. One group that has sought to forge closer ties with the abductions movement is Atarashii Rekishi Kyōkasho o Tsukuru Kai (Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, hereafter Tsukuru Kai), the “activist wing” of the “Liberal School of History”—a revisionist organization established in December 1996 that favors a greater emphasis on patriotic history education for junior and senior high school students (Kersten Reference Kersten1999, 201). Tsukuru Kai's general aim is to produce textbooks featuring a historical narrative that will instill patriotic values in students. In what represented the first contact between the two groups, members of Kazokukai and Sukūkai were invited to attend a Tsukuru Kai symposium in December 2002 at which donations were collected for the abductions movement (Sankei Shimbun, December 29, 2002). There is a high degree of overlapping membership, which adds an element of permanence to the bonds linking the abductee support groups and Tsukuru Kai, ensuring that events like these are not momentary.
Tsukuru Kai has also taken up the abductions issue in its junior high school textbook (Sankei Shimbun, December 20, 2002). By deleting passages on the “comfort women” from its history textbooks and including issues such as the abduction of innocent nationals, Tsukuru Kai reinforces a sense of Japanese victimization and seeks to redress what it sees as an imbalanced view of history in which Japan is unfairly cast as the villain. Similarly, the abductions issue serves as a rallying point for frustrated nationalists.
The three main groups that make up the rescue movement have also been courted by the Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi), the nation's largest nationalist organization, which maintains a network of branches nationwide. Nippon Kaigi has been described as a “moderate rightist pressure group” (Daiki Reference Daiki2005, 201) and espouses a number of causes associated with the right wing in Japan, including revision of the Fundamental Law of Education, support for official visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, reverence for the emperor, and opposition to revising the Imperial Household Law and to “gender-free” thinking. Many of Sukūkai's regional leaders are believed to be active in the organization (Onishi Reference Onishi2006, 3). Nippon Kaigi, which has been described as the “unknown [support] base of the [former] Abe administration” (Sentaku, October 2006), is also active in the national campaign to amend the Japanese Constitution, and it is this issue, in particular, on which it finds common ground with the more extreme elements in the nationwide rescue movement.
Family members of the victims have been guest speakers at Nippon Kaigi's annual constitutional forums, where various reform proposals are debated. The outspoken brother of one of the victims and a leading official in Kazokukai, Hasuike Tōru, has used this event to question openly how the current peace constitution has protected the human rights of the Japanese abductees. For Hasuike (2003), Article 9 is especially to blame as it obstructs efforts to resolve the issue (see also Mainichi Shimbun, June 25, 2004, 25; May 4, 2005). One possible interpretation of these comments is Hasuike believes this dispute can only be resolved by “the threat or use of force,” which, of course, the first clause of Article 9 expressly prohibits (see also Ishin Seitō: Shimpū 2007). Meanwhile, others in the movement are convinced that nothing short of regime change in North Korea will see the abductees safely repatriated to Japan, although, recognizing the obvious limits of armed intervention, opinion appears to favor a moderate approach based on the application of economic sanctions and transmitting information into North Korea.Footnote 13
Abe was certainly most open about his own desire to revise the Constitution during his premiership, as he saw the document as a product of another era and another country, preventing Japan from playing a role in international affairs commensurate with its standing as a global economic power. Some observers claim that Abe deliberately exploited, or at the very least took advantage of, the abductions issue to promote his constitutional reform agenda. According to Yoneyuki Sugita, a historian at Osaka University of Foreign Studies, Abe used this issue politically to depict North Korea as evil and promoting constitutional reform and patriotism among schoolchildren as a means of responding to the threat posed by the Stalinist regime (Onishi Reference Onishi2006, 3; Sankei Shimbun, September 14, 2006). This is not to say that Japanese concerns are illegitimate; however, certain civil society actors, political lobbies and individual politicians have used them to promote other, often nationalist, objectives.
South Korean Reconciliation with the North: From Reciprocity to “Quiet Diplomacy”
In contrast to Japan, where the fact that kidnappings occurred at all was not conclusively established until Kim Jong Il's 2002 admission to Koizumi, in South Korea, the detainment of citizens by North Korea has been known for decades. Since the early 1970s, the abductions have arisen periodically as an issue in inter-Korean relations. The state of North–South relations and domestic politics in South Korea prevented any movement for the return of abductees from developing until much later. The ROK had very little communication with the DPRK and no room for negotiating the return of detained citizens. Furthermore, South Korea was run by authoritarian leaders who, far from fighting for the rights of citizens, committed atrocities against their own people. In that context, there would have been no political space within South Korea until at least the late 1980s, if not later, for families of abductees to press for more attention to the problem of kidnappings by North Korea.
Early efforts to resolve the abductions issue were spearheaded by the South Korean National Red Cross (KNRC), which achieved short-lived breakthroughs in 1972–73 and 1985. These efforts were couched within the broader framework of family reunions, a perennial topic in inter-Korean relations. The purpose of the joint Red Cross talks held in 1972–73 was to find a way of pursuing the shared goal of collecting information on separated family members: learning whether family members were alive and, if so, where they lived. Very little came of the talks before they broke down in 1973, not to be resumed for another twelve years. In 1985, both the North and South Red Crosses agreed to search for a permanent reunion of separated families—an ambitious goal. The negotiations stumbled along and claimed something of a success when brief reunions of separated family members (and an exchange of artistic troupes) were held. No progress specifically on the abductions issue was made, and in January 1986, the DPRK cited the ROK's Team Spirit exercises with the United States as the reason for cutting contact with the South. North Korea's endeavors to discredit the upcoming 1988 Seoul Olympic Games meant that relations did not improve again for some time. Still, the 1985 reunions were unprecedented and served as a model when reunions were resumed fifteen years later.
In the 1990s, the abductions issue gained public attention in South Korea at a few points in time in response to new information and in debates over what to do with former North Korean spies. In August 1994, Amnesty International released a report revealing that at least forty-nine South Koreans taken by North Korea were being held in prison camps in the North, prompting the families of three abductees to appeal to the KNRC for help (Yi Reference Kŭm-sun2004, 51). Also in the 1990s, several convicted North Korean spies were completing their prison terms, and the DPRK demanded their repatriation. Seoul's policy in these cases was to insist on the principle of reciprocity: a North Korean prisoner would be returned if the DPRK returned an imprisoned or kidnapped ROK citizen. In 1992, Pyongyang rejected such a deal when it demanded the return of former spy Yi In-mo, who himself wanted to be repatriated, and went further to cancel a planned round of family exchanges. A year later, to the chagrin of many in the South, Yi was sent home, but no South Korean was released in return.Footnote 14
More information about South Koreans detained in the North became available in part because of greater contact across the demilitarized zone, but also because of knowledge brought by North Koreans fleeing famine for China and eventually other countries.Footnote 15 In December 1997, the South Korean Defense Ministry confirmed the existence of some 100 POWs in the North, and in early 1999, the government released a list of 454 known living abductees as well as 231 POWs. Longtime activist Kim Dae-jung had taken office in 1998, and he worked to act on the new information. In early 1999, his administration offered to repatriate North Korean prisoners, as long as the North released the living POWs and abductees. Many former DPRK spies were released on amnesty and desired to be returned to the North. Pyongyang rejected the offer, claiming that no ROK citizens were being held against their will in the North. Exchanging citizens appeared to be the best option on the table for addressing the problem, but because of the DPRK's refusal to recognize that the country was holding South Koreans, the approach did not help the South Korean government make progress on the abductions issue.
Through his sunshine policy, President Kim Dae-jung sought to initiate reconciliation with the North and improve inter-Korean relations. The breakthrough came with the North–South joint summit held in Pyongyang on June 15, 2000, at which Kim Jong Il and Kim Dae-jung met and signed an agreement. The summit set the stage for family reunions as well as economic exchange between the Koreas. The abductions issue was not addressed at the summit.
In the aftermath of the historic June summit, there was much excitement in South Korea about the possibilities for greater contact with North Korea. The South Korean administration decided that it would act on earlier plans to repatriate sixty-three former North Korean spies. Detractors were furious about the plan and about other acts of generosity to the DPRK. In early September, South Korea released the former spies without demanding that South Korean citizens be released in return. The moment was a watershed. Until then, the administration had promised repatriation of the North Koreans only on the condition of the North returning ROK citizens. The families of abductees were outraged, and years later, they continue to see that act as the point at which the ROK government was no longer negotiating with North Korea but groveling at Kim Jong Il's feet.Footnote 16
At stake was the principle of reciprocity (sangho chuǔi). President Kim was criticized for abandoning that principle in dealings with the DPRK. In the weeks leading up to the repatriation and after, conservative editorials slammed the administration for the move. Chosǒn ilbo (August 29, 2000), for example, declared, “No matter how important South-North reconciliation is, there cannot be ‘reconciliation’ in a way that smashes the foundation of the nation.” The government responded that it had not abandoned reciprocity: former spies were a Cold War issue, but POWs and other detainees were matters of state and security, and so could not be equated. Moreover, President Kim articulated a different vision of exchange with the DPRK, beyond a simple give-and-take relationship: “We are not going to apply the principle of reciprocity for humanitarian support in order for our North Korean brothers to escape hunger, but we are going to apply the principle of reciprocity for economic cooperation, including helping with North Korea's economic development and setting up enterprises” (quoted in Song Reference Mun-hong2000). For President Kim, reconciliation meant approaching the DPRK with open arms, not making calculating deals.
Instead of reciprocity, by September 2000, President Kim's administration had embraced “quiet diplomacy” (choyonghan woegyo) as the approach to North Korea on sensitive issues such as abductees. The quiet approach avoids direct confrontation over the abductions issue in negotiations with North Korea. The key point is that the government redefined abductees, as well as POWs, as members of “separated families” (yisan kajok).Footnote 17 An ROK white paper from 2001 explains the rationale behind this change: “Because the North is currently denying the existence of the abductees and POWs in North Korea, the ROK government believes it will not help matters to continue an unproductive discussion about their existence. The government is trying to solve this matter by including abductees and POWs in the category of separated families” (Ministry of Unification 2001a, 143). By putting abductees in the category of separated families, the government gave the families of abductees some hope of meeting their kin, or at least learning more about them.Footnote 18
The first round of reunions took place in August 2000. In the second round, later in 2000, a former POW in the North was allowed to meet his brother from the South. In January 2001, the Red Cross pushed for more abductees and POWs to be included in reunions and allocated them and their relatives a portion of the space in delegations for family meetings (Yun 2004, 39).Footnote 19 The administration and the Red Cross considered the deal a breakthrough, because explicit reference to South Koreans detained in the North was taken so poorly by DPRK representatives. Now families of abductees could at least be offered an opportunity to meet their relatives or gain information about their status and whereabouts. They have become included in the reunions as members of “special separated families” (t'ǔksu yisan kajok). In the next round of reunions, two POWs and an abducted flight attendant were included, and through those meetings, more was learned about other abductees. Two South Korean fishermen taken by DPRK authorities in 1987 were included in family reunions at North Korea's Mount Kǔmgang in September 2009.
The election of Lee Myung-bak, who became president in February 2008, raised the possibility of change in South Korea's approach to the abductions issue. Lee pledged to make efforts to solve the problem early in his tenure. Soon after he took office, the Ministry of Unification laid out a plan for dealing with the issue (Ministry of Unification 2008, 15). Within the Ministry of Unification, Lee's administration has established an Abductee Support Directorate (nappuk p'ihaeja chiwǒndan), which is tasked with collecting information on possible abductees and assisting in the repatriation of those who are in third countries. Perhaps the most significant development is the inclusion of “special separated families” in the family reunions. Despite Lee's willingness to risk harming North–South relations, his administration has done little in its first two years to depart substantially from the “quiet diplomacy” approach on this issue.
The Movement in South Korea
Private Family Associations
There are two private organizations made up of families of (post–Korean War) abductees: the North Korean Abductees' Family Assembly (nappukcha kajok moim) and the Families of Abducted and Detained in North Korea (nappukcha kajok hyǒpǔihoe). Nappukcha kajok moim is led by Ch'oe U-yǒng and Ch'oe Sǒng-yong. Ch'oe U-yǒng is the daughter of a fisherman who has been detained in North Korea since the 1970s and who is reportedly imprisoned. Both organizations have as their priorities gaining information on the status and whereabouts of their missing family members and, if alive, their repatriation. They lobby the government for their cause and try to gain publicity for it as well. The activities of the two organizations include staging occasional demonstrations, filing petitions, managing lists of abductees based on the testimony of those who have left North Korea, and organizing social activities for the families. They also hold events to commemorate those who are detained: in January 2007, for example, nappukcha kajok moim organized a program to pin 10,000 yellow gloves on trees near the demilitarized zone. Nappukcha kajok moim and nappukcha kajok hyǒpǔihoe were originally one organization, until the latter split off for political reasons.
Another group worthy of mention is the Korean War Abductees Family Union (6.25 chǒnjaeng nappuk insa kajok hyǒpǔihoe, or KWAFU), which represents the families of people who went missing during the Korean War and who are presumed to be in North Korea. The group, which shares the same goals as the family associations of postwar abductees, claims that some 80,000 people were by taken North Korea during the war, mostly from the Seoul area in the first few months of the war, when the DPRK army swept into the South.
The family groups eyed the June 15 summit with caution, but not opposition. A few months later, when the ROK administration allowed the return of the former DPRK spies, they became frustrated with the Kim government's approach. Before and after the spies' repatriation, families demonstrated on the streets, where they were joined in their calls for the return of abductees by members of the opposition GNP, including its leader, Lee Hoi Chang. The chance to meet detained family members through reunions has not been met with approval, because the goal of the family associations is not to meet family members but to have them returned. Their grievances have continued to target the ROK government for shirking its responsibility to protect its citizens. The organizations see the administrations of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo Hyun as having placed a higher priority on reconciliation, without giving adequate consideration to the government's obligations to its own citizens.Footnote 20 These groups have hoped for a more agreeable attitude from Lee Myung-bak.
One revealing fact is that the family associations, as well as KWAFU, were founded in the year 2000. It might seem odd that such an organization would be formed decades after family members had gone missing.Footnote 21 The June 15 summit and the beginning of reconciliation opened up opportunities for making progress on the abductions issue. Now that the South Korean government was engaged in dialogue with North Korea, South Koreans could debate the priorities in their country's dealings with the North and also the limits of cooperation. No matter how skeptical abductees' families were of gestures of generosity to the North, their movement would not exist without the beginnings of reconciliation.
Other Civic Groups
While the foregoing organizations are formed of people who are personally affected by North Korea's detention of South Korean citizens, other civic groups also deal with the issue. Chief among these civic organizations is the Citizens' Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees (p'irap t'albuk in'gwǒn yǒndae, or CHNK). This group's politics are quite clear, and it is at the center of the movement to press North Korea on its human rights record. The group's leaders include To Hǔi-yun (Do Hee Yoon) and Hwang Jang-yop, a former chief ideologue for the DPRK who defected to the South in 1997. With ties to the conservative GNP, the association has clearer links to the world of politics than the family organizations. The organization made international news in January 2005 when it released a video supposedly containing footage of antigovernment groups working in North Korea. While the claim was not entirely implausible, the timing of the release was noteworthy. The group brought the video to attention just after the U.S. Congress passed the North Korea Human Rights Act, which allows up to US $24 million to be used per year to promote human rights in North Korea.Footnote 22
Nappukcha kajok moim and nappukcha kajok hyǒpǔihoe do not have the resources to lead many activities on their own, but nappukcha kajok moim and its leaders regularly participate in seminars and public events sponsored by CHNK and other organizations involved in the North Korean human rights movement. Nappukcha kajok moim is particularly close to CHNK. The leaders of the two organizations together visited New York in 2003, and also made a trip to North Korea together (Ch'oe Reference Chae-kyǒng2003). According to the leader of nappukcha kajok hyǒpǔihoe, his group split from the nappukcha kajok moim because members had different ideas about how to pursue their cause. Nappukcha kajok hyǒpǔihoe has fewer links to the North Korea human rights movement,Footnote 23 while nappukcha kajok moim, on the other hand, appears less hesitant to align itself with that movement and its conservative sponsors. While most of the group's statements are exclusively on the abductions issue, in one interview, nappukcha kajok moim's leader brought up the issue of North Korean defectors, noting that the ROK government ignores both them and the abductees (Kyǒnghyang sinmun, January 23, 2007).
In any case, both family groups have found that their cause can gain most exposure through activities held by those involved in the broader North Korea human rights movement. The participants in events they attend give some indication of how the abductions issue gets framed. Nappukcha kajok hyǒpǔihoe, along with KWAFU, took part in an international symposium in Japan in December 2006 of groups of families who had members taken by North Korea. The meeting included South Korean and Japanese delegates, as well as Thai and Lebanese. From South Korea, there was a GNP National Assembly member as well as Cho Kap-jae, a well-known conservative and former editor of Chosun Monthly (Kim Yong-hun Reference Yong-hun2006). At another summit on promoting human rights in North Korea, nappukcha kajok hyǒpǔihoe and KWAFU were both in attendance, as were numerous other nongovernmental organizations, representatives from the Ministry of Unification, and National Assembly representatives from both the Left and the Right. The country's major human rights nongovernmental organizations, however, were noticeably absent. Administration representatives in attendance tried to downplay the politics of the issue (Kim Chin-su Reference Chin-su2006).
It is important to notice that as the abductions issue gets promoted, the emphasis shifts away from what was originally intended by the family groups. Some minor differences aside, the family organizations share a specific agenda: they want more information on their family members and repatriation if possible. The process of getting publicity for that goal changes the movement. The civic organizations that have the money and clout to make noise about the issue tend to employ these resources for their own broader causes. Those causes are human rights in the DPRK, and a tougher stance on North Korea. The family groups have not articulated strong opposition to the sunshine policy and have expressed approval of more cooperative relations with North Korea.Footnote 24 Yet they want any steps toward reconciliation to include concrete measures for addressing the abductions problem. At the same time, the family organizations have been left behind by civic groups with other political outlooks.Footnote 25 Thus, when seeking to publicize their concerns, the family organizations have no one else to turn to but groups opposing reconciliation with the North.
No South Korean Abe
Unlike Japan, where one politician, Abe, made use of the abductions issue, in South Korea, no single politician has played such a prominent role. Nonetheless, various political actors have taken up the abductions issue and used it to pursue larger causes.
Legislation and the National Assembly
In the National Assembly, reference to the abductions issue can be found in seminars hosted by certain committees. The committees have tended to be partisan, organized within the GNP. One such committee is the GNP's Special Committee on Countermeasures on POWs and Abductees (kukkunp'oro mit nappukcha taech'aek t'ǔkpyǒl wiwǒnhoe), which has dealt specifically with the abductions problem. More generally, though, committees have incorporated the issue within the problem of North Korean human rights, and abductees are frequently paired with defectors from North Korea. That is the case with the Special Committee on Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Defectors (nappukcha mit t'albukcha in'gwǒn t'ǔkpyǒl wiwǒnhoe), which has sponsored at least one seminar that dealt very little with the abductions issue relative to other North Korean human rights topics.Footnote 26 In 2009, another committee suggested offering the DPRK 100 million won per returned abductee or POW (Munhwa ilbo, September 23, 2009). The issue has also been picked up by individual National Assembly members, all from the GNP, including Chǒn Yǒ-ok, who sponsored a recent bill on compensation for abduction victims. Former GNP representative and daughter of dictator Park Chung Hee, Pak Kǔn-hye (Park Geun-hye) also met Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang and raised the abductions issue—though without consulting the family associations.
One topic addressed in the National Assembly has been compensation for victims of the abductions, including both abductees' families and those abductees who have returned. In 2002, families of abductees first petitioned the National Human Rights Commission over violations of their own rights decades earlier. The charge was not based on the emotional pain of losing family members and the government's failure to help them, but rather on the government's treatment of them. In authoritarian South Korea, if someone disappeared to North Korea, that person and those close to him or her were viewed with suspicion as possible DPRK sympathizers. In the 1960s and 1970s especially, those suspicions could lead to detention and torture, as well as to being ignored by neighbors and acquaintances. The 2002 petition involved the brother of an abductee who had been tortured at a police station over twelve days in 1972 (Korea Times, November 5, 2002). Family members of the abducted were also banned from working in the civil service, and those who were civil servants lost their jobs. Although most of these grievances are less relevant today, family organizations seek acknowledgment that the government was not right to harm their dignity and, in some cases, their livelihood.Footnote 27
The way in which the abductions issue plays out in South Korea is shaped by how it is framed. When compensation for families of abductees or those who have returned is the issue, the problem is less politically divisive, and the administration can deal with it because it is about fault by the ROK government and not the DPRK. In April 2007, a bill was enacted that calls for greater efforts by the government to confirm the status of abductees and work toward their repatriation, and it sets forth new guidelines for compensating both those repatriated and the families of abductees with packages that involve money as well as help finding employment and health insurance.Footnote 28 The bill was not highly contentious and received support from the Unification Ministry. But when the issue is getting information on the abductees or attempting to secure their return, the government has been less responsive. Progressives fear that focus on the issue would hurt inter-Korean relations, and even the current conservative administration shies away. Other conservatives, meanwhile, use the issue in order to undermine inter-Korean relations, by presenting it as a North Korean human rights issue.
Public Debate and Silence from the Left
Public discussion of the abductions issue in South Korea has less resembled debate than one-sided political diatribe. Almost all media attention has come from conservative media groups. Perhaps more telling, though, is the silence from the Left and even from a politically neutral voice. The Japanese Left is similarly restrained when it comes to speaking publicly about the abductions issue, but their silence is primarily attributable to a forced reflection on a past policy of refusing to admit North Korean involvement in the abductions, as well as revelations that some were the beneficiaries of financial infusions from Pyongyang. Progressive newspapers and magazines in South Korea have published very few articles on the abductions issue. A search of South Korea's premier publications database (run by the National Assembly Library) reveals only one book published between 1995 and 2006 with the phrase “North Korean abductee” (nappukcha) in the title—and that a list of abductees put out by the conservative Chosun Monthly—compared to 1,456 books with “North Korea” in the title.Footnote 29 By contrast, the Japanese National Diet Library database has 742 titles on North Korea and as many as 99 books on “abductions” (rachi). In South Korea, scholarly interest in abductees approaches nil. Not a single master's or doctoral thesis has been written in South Korea on abductees. It is surprising that no intellectuals have even attempted to grapple with the abductions issue in public discourse. South Koreans have simply not found any way of talking about the issue, except as a reason to be tough on North Korea. Just as in civic group circles and in the National Assembly, in public debate, the families of abductees can only find sympathy in conservatives who will deal with the issue but use it for their own agendas.
Do pro-reconciliation forces in South Korea avoid the issue because it can only get in the way of their goals? Or is silence the most pragmatic approach? There are certainly cases of the administration and its allies going too far to keep the issue quiet. In January 2005, the progovernment Uri Party (yǒllin uri tang) remained relatively silent on the issue when it was brought up in the National Assembly for debate. When the organizers of the debate asked what an Uri representative thought of the possibility of working with a team from the Japanese Diet on the abductees problem, he responded by saying that “[s]uch an alliance would not do anything helpful for inter-Korean relations” (International Herald Tribune, January 7, 2005). A more extreme example comes from the East Asian Summit in January 2007, where South Korea objected to the inclusion of a clause in the concluding statement, pressed for by Japan, urging the DPRK to resolve the abductees problem. South Korean foreign minister Song Min-soon was reported to have said in private that “the number of Japanese abducted by North Korea totals merely about 10. . . . There are hundreds of South Korean abductees [in North Korea] but we're not saying anything” (Agence France Press, January 19, 2007).Footnote 30
At the same time, the Kim and Roh administrations and the KNRC have repeatedly attempted to raise the abductions issue at meetings with the North, only to have DPRK representatives threaten to walk out if they continued to talk in that way. Raising the issue seems to do little for reconciliation or for finding a solution to the abductees problem. The ROK government has also taken action on the issue behind the scenes, attempting to make progress while trying to hide the fact that the issue was being addressed. For example, when a POW was included in family reunions in November and December 2000, the government asked the press not to report on the event (Korea Times, February 28, 2001).Footnote 31 “Quiet diplomacy” may not mean ignoring the issue.
Conclusion
The abductions issue is certainly a real one: the DPRK has admitted to kidnapping thirteen Japanese nationals, though it continues to deny holding further Japanese and South Koreans against their will. However, the responses from Japan and South Korea do not seem commensurate with the duties of states to protect their citizens. This article has shown how specific demands by the families of abductees have been overwhelmed by political actors who have framed the issue in terms of broader agendas. In both Japan and South Korea, the political environment has caused the abductions issue to become distorted and rarely presented in public debate as only a problem of protecting citizens. Rather, the issue becomes wrapped up in calls for restoration of Japan as a “normal” nation and debates over achieving pan-Korean solidarity.
Nationalism has been a factor in shaping how the issue plays out in both countries, but its role has been different in each case. Extremist elements in the Japanese repatriation movement have sought to instrumentalize the campaign in order to pursue a broad nationalist agenda, ensuring that the abductions issue retains a prominent place in Japan's North Korea diplomacy. Restorationist nationalism has made many Japanese especially sensitive to violations of sovereignty, a point that helps explain why conservative politicians have been successful in mobilizing popular support on the abductions issue. The ethnic nationalism that has swept South Korea has had the opposite effect on attitudes toward the abductions issue: an ideology of pan-Korean solidarity encourages South Koreans to put precisely these sorts of acts by North Korea behind them. In the sunshine era, South Koreans are torn between seeking to heal old wounds on the Korean peninsula and acknowledging that North Korea's political system does not square with the South's newly gained democratic sensibilities. Ethnic nationalism has helped push many South Koreans to prioritize reconciliation with the North while adhering to a selective silence when that goal conflicts with democratic values.
While part of the story is about how political actors with more resources took advantage of those with fewer, responses to the abductions issue have been driven by forces other than just elite manipulations. In South Korea, human rights groups, public intellectuals, and the media have chosen to remain largely silent on the issue. Nobody is forcing such actors to avoid the issue. But in South Korea today, any mention of the abductions is understood as opposition to reconciliation with the North and to the vision of a unified Korean nation. Were the political environment not so hostile to issues that challenge that vision, there might be more calls for at least limited engagement of the issue. One possible way forward is for the South Korean government first to acknowledge historical wrongs done to the DPRK. Soon after the June 15 summit in 2000, a South Korean academic proposed that the ROK should first return North Koreans who had been taken by the South (Han'gyǒrye, August 28, 2000). The call was reiterated by a former legislator in 2005 (OhmyNews, June 3, 2005). Such an approach is unlikely to be attempted by a conservative administration.
In Japan, the response to the repatriation movement has arguably reached the point of working against the country's foreign policy interests. In placing the abductions issue at the center of its North Korea policy, Japan might be undermining its own national interests by isolating itself from nascent attempts at regional reconciliation on the Korean peninsula. Japanese fears of isolation were accentuated following signs of a moderation of U.S. policy toward North Korea in late 2006—exemplified by a willingness to engage in direct, bilateral negotiations, scale back financial sanctions, and move toward normalizing diplomatic ties with Pyongyang—which paved the way for the six-party nuclear agreement in February 2007. Tokyo's concerns, however, have been partially alleviated by Washington's reassurances that it has not forgotten the abductions issue and, more importantly, by North Korea's current unwillingness to completely disable its nuclear facilities and to declare fully the extent of its nuclear programs. It is also important to note that Tokyo's stance on the abductions issue is not simply the product of elite machinations; the Japanese rescue movement has, in many ways, assumed a life of its own, virtually ensuring significant societal pressure on the government to continue pressing North Korea over the fate of the (suspected) remaining abductees.
What new developments around the abductions issue can be expected in the near future? The Japanese government has adopted an uncompromising position that has driven Pyongyang into a corner. This is evident in Tokyo's handling of the DNA analysis of Yokota Megumi's cremated remains, which the prestigious international science journal Nature cast suspicions on (see McCormack Reference McCormack2005a), the hypocritical claim for compensation from North Korea, and the insistence that Pyongyang hand over the kidnappers for prosecution—an unrealistic demand given Kim Jong Il's central role in establishing this unorthodox state program.Footnote 32 Abe's two short-lived successors, Fukuda Yasuo and Asō Tarō, essentially continued with the previous policy of “pressure and dialogue,” which placed varying degrees of emphasis on the former.Footnote 33 This policy not only failed to make progress in relations with North Korea but also was weakened by the U.S. decision to remove North Korea from its list of states that sponsor terrorism in October 2008, despite intense Japanese lobbying. While the Hatoyama Yukio administration has yet to devise a concrete abductions policy, some are uncertain how the desire to resolve the problem accords with the new Democratic Party of Japan government's broader diplomatic philosophy of “fraternity” (yūai) (Mainichi Shimbun, December 8, 2009, 1; Sankei Shimbun, November 14, 2009, 4).
Despite an administration in South Korea that is less interested in reconciliation with the North, major change on the abductions issue seems unlikely. Under Lee, North–South relations have taken a turn for the worse without really benefiting anyone, and without the ROK pushing the abductions issue. Furthermore, the administration appears unwilling to make the concessions necessary for progress on the issue to be achieved.
Acknowledgments
Research for this project was made possible by a National University of Singapore Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Staff Research Support Grant, for which both authors are grateful. Brad Williams would also like to thank his hosts in Japan, Professors Komaki Teruo, Roderick Kaim, and Yakov Zinberg from Kokushikan University, for facilitating his fieldwork.
