2024-01-15

The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s latest book, Henkenjizai: Who Buried Shinzo Abe?
This is the latest volume in the book series based on his celebrated columns in Shukan Shincho, but the original text has been polished further, making it even easier to read.
This book alone makes him worthy of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
It is a must-read not only for the people of Japan but for people throughout the world.
North Korea’s Lies Exposed by Former Prime Minister Abe
It was in November 1977 that Megumi Yokota suddenly disappeared while walking home from school.
Her father, Shigeru, searched for his daughter until dawn.
He opened and searched every toilet in the school building, and on the following day and the day after that, he walked along her route to school, the nearby paths, and the beach, but found no trace of her.
At last, he crouched down on the spot and wept.
In 1988, after ten years of such days, Kim Hyon-hui, the perpetrator of the Korean Air bombing, spoke about an abducted Japanese woman.
It was staff from the Japanese Embassy in Bahrain who had secured her custody.
South Korea, however, demanded that she be handed over.
Before the war, Japan provided education, medical care, and infrastructure to the then-uncivilized people of Korea.
Yet they claimed that they had been mistreated and demanded money and assistance from Japan.
South Korea’s demand for custody of Kim Hyon-hui was one such example.
Afterward, however, South Korea was reluctant to provide further information about the abductions.
They were people who did not know the meaning of the word “gratitude.”
Handing Kim Hyon-hui over to South Korea was a grievous mistake for Japan.
Even so, to the Yokotas, it seemed like a small ray of hope.
Soon afterward, the parents of Keiko Arimoto, who had disappeared while studying in the United Kingdom, received a private letter stating that she was being held captive in North Korea.
It was the first evidence proving that North Korea had abducted Japanese citizens.
Yet instead of investigating the matter, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs turned the parents away, telling them not to speak about it because “it would obstruct Japan–North Korea negotiations.”
The parents visited Takako Doi’s office.
That visit, however, produced the worst possible result.
Like the Foreign Ministry, Doi ordered them not to tell anyone and immediately reported the matter to Chongryon, the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan.
Two months later, Keiko, her husband, and their child, who had exposed North Korea’s secret, died under suspicious circumstances.
Neither government officials nor politicians were willing to take up their case.
There was, however, one person who listened to Keiko’s parents and promised to resolve the issue.
“That person was Mr. Abe, who at the time served as secretary to his father, Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe,” Sakie Yokota wrote in a Sankei Shimbun article commemorating the former Prime Minister.
Ten years later, in 1997, information concerning Megumi suddenly emerged.
A North Korean agent testified that a thirteen-year-old girl had been abducted, while a North Korean defector described witnessing Megumi being taken away.
Hideo Den, Yasuhiko Yoshida of Saitama University, and others, however, dismissed the story as “a fabrication by South Korea.”
The response of those cultural figures in Japan who called themselves progressives was that North Korea, being a communist state, would never abduct anyone.
The abduction issue continued to be ignored in the diplomatic arena as well.
This was epitomized by a round-table discussion between Koremochi Anami, Director-General of the Foreign Ministry’s Asian Affairs Bureau, and the Foreign Ministry press club known as the Kasumi Club.
An Asahi reporter scoffed, “The abduction allegations are taking on a life of their own despite the complete absence of evidence.”
I would very much have liked to hear that line during the Mori-Kake uproar, but let us leave that aside.
Anami followed the reporter’s lead and said, “There is no evidence. We have not moved a single step beyond the stage of suspicion.”
Asahi, which had led him in that direction, also wrote an editorial that appeared to mock the abductees’ families, asking whether “the abduction allegations have become an obstacle to negotiations for the normalization of relations between Japan and North Korea.”
Kunihiko Makita, who succeeded Anami as Director-General of the Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, also told a meeting of the Liberal Democratic Party’s Foreign Affairs Division, “Is it right to halt negotiations for the normalization of relations between Japan and North Korea over the alleged abduction of only ten people?”
It was the same argument used by Asahi.
Astonishingly, such a man was a Japanese diplomat.
North Korea must have believed that Asahi had persuaded Japanese public opinion on its behalf.
In 2002, North Korea invited Prime Minister Koizumi and admitted to abducting Japanese citizens.
The Foreign Ministry had promised that if North Korea admitted the abductions, Japan would smile and give it one trillion yen.
Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Abe, however, accompanied Prime Minister Koizumi and, knowing that their conversation was being wiretapped, told him, “If the abductees are not returned to Japan, we will have no choice but to abandon the agreement.”
Five abductees were therefore returned to Japan, but North Korea claimed that eight others, including Megumi, had died.
According to Sakie, however, “Mr. Abe told us emphatically that there was no evidence whatsoever that they had died.”
He then exposed North Korea’s fabrication.
Indeed, DNA testing revealed that some of the bone fragments North Korea had presented as “Megumi’s remains” belonged to “completely different people—and to more than one person.”
When Hitoshi Tanaka of the Foreign Ministry proposed sending the five returnees back on the basis of an oral promise made to the criminal state of North Korea, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Abe firmly rejected the proposal, declaring, “We will not allow them to be made hostages in diplomatic negotiations,” and also brought their families back to Japan.
Not a single yen was given to North Korea.
Former Prime Minister Abe demonstrated that even Japan, a country without weapons, could negotiate proudly and resolutely with a rogue state.
By comparison, the ugliness of the Asahi Shimbun, which lives by false accusations and expedients of the moment, stood out with grotesque clarity.
(July 28, 2022 issue)

2024/1/14 in Kyoto