Although Yutaka Kume was later recognized as a North Korean abduction victim, early reporting described his case as “illegal departure.”
This misrecognition by media and authorities may have delayed awareness of the abduction issue and contributed to further tragedies.
The article examines how flawed reporting and weak national recognition enabled North Korea’s strategy.

It was revealed on the ninth that Mr. Yutaka Kume had departed secretly for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on a North Korean agent vessel.
2018-01-31.
The following is from an article published on page 22 of yesterday’s Sankei Shimbun.
The Asahi reported it not as “abduction” but as “illegal departure.”
Masami Abe, former Sankei Shimbun social affairs reporter.
At the time of the Uduzu incident in 1980 (Showa 55), the case was hardly known to the general public, but among national newspapers, the Asahi Shimbun reported it two months after the occurrence in its morning edition of November 10, 1977.
However, not as an abduction case.
It was reported as an illegal departure case.
“Security guard of Mitaka City Hall to North Korea by agent vessel. Secret departure from Noto Peninsula. Persuaded. First Japanese.”
The lead reads, “It was revealed on the ninth that Mr. Yutaka Kume had departed secretly for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on a North Korean agent vessel.”
Needless to say, illegal departure and abduction carry completely opposite meanings.
They are 180 degrees different.
Recognition of abduction was so thin among the police, prosecutors, and mass media.
As is well known, there are two patterns of abduction within Japan.
One is the case in which agents with no prior acquaintance violently attack near the coast and carry victims away, as in the cases of the three abducted couples, Megumi Yokota, and Hitomi Soga and her mother.
I call this “assault abduction.”
The other is “deception abduction,” in which victims are lured away by agents they met in cities such as Tokyo and Osaka.
The cases of Mr. Kume, Mr. Noriaki Hara mentioned later, and Ms. Yaeko Taguchi fall into this category.
Exactly as North Korea intended.
Although the methods differ, both are abductions.
If Mr. Kume is regarded as an illegal departure case, then those deceived such as Mr. Hara and Ms. Taguchi would also become illegal departure cases rather than abduction victims.
In the end, R, an accomplice in the abduction, was not prosecuted for violating the Immigration Control Order, and prosecution for violating the Alien Registration Act was suspended, and after release he was naturalized and lived out his life in Japan as he wished.
It was only in 1997, twenty years after the incident, that it became known that the government recognized Mr. Kume not as an illegal departure case but as the first abduction victim.
Megumi Yokota was abducted from the sea off Niigata just two months after the Uduzu incident.
Had the case been properly handled then, might the subsequent abductions have been prevented.
Voices of regret still remain among those related to the Uduzu incident.
There was no one searching for Mr. Kume, who suddenly disappeared.
There was no one raising alarm at his disappearance.
It was exactly as North Korea intended.
To be continued.