[Opinion] Kidnapped by the North

In 1977, a young Japanese schoolgirl named Megumi Yokota was abducted from Niigata, Japan and taken to North Korea aboard a spy ship. After being indoctrinated, she was assigned to a North Korean spy team and later married a man named Kim Cheol-jun.

Kim’s original name was Kim Young-nam. He was kidnapped by North Korean agents in 1978 at the age of 16 from South Korea’s Seonyu Islands near Gunsan City, North Jeolla Province. The two married in 1986, giving birth to a daughter, Kim Hye-gyeong.

In those days, the North used to abduct civilians from South Korea and Japan and train them as spies against the South.

At the North Korea-Japan summit meeting in 2002, the North declared that Yokota had committed suicide, but her family in Japan refused to believe it. There were even reports of North Korea Worker’s Party secretary Kim Yong-sun stating in 1997 that Yokota was alive. Moreover, some argued that she had tutored Kim Jong Chol, the younger son of Kim Jong Il, for five years, and that North Korea was lying because it did not want to send her—and her secrets--back to Japan.

Doubts were also raised about the identity of her husband Kim. When Japan asked for some strands of Kim’s hair for DNA identification purposes, the North refused, citing his status as a special agent. Japan then proceeded to obtain Kim’s biological information in a James Bond-esque manner: while conducting an interview, Japanese agents collected his fingerprints and sebum by handing him a picture of his family that was coated with medication, and collected a sample of his body fluids from a handshake.

The results proved that he really was the biological father of Kim Hye-gyeong. After discovering that Kim Cheol-jun was previously Kim Young-nam, the teen abducted from the South, Japan met his parents from Gunsan City this February and collected their biological information. Recent reports have been heard from Japan that their genetic information matches that of their granddaughter.

This puts North Korea in a predicament. On top of being caught counterfeiting American dollars and seeing anti-North Korea sentiment rise in Japan, it now faces additional censure over its abductions. It remains to be seen how the North, always quick to clamp down on any mention of “abduction,” will react to this scientific evidence of its deeds. As the saying goes, the sky casts a net so wide that nothing can escape it. As North Korea sows, so it shall reap.

Kim Chung-sik, Editorial Writer, skim@donga.com