Chapter 72a – Bizarre Punishments
BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.
BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES.
Bizarre Punishments: How Tokyo Punished People working for (a) the Liberation of North Korea, and (b) Improved Relations with Russia
1. The Abductee Affair
…Tahara Soichiro
…Ubakata Yukio
…Self
2. The Group of Four Affair
…Suzuki Muneo
…Sato Masaru
…Togo Kazuhiko
…Alexander Panov
Background 1.
North Korea had abducted 13 (some say 17) Japanese during its self-admitted period of over-reach in the seventies and eighties. Most had died, allegedly in accidents etc.. NK had returned the 5 survivors in 2002, and with Tokyo had signed the Pyongyang Declaration at the same time.
But Tokyo was insisting that NK was still holding more abductees, including a Yokota Megumi, abducted in 1977 at age 13 (due to a mistake). NK insisted she had died, tragically, in 1994.
I had confirmed from her mother, Yokota Sakie, whom I met in 2016 that Megumi was not present at a planned 2014 meeting in a third country. Presumably she had died before that 2014 date.
However, Tokyo decided it was important that Megumi’s continued existence continued to be claimed in order that NK could continued to be demonised, and the Pyongyang Declaration of 2002 could continue to be ignored.
The following were the publicised punishments for those who revealed information that Yokoya Megumi had in fact died – information they gained from official sources but which ran contrary to Tokyo’s false claims that Yokota Megumi still existed.
Punishments 1:
1. Tahara Soichir
In 2009, one of Japan’s most respected investigative journalists, Tahara Soichiro, revealed on Asahi TV in his regular all-night TV program that a Foreign Ministry (Gaimusho) source had confirmed to him that Yokota Megumi and one other much publicised abductee had indeed died – just as Pyongyang had been insisting.
He was swiftly hit with a claim for large, emotional-distress damages from the relative of an alleged other abductee. The legal case was supported by one of the well-endowed right-wing groups pushing the abductee issue.
No one came to Tahara’s defence. After pleading guilty and paying a nominal fine, he has since gone into complete silence on the abductee issue.
2. Ubakata Yukio
A member of Japan’s main Opposition party, Ubakata Yukio, was also forced to apologise for saying during a question-and-answer session in September, 2021, that he had Gaimusho information that Megumi was no longer alive.
According to the Mainichi Shimbun, the families of two abductees’ groups, the Kazoku-kai and the National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea, condemned his remark as a “grave insult” and “disrespectful” to abductees and their families.
In retracting his statement Ubakata tweeted: “I made an inappropriate comment. In addition to retracting it, he said “I would like to apologise to the families of abduction victims as well as related parties.”
The groups also demanded that his party, the Constitutional Democratic Party, should act.
The CDP released a statement saying: “Representative Ubukata’s comment conflicts with the party’s standing. The comment was hurtful to abduction victims and their family members, and we have strongly reprimanded him over the matter.”
3. Self
In 2019 rightwing writer, notorious for attacking progressive academics, decided to use a comment I had made about the abductee myth in an obscure US blog to criticise me in a front-page article in the rightwing, militaristic Sankei Shimbun. As a result I was asked to resign an outside appointment to the Board of Mitsui and Co, and most of my other contacts with Japanese society were cut.
Comment
These incidents were reminiscent of the kind of fakery, rigged trials, and compulsory confessions of guilt found in the staged trials of cheap communist states at the height of the Cold War.
They were part of the deliberate attempt by Tokyo to wreck of 2002 Pyongyang Declaration which would have seen North Korea emerge from poverty and isolation thanks to the Declaration’s promises of Japanese aid and normalised diplomatic relations. In exchange NK had promised to suspend rocket testing.
This wrecking operation was carried by out by the former, Japanese prime minister, Abe Shinzo, who, in his eagerness to destroy the hope of normalised relations with NK, at one stage invented the absurd myth that over 800 Japanese may have been abducted by North Korea.
No one in Japan – in the government, media etc. – was prepared to point out that Tahara and Ubakata had simply repeated confirmations of Yokota’s death by Japanese government officials. If the same was to happen in any other country questions would be asked. But not a single voice has emerged from the large population of Japan even to ask what was going on.
The lack of even a single questioning voice in Japan suggests there is something very strange about the Japanese people and the government that controls them.
2. The Group of Four 2001 Affair -The Four Islands (including the Southern Kuriles)
Background 2.
The Group of Four was set up in 2000 by Prime Minister, Mori Yoshiro, to find a solution to the Four Islands or so-called ‘Northern Territories’ (Southern Kuriles – Etorofu and Kunashiri – plus Shikotan and the Habomais islands) territorial dispute between Japan and Russia.
Talks were proceeding on the basis that Japan would receive Shikotan and the Habomais and something called Plus Alfa (participation in joint developments, for example) on the Russia-held Kurile Islands of Etorofu and Kunashiri
Tokyo right-wingers had decided that the Group was considering some sacrifice of Japanese sovereignty over Etorofu and Kunashiri – the Southern Kuriles. In fact it was simply proposing joint development projects on those two islands, which in any case would be subject to Tokyo approval.
As for the ownership of Etorofu and Kunashiri, that had been decided in 1951 when Japan in its peace treaty with the allies renounced all right and claim to the Kuriles, though Tokyo was trying to claim that Etorofu and Kunashiri did not belong to the Kuriles – that instead they were part of some new entity called Northern Territories, an entity unrecognised internationally.
With the rightwing Koizumi Junichiro becoming prime minister, the Group was disbanded in 2001 and Tokyo set out in various ways to punish the participants.
Punishments:
1.Suzuki Muneo
A leading member of the Group, Suzuki, in February 2002, immediately after the Group was disbanded, was accused of misusing government funds that had been allocated for the so-called Northern Territories.
In fact he had used all or some of this money to build a lodging house for Russian visitors – Muneo House – on Kunashiri Island as a symbol of Japan-Russia friendship.
He was arrested in June 2002.
In 2004, after spending 437 days in pretrial detention (often imposed by the authorities to force confessions), he was found guilty of accepting bribes and some other minor violations and sent to prison for two years, with release on parole after 12 months. He was also barred from political office until 2017.
Despite this vicious treatment Suzuki has since been able to rebuild his reputation as a key player in Japan-Russian relations, consulted by top officials and two prime ministers..
2. Sato Masaru,
A Foreign Ministry intelligence analyst and Russian expert, he was held in the Tokyo Detention Centre for 512-days from February 2002 to October 2004 on “malpractice” charges.
He was accused, and convicted, for using Foreign Ministry money to fund a visit of Israeli academics to Japan and for the convening of an academic conference in Tel Aviv. As well he was supposed to have provided a Japanese trading company confidential information.
At most these were just administrative misdemeanours, according to Prof. Gavan McCormack of the ANU. The prolonged incarceration, also imposed to force confessions, was ‘unusually severe’.
He wrote: the April 2000 Tel Aviv conference on “The New World Order – Russia between East and West” – would have been of a kind the Japanese Foreign Ministry might not unreasonably have supported out of its special Russia-related fund.
The “leak” allegation was not associated with any suggestion of personal benefit.
3. Togo Kazuhiko
The former head of the prestigious Legal and Treaties Bureau in Gaimusho, he was sent to a lowly posting and invited to retire. From a university base he has become a commentator on foreign affairs, careful to avoid overt criticisms of Tokyo’s policies.
4. Alexander Panov
A Russian citizen and former ambassador to Japan, he could not be punished. He could only be invited to leave Japan, which he did, to head the Russian diplomatic academy in Moscow. There he told me Tokyo’s negotiation tactics were crazy.
Comment
Once again we see unbelievably severe punishments imposed on people whose only crime was to seek, together with a top Russian official, a solution to a territorial problem blocking normal relations between Japan and Russia.
Contrary of official allegations, the solution the Group was working toward did not involve any formal renunciation of Japanese sovereignty over the disputed territory. It would have involved no more than the lease of territory for projects of mutual benefit.
As a result of the 2002 cancellation of the Group of Four project, Tokyo lost:
1. The chance of an overall break-though in Japan-Russian relations and the enormous benefits that would have been brought to Hokkaido in the form of greatly increased agricultural exports, tourism, joint participation in oil and gas exploration etc.
2. The services of three of Japan’s top experts on Japan-Russian relations, plus the services of Moscow’s top Japan expert, a man who up to that time (but not after) had been favourably disposed towards Japan.
3. The chance to move to the promised Japan-Russia peace treaty negotiation scheduled originally for 1956.
4. The return to Japan of the islands of Shikotan and the Habomais – promised in 1954-1955 negotiations. To this day those islands with their rich fishing and konbu seas close to Hokkaido remain firmly under Russian control. But for Tokyo’s crude and destined to fail efforts arbitrarily to separate Etorofu and Kunashiri from the Kurles*, Shikotan and the Kuriles would have been 100 percent under Japanese ownership the moment a peace treaty with Moscow was signed.
Note. Japan gained absolutely nothing in return for this crude negotiation, other than very much ill will and distrust.*As far as I know there was no Japanese proposal for joint ownership or even the Aaland islands (Finland/Sweden) type solution for Etorofu and Kunashiri. The entire legal basis for the Japanese claim was the casual Brezhnev remark of 1973.However there was a kind of precedent for the crudity, namely an incident where a Japanese official had rejected a Russia demand that flowers taken to a Kurile island for presentation were subject to quarantine