Chapter 76a – Bizarre Punishments over the Abductee Isssue
BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.
BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES.
How Tokyo Punished People for Revealing Abductee Facts
Background
In 2001 North Korea had admitted to have abducted 13 Japanese (some say 17, Abe Shinzo said more than 800) during its self-admitted period of apparatchick craziness in the seventies and eighties. Most had died, allegedly in accidents etc.. NK had returned the 5 survivors in 2002, and had signed with Tokyo the Pyongyang Declaration at the same time promising a new and more fruitful relationship.
But Abe was insisting that NK was still holding more abductees, including a Yokota Megumi, abducted in 1977 at age 13 (due to a tragic mixup). NK insisted she had died, tragically, in 1994 and had produced a daughter Kim Eun Gyong.
Tokyo had then gone to almost absurd lengths to portray the image of Megumi as if still existing to publicise the claimed unresolved (in fact already resolved) issue of Japanese abducted in the seventies and eighties.
I had confirmed from Megumi’s mother, Yokota Sakie, whom I met in 2016 that Megumi was not present at a planned 2014 meeting with the daughter which Tokyo had finally allowed in a third country. So presumably she must have died before that 2014 date (North Korea claimed she died in 1994).
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. Tahara Soichiro
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 abductee family 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 a 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 compulsory confessions of guilt found in prewar fascistic Japan.
Then the aim had been to preserve the mystical kokutai, or national polity in which the nation was united by an instinctive atmosphere (kuuki).
Postwar Japan has been using this abductee and other disputes, territorial disputes in particular, in the same way to perform a similar function.
The maintaining the abductee dispute was part of the deliberate attempt by Tokyo to wreck of 2002 Pyongyang Declaration which, if realised, 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 mainly 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.
Tokyo’s use of the abductee myth was a clear playback to the prewar kokutai style of enforcing national unity.
No one in Japan – in the government, media etc. – was prepared to point out that Tahara and Ubakata (or myself) had simply repeated off-record confirmations of Yokota’s death by Foreign Ministry officials. If the same was to happen in any other country questions would be asked.
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. Are we returning to prewar fascistic Japan?