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Can North Korea's Perestroika Succeed?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Wada Haruki  and
Gavan McCormack
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It was indeed a shocking confession and apology. Admitting that North Korea in the late 1970s and early 1980s had abducted 13 Japanese, of whom eight had died and five survived, Chairman of the DPRK National Defense Commission, Kim Jong Il, apologized for it. It was admitted that 10 of the 11 on the list of suspected abductions published by the Japanese government had indeed been abducted. Yokota Megumi had been abducted, and so had three dating couples. Worst of all, the fact that 8 had died showed how savage state crime can be. It was astonishing to learn that Arimoto Keiko, together with Ishioka Toru, who is said to have been living with her, died in 1988.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , February 2003 , e6
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2003

References

Notes

1. Shin Gwang Su was arrested in South Korea in 1985, carrying Hara Tadaaki's passport and other papers of Hara Tadaaki, who had disappeared in Japan in June 1980. Shin was sentenced to death, but granted amnesty in 1999 and sent back to North Korea. Japanese police have now issued a warrant for his arrest. Hara, it was recently learned, died in July 1986, allegedly of cirrhosis of the liver.

2. Wada's two articles in Sekai, January and February 2002, were widely discussed.

3. For full text (provisional Japanese Foreign Ministry Translation) of the ‘Pyongyang declaration’ of 17 September 2 002: www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/n_korea/ pmv0209/pyongyang.html