Taken! - US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

(2) abducting foreign nationals from their home countries or while they weretraveling abroad in third countries; (3) detaining foreign nationals against their willfor long periods of time; (4) depriving abductees and detainees of basic due processof law; (5) severely restricting the movement of abductees and invading their rightsto privacy and freedom of thought, conscience, religion, opinion, expression andassociation; (6) forcing abductees to work on behalf of the North Korean regime;(7) forcing abductees into marriages; and (8) subjecting abductees to physical abuseand, in some instances, torture and death.North Korea’s policy of abducting foreign citizens was intentional, directedby Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il themselves, executed by an extensive well-trainedbureaucracy, and far-reaching in its scope and geographic reach. It has not beenan unorganized, haphazard, or unauthorized action on the part of rogue agents.The majority of the abductions covered by this study were carried out by operativesand agents of four key Departments of the Secretariat of the Korean Workers’ Party(KWP). These four Departments managed and supervised external espionage—thatis, secret activities aimed at achieving the regime’s objectives in South Korea and inforeign countries: 11 (1) the Research Department, also known as the InvestigationsDepartment; (2) the External Coordination Department, also known as theForeign Liaison Bureau; (3) the Operations Department; and (4) the United FrontDepartment. 12 All four reported directly to Kim Il-sung, and after his death, KimJong-il, who personally met some of the abductees on their arrival in North Korea.There is ample evidence that the regime had an official bureaucratic structure thatemployed, managed and monitored those abducted while they were in North Korea.Certain more recent abductions were carried out by State Security Department (SSD)personnel rather than from the four Departments that managed earlier abductions,but the official guidance behind the abduction policy is still clear.There may be hundreds of abductees inside North Korea who are notknown to be there. The regime undertakes to abduct its victims in absolute secrecy,and detains them indefinitely in closely monitored circumstances which do notpermit them to come in contact with many people even inside North Korea. Theopportunities the outside world has to learn of them are obviously extremely limited,and this is by design. Those on the outside of North Korea must accordingly be verycareful about drawing conclusions about the abductees. We should not, for example,conclude that Kim Jong-il terminated North Korea’s practice of abductions becausehe admitted that abductions had occurred in the past. His admission was not thewhole truth, his government has provided false and unsubstantiated assertions sincethe admission, and demands for thorough bilateral investigations have repeatedlybeen denied by North Korea. It is difficult to conclude that the regime has anythingmore to hide on this issue, because it continues to hide the facts.The issue of North Korea’s abductions remains a very pertinent and timelyissue even ten years after Kim Jong-il’s admission. Some of the cases of abductionsthat are the best known today took many decades to investigate. Some cases from theearly 1970s have just recently begun to be investigated, and many of the North Koreanoperatives who are sought in connection with disappearances have been listed withInterpol for years. While it is certainly true that all unexplained disappearances ofindividuals around the world cannot be explained as North Korean actions, it is alsotrue that many which appear to fit the pattern of North Korean abduction are notgiven the full attention they merit.In the meantime, innocent individuals are being held in a place where theirfreedom is denied and their lives are managed in a way they would never havesubmitted to of their own free will.The breadth and scope of Pyongyang’s actions must be exposed, and theCommittee for Human Rights in North Korea is proud to accomplish that with thisreport. The crimes North Korea has committed must also be condemned by theinternational community. As the mother of Megumi Yokota, a girl abducted at age13, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committeeon April 27, 2006, “we should not rest until every citizen in North Korea whoserights have been violated is free and every foreign abductee has been rescued andpermitted to live his or her life in peace.”11Ahn, Myong-Jin. Kita Chousen Rachi Kousakuin (Tokuma Shoten, 1998), 30.12Eya, Osamu. Tainichi Bouryaku Hakusho (Shogakukan, 1999), 63-70.12 13