Taken! - US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

nation that preferred to use their services in hard labor.At the end of World War II there were over two million Koreans living inJapan. Most were descendants of laborers brought from occupied Korea duringthe 35 years of the Japanese colonial period. 8 The current population of Japanstill includes 405,571 ethnic Koreans, 9 many of whose families have been in Japanfor three generations. Despite being born in Japan, they are not afforded Japanesecitizenship under Japanese law; they are considered foreign nationals. A portioncame from families that originally lived in South Korea, but the majority of themhave returned to South Korea or travel back and forth freely. Some Koreans inJapan came from northern families, or sympathized with Communism, and theirdescendants often travel on North Korean passports and support the regime inNorth Korea to varying degrees. Roughly 30,000-40,000 are considered to be NorthKorean nationals, many of whom have formed an association of local organizationsin Japan referred to as Chongryon. These people are also referred to as Chosen Sorenin Japanese or Jo-chongryon in Korean. 10An Association of Korean Residents, called Chongryon in Japan,Serves North Korean InterestsChongryon literally means “General Association” in Korean, referring tothe association of many smaller local organizations under its control. 11 Chongryonruns its own Korean language newspapers, hospitals, a traditional song and dancegroup, and manages its own trading companies and pachinko (a kind of pin ballgame) parlors throughout Japan. 12 It also runs an estimated one hundred schools, auniversity, a bank, and a credit union which at one time had over 150 branches andheld over $1 billion. 2 Its political and economic status allowed for commercial vesselstransporting goods between North Korea and Japan to sail with few inspectionsor restraints, and large amounts of cash—some estimates exceeded $600 millionannually—were remitted to North Korea from relatively wealthy Koreans in Japan. 14The regime in North Korea has always understood the advantage of having asympathetic population living in the midst of a neighboring state, in particular8Aoyama, Kenki. Kitachousen to iu Akuma (Koubunsha, 2002), 15-16.9Statistics from the Japanese Ministry of Justice, 2009, “Registered Foreigner Statistics,” released on July 7,2010 (accessed at http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/estat/List.do?lid+000001065021).10Chosun Ilbo Japanese version, “Botsuraku suru Chosen Soren, Kankoku Kokuseki no Shutokusha ga Kyuzo,”February 10, 2010 (http://www.chosunonline.com/news/20100210000047). “Chosen” (sometimes spelledChosun) is the official name of “Korea” in North Korea; in South Korea, these people are referred to as “Hankook.”11This is referred to precisely as Jochongryon in the Korean language.12Pachinko games resemble pinball machines and are widely used for gambling in Japan, where they manageto avoid the prohibitions placed on other forms of gambling.13Han, Gwang-Hee. Waga Chousena14Nicholas Eberstadt, “Financial Transfers from Japan to North Korea: Estimating the Unreported Flows,”Asian Survey 36:5 (May 1996), 523-542.an American ally. Several senior Chongryon officials are afforded memberships inNorth Korea’s rubber-stamp legislature, the Supreme People’s Assembly. The CentralHeadquarters of Chongryon is in Tokyo and serves as a de facto embassy for NorthKorea, since Japan and North Korea have no official diplomatic ties.Chongryon’s school system has played an important role in promotingthe North Korean regime’s influence in Japan. It teaches Kim Il Sung’s writings,and classes generally start with vows of loyalty to the North Korean leader. Theseschools have also helped recruit people whom the regime thought could be helpful,facilitated the North’s espionage efforts in Japan, and sponsored programs that tookpeople to North Korea who were never allowed to return to their homes in Japan.Some Korean Residents in Japan Migrated toNorth Korea Expecting A Better LifeStarting in the years after the Korean War, many ethnic Koreans wereencouraged to leave Japan and return to Korea. 15 The majority were from SouthKorean families and almost one and one half million went to South Korea. Undera Chongryon-initiated project known as the Resident-Korean Returnees Project,those whose families had come from North Korea, or had sympathy for the regime,were urged to return to their motherland with the hope of building a prosperoussocialist state. These returning immigrants were intended to supplement the NorthKorean labor force after it was decimated during the Korean War. 16 During thisperiod, Kim Il-sung’s North Korea was promoted as a “paradise.” As Kang Cholhwan,a grandson of one of the returnees wrote, “The leaders of the Chosen Sorenwere very keen on seeing people with advanced education return to North Korea,and they continually played up the homeland’s need for individuals with knowledgeand abilities. In North Korea a person could serve the people and the state ratherthan Japan, that pawn of American imperialism.” 17 The project was also supportedby many Japanese intellectuals, media, and the Foreign Ministry, largely out of guiltfor the colonial exploitation of Koreans, in the belief that they would find better livesin their homeland.15The first ship left the port of Niigata, Japan for Chongjin, North Korea, on December 11, 1959. It is worthnoting that right after WWII, there were over 2.1 million ethnic Koreans in Japan. Most of them came fromthe southern part of Korea, which later became the Republic of Korea. It is estimated that the number ofethnic North Koreans was less than 10 percent of the total population of Koreans living in Japan. The majorityof ethnic South Koreans quickly returned to their hometowns after WWII. ROK government statistics indicatethat 1,414,258 ethnic Koreans in Japan returned to the South between 1945 and 1949. Therefore, the peoplewho joined the Returnee Project from the latter 1950s are from the approximately 600,000 who remained inJapan. See Aoyama, Kenki. Kitachosen to iu Akuma (Koubunsha, 2002), 15-16.16Interview with President Kotaro Miura of Japanese NGO, The Society to Help Returnees to North Korea(Mamoru-Kai).17Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot, The Aquariums of Pyongyang (translation from the French, BasicBooks, New York, 2001), p. 19.16 17