Taken! - US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

in going to NorthKorea was to getback home safely. 12After surrenderingto North Koreansoldiers, he expectedto be transferred tothe Soviet Union.He had heard thatthe Soviets woulddeport foreigndeserters back totheir home countries.Jenkins reasoned thatafterwards, a U.S.court-martial woulddischarge him andsend him back to hisCharles Jenkins and his wife Hitomi Sogahometown.During theearly morning hours of August 28, 1982, U.S. Army Private Joseph T. White walkedaway from his guard post and used his M16 to shoot the lock off a gate leadinginto the DMZ. He could be heard announcing, “I’m coming!” in heavily accentedKorean as he crossed the border. White’s reasons for defecting remain a mysteryand very little is known of his life in North Korea. Within a year of his defection, hisphotograph appeared in North Korean propaganda leaflets. His parents’ only letterfrom their son came in February 1983. He told them he was happy, harvesting cropsand teaching English. There was no mention or explanation of his defection. Theyreceived one more letter on November 8, 1985. It was from a man named Li Gunho,who described himself as “Joe’s best friend and a student of English.” He wrotethat White, being a “fearless adventurer,” had drowned while trying to swim acrossthe Chongchon River. The family never heard anything else, and never receivedtheir son’s remains. 13Megumi Yao, the terrorist hijackers of the Yodo-go plane, and Americanmilitary deserters might seem out of place in a study of North Korea’s policy ofabducting innocent victims from their homes. Yet these foreigners, whatever theirobjectives when they entered North Korea, also suffered from the abuse of theirrights, and perhaps more importantly, they have provided valuable information onthe whereabouts and treatment of other foreign victims. From the perspective oflearning about the lives of the abductees, very important information came fromthe partisan Megumi Yao and the American defector Charles M. Jenkins. Jenkinsmarried a Japanese abductee and both were eventually allowed to go to Japan, wherethey live today. Yao has also published her story in depth and is still living in Japan.Their books have provided a treasure trove of rare information that brings light tothe cases of abductions. They also emphasize the nature of a regime that harmsnot only innocent people but also those who wish it well. They are people who, toparaphrase John F. Kennedy 14 tried to ride the back of the tiger but ended up inside.As Charles Jenkins put it after almost forty years in North Korea, he regrettedknowing so little about the true brutal nature of North Korea, where “once you stepin, most people never could get out.” 1514John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961: “We shall not always expect to find [formerly colonizednations] supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their ownfreedom -- and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tigerended up inside.”15Jenkins, To Tell the Truth (Japanese Version), (Kadokawa Shoten: 2005), 31.12Jenkins, To Tell the Truth (Japanese Version), (Kadokawa Shoten: 2005), 31.13Neff, Robert. “Joseph White’s Walk in the Dark.” Asia Times. 23 Feb 2007.36 37