Taken! - US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

was one of the agents to have received Chinese language training from Ms. Hong in1984. 42 Although none of the foreigners knew it, modern satellite research suggestswhere this complex may have been—its location would indicate that the regimefound it easier to monitor all the abductees in one area of the country. It is likelythat there are abductees in North Korea still alive today, and it is possible they stilllive in this complex.The constant relocation of the abductees to different guest houses is a peculiarexample of the treatment that abductees endured in North Korea. The moves keptthe abductees from learning geographical knowledge of their location that couldhelp them escape. Some victims recall returning to familiar guest houses multipletimes.In their memoirs, abductees note that they often had no access to the outsideworld and were secluded in compounds “deep in the mountains.” They were kept awayfrom the general public and other neighborhoods. Authorities sent KWP personneland guards to watch over them every hour of the day. Any movement outside theresidence or external communication required the permission of guards. 43The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, having compared thetestimony from numerous sources, believes the satellite images reproduced on thenext pages shows the location where some abductees lived and might still be livingtoday. These images appear on the cover of this report.While the abductees who have been used in training spies may be expectedto be in the location shown above, there are other foreign language schools thatcould also be expected to have foreign captive instructors. Furthermore, if someforeign captives have become respected agents active in North Korean espionage,they could be expected to live in housing close to their offices. In 2011, for example,there was a report that Japanese abductee Yaeko Taguchi (who had taught Japaneseto the terrorist Kim Hyon-hui) was seen in the company of two South Koreanabductees near her apartment on Changgwang Street in Pyongyang. 44When Megumi Yao married the hijacker Yasuhiro Shibata, their apartmentin “Revolution Town” had three bedrooms, a living room, dining room, and akitchen, each of which was about 900 square feet. 45 In her memoirs, she drew adiagram of the apartment and a map of “revolution town.” We have not yet locatedthis site in satellite images.42“Macau Abduction Victim Taught Chinese to former North Korean terrorist Kim Hyon-Hui.”NARKN Updates. Mar 10, 2009. http://sukukai.jp/narkn/updates.html43This information is corroborated by the accounts of many abductees, including Choi Eun-heeandShin Sang-ok, Charles Jenkins, and Lee Jhe-gun.44Kyodo report January 2011. North Korea claims that Yaeko Taguchi died in 1986.45Yao, Megumi. Shazai shimasu (Bungeishunjyu, 2002), 125-140.Abductees Had No Choice But to Accept MarriagesArranged by the Korean Workers PartyForced marriages were arranged by Party officials for many of the captiveforeigners. It can be said these marriages gave them a sense of purpose andpermanence. At the same time, an abductee’s family ties gave the regime a sourceof leverage and diminished an abductee’s desire to flee North Korea, since doing sowould result in retaliation against family members leftYao points outthe irony thata woman likeher “who had aprogressive mind andbelieved in woman’sliberation” endedup in a group ofpeople “who weren’tashamed to commitviolence againsttheir wives and yetcalled themselvesrevolutionaries.”behind.In 1997, a former North Korean spy namedKim Gwang-hyeon who had abducted Kim Youngnamfrom South Korea reported that in North Korea,Kim Young-nam had married the famous thirteenyearold abducted from Japan, Megumi Yokota. 46After two Lebanese abductees escaped fromNorth Korea in 1979, Lebanon demanded the returnof the other two women who still remained. However,Siham Shraiteh, who had married U.S. military deserterJerry Parrish, chose to stay in North Korea with herhusband and child. 47Anocha Panjoy, the Thai woman abducted inMacau, had the unfortunate fate of being ordered tomarry whomever the regime demanded. She was firstforced to marry U.S. military deserter Larry Abshier.After his death by heart attack on July 11, 1983, shetemporarily stayed with the other American families, 48but in April 1989 a member of the KWP told Panjoythey had found another husband for her, a Germannational involved in trading, and she was sent to livewith him. 49Kaoru Hasuike and his girlfriend Yukiko, theJapanese couple abducted in July of 1978, were initially kept apart in North Koreaand were not allowed to see each other for over two years. During those two years,when either of them asked about the other, their captors told them that the otherhad been sent back to Japan. 50 Eventually, the regime allowed them to reunite and46Lewis, Leo. “Boy Kidnapped by Regime 28 Years Ago Meets His Mother.” The Times UK. 29 June2006.47“Father of missing Japanese urges tough Lebanese approach.” The Japan Times Online. June 8,1998.48Jenkins, Charles. To Tell the Truth (Kadokawa Shoten, 2005), 140-143.49Ibid. 155.50Hasuike, Toru. Dakkan Dai Ni Shou (Shinchousha, 2005), p. 57.48 49