[Editorial] NK Should be Humanitarian About the Kidnapped

There is renewed interest in the issue of persons kidnapped by North Korea in response to the Japanese government's announcement that the South Korean Kim Yeong Nam, kidnapped in 1978, is likely the husband of a kidnapped Japanese woman by the name of Megumi Yokota. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade says that it will decide what to do next once it has received the related data from the Japanese government. The first thing the South Korean government needs to do is determine whether Kim Yeong Nam is still alive, and whether he is in fact the North Korean operative Kim Cheol Jun.

Kim Yeong Nam's name is one of the 485 on the South Korean government's list of persons kidnapped by the North since the Korean war, and so the Japanese government's announcement is not something people should be especially excited about. There is much to be resolved, including the cases of other kidnapped Southern citizens and the estimated 540 prisoners of war that the North did not repatriate after the war was over. There are aspects of the issue that make it undesirable to overuse it as material in rhetorical offensives against Pyongyang, because triggering increased tension between North and South will make the comprehensive resolution of issues that include suspicion about nuclear development more difficult. The government needs to engage in a multifaceted effort to resolve the issue of the kidnapped effectively, as was promised by Unification Minister Lee Jong Seok when he assumed office.

The biggest obstacle here is the North's rigid attitude. It continues to deny the very existence of kidnapped South Korean citizens and POW's in the North, and it should not. It needs to take an active stance in resolving the issue in the spirit of humanitarianism. There are already 8,000 Northern defectors living in the South today, and everyone knows what there is to be known about North Korean society. What that means is that Pyongyang would not incur much in the way of political costs were it to repatriate its kidnapped Southerners. One humanitarian approach would be to, if returning them within an early timeframe would be difficult, to take a gradual approach and first allow confirmation of life, the exchange of correspondence, and reunions.

The Hankyoreh, 13 April 2006.

[Translations by Seoul Selection]