AILSA CHANG, HOST:
This next story is about the promise of paradise on Earth that wasn't. For a quarter century, from 1959 to1984, more than 93,000 people went in search of that paradise - a land where all their basic needs were guaranteed to be met. That land of promise was North Korea. NPR's Anthony Kuhn takes us to Tokyo to meet people who, after decades of suffering, escaped North Korea and successfully sued its government for violating their human rights.
(CROSSTALK)
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Plaintiffs and lawyers carry banners describing their case as they marched to a Tokyo court to hear the verdict in January. The court ruled that the North Korean government was liable to pay each of the four plaintiffs the equivalent of about $142,000. Given what the plaintiffs went through, that's not a lot, their lawyer, Kenji Fukuda, told reporters. And getting North Korea to pay will be extremely difficult.
KENJI FUKUDA: (Through interpreter) I think it is extremely meaningful that this grand violation of human rights, known as the North Korean repatriation project, was able to be tried in a Japanese court.
KUHN: Eighty-four-year-old plaintiff, Eiko Kawasaki, welcomed the verdict.
EIKO KAWASAKI: (Through interpreter) When I think about how difficult this challenge was to overcome, I am filled with an indescribable sense of deep emotion.
KUHN: Kawasaki's parents came to Japan from Korea when it was under Japanese colonial occupation before World War II and before Korea was divided into north and south. They were part of a group of ethnic Koreans in Japan known as Zainichi Koreans. At the time, Koreans were citizens of the Japanese empire, but they lost that status in 1952, leaving them effectively stateless. South Korea, at the time, was poor and still recovering from the Korean War. Yoshiaki Kikuchi is an expert on Japan-Korea relations at Kanazawa Seiryo University. He says that for Koreans, staying in Japan was not a great option either.
YOSHIAKI KIKUCHI: (Through interpreter) In Japan, discrimination was intense, and they were in a very difficult living situation. In Japan, too, they were poor and had no hope for the future.
KUHN: In 1959, Eiko Kawasaki was 17, attending a high school for Koreans run by the pro-North Korean General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. This group put out propaganda, such as this 1959 song, "The Joyful Path Home" (ph).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE JOYFUL WAY HOME")
DPRK: (Singing in non-English language).
KUHN: It encourages Koreans in Japan to trade poverty and discrimination in Japan for prosperous socialism in North Korea. Kawasaki says she didn't buy the propaganda, but she was curious.
KAWASAKI: (Through interpreter) I had to see for myself whether a completely destroyed North Korea could really become a paradise on Earth in such a short time. I didn't go there to live. I went thinking I would return soon.
KUHN: The International Committee of the Red Cross brokered a deal between Japan and North Korea, which had no diplomatic relations.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: (Non-English language spoken).
KUHN: Registration and application for Korean residents in Japan wishing to return to North Korea began nationwide on September 21, says a newsreel from 1959. It shows Zainichi Koreans filing into Japanese government offices to pick up application forms. Kawasaki and other Zainichis signed the form, saying they were going to North Korea voluntarily. They then boarded Soviet-built ships for the two-day voyage.
KAWASAKI: (Through interpreter) When the ship docked at the port, thousands of people came to welcome it, holding bouquets of pink artificial flowers and singing the same song over and over.
KUHN: She remembers the welcoming song they sang.
KAWASAKI: (Singing in non-English language).
KUHN: But when she saw the people who were singing, she realized that something was terribly wrong.
KAWASAKI: (Through interpreter) Those thousands of people - their skin was sunburnt, and they were malnourished, with their cheekbones jutting out and their faces gaunt.
KUHN: Kawasaki got a job in a North Korean machine factory. She said she and other repatriates were always suspected of being spies. They were closely watched and always afraid of being arrested. She survived the country's famine in the mid-1990s, when an estimated 1 to 3 million North Koreans died of starvation and related diseases. An estimate Kawasaki says is too low, and some resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. Kawasaki says she was determined to inform the outside world about the hellish conditions in North Korea.
KAWASAKI: (Through interpreter) I thought the only way was for me to escape the North. So I saw to it that my children were all married and independent, and then I defected in 2003.
KUHN: Like many defectors at the time, she paid a broker who bribed the border guards, allowing her to cross the Yalu River into China. She says her identity is still in limbo.
KAWASAKI: (Through interpreter) When I think about my nationality, I'm sorry to say I really don't know where I belong. I'm not Japanese, you know, but I'm not Korean either.
KUHN: Despite all she's achieved, Kawasaki still faces huge challenges. She told reporters that she remains cut off from her family in North Korea.
KAWASAKI: (Through interpreter) In November 2019, my youngest daughter came to the China-North Korea border, borrowed a Chinese cellphone and spoke with me. That was the last time I confirmed that my family was safe.
KUHN: The following year, North Korea shut the country's borders during the pandemic, and Kawasaki lost touch with her family again. She says the Japanese government bears some responsibility.
KAWASAKI: (Through interpreter) I want the Japanese government to act to confirm whether my family is alive or dead and to take measures so that I can meet them.
KUHN: Kawasaki is also dissatisfied with the Japanese government's silence about its own role in the repatriation program. Yoshiaki Kikuchi argues that the Japanese government bears responsibility for not addressing the economic hardship and discrimination the Zainichi faced. He says Tokyo was not happy to pay welfare costs for the Zainichi nor did they like that some Zainichi supported Japan's communist party.
KIKUCHI: (Through interpreter) The truth is that the Japanese government felt it would be helpful if some Koreans living in Japan would go to North Korea. In other words, there was a desire to get rid of them.
KUHN: He says it will be difficult to get Japan's government to apologize for the repatriation program. But Eiko Kawasaki argues that Japan's government could have found out the truth about conditions in North Korea and stopped the program. So she insists on an official apology, even if it's only a word. Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Tokyo.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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