http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/20060203TDY01002.htm
Jenkins: DPRK targeted Soga
Shigefumi Takasuka Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
Charles
Jenkins, a U.S. Army deserter to North Korea and husband of Hitomi
Soga, a repatriated Japanese abductee, said Thursday that North Korean
agents targeted Soga and waited a month to get a chance to kidnap her.
"I
was told by a female North Korean agent in 1980 that North Korean
agents waited for her for one month," Jenkins said during an interview
with The Daily Yomiuri at a hotel in Sado, Niigata Prefecture.
Soga
and her mother, Miyoshi, reportedly were kidnapped in Sado by three men
on Aug. 12, 1975. Asked why the North Koreans planned to kidnap Soga,
an associate nurse, and her mother, Jenkins said that the North Koreans
said they wanted teachers of Japanese language and customs.
But Jenkins added that he did not know the specific reason why they
planned to kidnap the two.
Jenkins
also said he saw in Pyongyang many Europeans who could have been
abducted by North Korean agents because they were in cars that bore
number plates of a North Korean spy organization and were always
escorted by North Korean officials.
"But I can't prove that," he said. "I couldn't talk to them. If I
talked to them, I'd be in trouble."
Jenkins
also said that the North Korean government proposed to him in November
2002 that he marry Anocha Panjoy, a Thai woman believed to have been
abducted to North Korea, if Soga did not return from Japan to North
Korea. But he said he immediately rejected the proposal.
But this means that Anocha, whose whereabouts are unknown, was still
alive at that time, according to Jenkins.
"Also,
just before I went to Indonesia [in July 2004], she was still alive
because many people who knew her also knew me," he added. "If anything
happened [to Anocha], they would tell me."
Asked if he believed
that many of the Japanese abductees who remain missing are still alive
in North Korea, Jenkins said: " I think some still alive. But the
reason North Korea didn't admit it is because they married North
Koreans, maybe."
Many abductees would like to go back to their
home countries, though they are concerned about whether they would be
able to make a living there, Jenkins said.
He said that Anocha, who was kidnapped in Macau in 1978, wanted to
leave North Korea for Thailand.
He said he was planning to apply for Japanese citizenship in July.
"I
am planning [to become a Japanese]," he said. "What happened is I must
wait for one year since the day I got my Japanese identification card.
That'll be July, I think."
He also said he had been asked by a local tourist association in Sado
to work as a tour guide during the summer.
"I think I'll do that," Jenkins said.
Asked
if his book "Kokuhaku" (To Tell the Truth) would be published in
countries other than Japan, Jenkins said he hoped so. "Maybe in the
Korean language," he said. "But it's not definite yet. I'll wait and
see."
(Feb. 3, 2006) |