Prime Minister Koizumi is in North Korea today, attending a summit with tetchy neighbors.
The hot topic at the summit--abductions. Japan claims that North Korea abducted a dozen or so Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 80s. NK has sometimes completely denied this; at other times they have launched "missing person" searches in cooperation with the Japanese Red Cross.
What isn't said is why NK would want to abduct Japanese citizens in the first place? Did these people have specialised knowledge NK needed? Was it just to cause terror and piss off Japan? Digging around on the 'Net as not brought the answers to the surface.
Posted by kuri at September 17, 2002 10:52 AMI read this book by a North Korean woman, a former spy. It was supposedly a true story, and in it she told that they had native Japanese teach them the lingo. The teachers were kidnapped for this purpose.
Posted by: Veera on September 26, 2002 07:54 PM