Former North Korean agent Kim Hyon Hui said she is convinced that Japanese who remain unaccounted for after being abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s are still alive and that Japan should seek unofficial meetings between the victims and their aging family members.
The former spy responsible for the fatal 1987 South Korean jetliner explosion granted an interview with Kyodo News in Daegu, a city in South Korea's southeast, ahead of the 20th anniversary on Sept. 17 of North Korea's admission of its abductions of Japanese nationals.
After a bomb she planted exploded off what is now Myanmar and killed 115 people on board, Kim was detained and brought to justice in South Korea. While she was sentenced to death for the downing, she was pardoned in 1990. Now 60 years old, she has two college-age children with a former intelligence official who was one of her bodyguards.
As an operative, Kim had learned Japanese from Yaeko Taguchi, who went missing in Tokyo in 1978 at age 22. Taguchi was one of 17 Japanese officially recognized by the Japanese government as abduction victims. North Korea says she died in a traffic accident in 1986, but Kim denies the claim.
Kim said Taguchi is believed to have been living in a government-controlled guest house in 1987 and married to a South Korean abductee who belonged to what is now the North Korean Defense Ministry.
Kim also recounted meeting Megumi Yokota, the iconic abduction victim who went missing from Japan's Niigata Prefecture in 1977 at age 13. That meeting took place around 1984 at a guest house she visited with a colleague to whom Yokota had taught Japanese, she said.
Yokota spoke fluent Korean and sang Japan's national anthem during the visit, she said. North Korea says Yokota later died, but her Japanese family rejects the assertion and believes she is still alive. Tokyo also dismisses Pyongyang's claim about Yokota.
Kim said North Korean authorities apparently "decided to declare dead, and not to return, anyone who knows (North Korea's) internal weaknesses and secrets lest they make such things public." "In my judgment, they are still alive."
Kim said that while it was over 10 years ago, she heard from a defector who used to be a high-level government official in the North that both Taguchi and Yokota were alive.
Kim praised former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi for extracting the admission from then North Korean leader Kim Jong Il during their landmark meeting in Pyongyang on Sept. 17, 2002, saying, "I was moved by his boldness and courage."
But with no one returned by North Korea since five of the 17 Japanese abductees were repatriated the following month, she urged Japan to seek dialogue with North Korea on the matter. "If you remain silent, nothing can be solved."
The past few years has seen Taguchi's elder brother Shigeo Iizuka and Yokota's father Shigeru die, igniting concern that time is running out for the abductees' family members to be reunited with their loved ones.
Kim Hyon Hui said she feels heartbroken about their deaths.
"It's the families' ardent wish to see them again, even if just once. The Japanese government should knock on North Korea's door 100 times, or even 1,000 times, and demand (their reunions) whether they be held at Mt. Kumgang or even if they had to keep it secret." Kumgang is a North Korean tourist spot previously used for Korean families to reunite after they were separated by the 1950-1953 Korean War.
In a message to Taguchi, who was raising a young son and daughter when she disappeared, Kim said, "North Korea is a hard place, but please live by drawing on your courage until one day you can meet your children."
Kim also has a son and daughter. Both studied Japanese just like their mother. Her son is a fan of Japanese anime and has watched popular animated movie "Your Name" over and over, while her daughter, who lives with her, goes to bed saying good night in Japanese, according to Kim.
Both have learned about their mother's past online and elsewhere. The daughter appeared shocked at first but has recently been asking her about North Korea after reading her memoir, Kim said. "I told her to read it after I die, but she has developed a strong interest."
Kim was told that her family in North Korea was banished to the countryside and that both her parents have died. "I don't want to talk about it anymore," she said of the 1987 bombing. "I went through various hardships, and my life was completely changed."
In the South, progressive governments are often perceived as favoring friendlier ties with North Korea, while conservative ones are seen as favoring a more hard-line approach to the neighbor.
Kim indicated that her granting an interview now had something to do with the transfer of power from a progressive government to a conservative one led by President Yoon Suk Yeol in May, saying she had kept silent for the past five years.
Related coverage:
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Brother of symbolic North Korea abductee Yokota heads victims' kin group
Kin of Japanese abducted by North Korea urges PM Kishida to resolve issue
