The Invitation-Only Zone

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Copyright Page

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In memory of
ALICE TYSON BOYNTON
(1930–2013)

KEY PEOPLE

Note: Japanese names are rendered first name/last name. Korean names are rendered last name/first name.

SHINZO ABE
—Japanese prime minister from 2006 to 2007, 2012 to present

KAZUHIRO ARAKI
—chairman of the Investigation Commission on Missing Japanese Probably Related to North Korea

KAYOKO ARIMOTO
—mother of Keiko Arimoto

KEIKO ARIMOTO
—abducted in 1983 while studying English in
London

FUKIE (NÉE HAMAMOTO) CHIMURA
—abducted from Obama, Japan, in 1978

YASUSHI CHIMURA
—abducted from Obama, Japan, in 1978

CHOI EUN-HEE
—South Korean actress and former wife of Shin Sang-ok, abducted from Hong Kong in 1978

KENJI FUJIMOTO
—sushi chef who worked for Kim Jong-il, 1988–2001

TAKAKO FUKUI
—girlfriend of Japanese Red Army Faction member Takahiro Konishi

TADAAKI HARA
—chef abducted
from Osaka, Japan, in 1980

KAORU HASUIKE
—abducted from Kashiwazaki, Japan, in 1978

KATSUYA HASUIKE
—daughter of Kaoru and Yukiko Hasuike

SHIGEYO HASUIKE
—son of Kaoru and Yukiko Hasuike

TORU HASUIKE
—older brother of Kaoru Hasuike

YUKIKO HASUIKE (NÉE OKUDO)
—abducted from Kashiwazaki, Japan, in 1978

KENJI ISHIDAKA
—TV Asahi producer, author of
Kim Jong-il’s Abduction Command

TORU ISHIOKA
—Japanese
student abducted from Barcelona in 1980

BRINDA JENKINS
—daughter of Charles Robert Jenkins and Hitomi Soga

CHARLES ROBERT JENKINS
—U.S. Army sergeant, defected to North Korea in 1965, married abductee Hitomi Soga in 1980

MIKA JENKINS
—daughter of Charles Robert Jenkins and Hitomi Soga

KIM EUN-GYONG
—daughter of Megumi Yokota and Kim Yong-nam

KIM HYON-HUI
—North Korean agent who bombed Korean Air
Flight 858 in 1987

KIM IL-SUNG
—founder and leader of North Korea from 1948 to 1994

KIM JONG-IL
—leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011

KIM YOUNG-NAM
—South Korean abducted in 1978, married Megumi Yokota in 1986

JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI
—prime minister of Japan from 2001 to 2006

HARUNORI KOJIMA
—abductee activist

TAKAHIRO KONISHI
—Japanese Red Army Faction member

EDWARD S. MORSE
—American zoologist
(1838–1925)

HIROKO SAITO
—emigrated from Japan to North Korea, 1963

KATSUMI SATO
—director, Modern Korea Institute, abductee activist (1929–2013)

YASUHIRO SHIBATA
—Japanese Red Army Faction member

SHIN KWANG-SOO
—North Korean secret agent

SHIN SANG-OK
—South Korean film director, ex-husband of Choi Eun-hee, abducted from Hong Kong in 1978

HITOMI SOGA
—abducted from Sado Island, Japan, 1978

MIYOSHI SOGA
—abducted with her daughter, Hitomi, from Sado Island, Japan, 1978

TAKAMARO TAMIYA
—leader of the Red Army Faction (1943–1995)

HITOSHI TANAKA
—senior Japanese diplomat

TAKESHI TERAKOSHI
—abducted from Shikamachi in 1963; currently lives in Pyongyang, North Korea

TOMOE TERAKOSHI
—mother of Takeshi Terakoshi

RYUZO TORII
—professor of anthropology, Tokyo University (1870–1953)

SHOGORO TSUBOI
—professor of anthropology, Tokyo University (1863–1913)

MEGUMI YAO
—wife of Yasuhiro Shibata

MEGUMI YOKOTA
—thirteen-year-old schoolgirl abducted from Niigata, Japan, in 1977

SAKIE YOKOTA
—mother of Megumi Yokota

SHIGERU YOKOTA
—father of Megumi Yokota

PROLOGUE

People began disappearing from Japan’s coastal towns and cities in the fall of 1977. A security guard vacationing at a seaside resort two hundred miles northwest of Tokyo vanished in mid-September. In November, a thirteen-year-old girl walking home from badminton practice in the port town of Niigata was last seen eight hundred feet from her family’s front door. The next July two young
couples, both on dates, though in different towns on Japan’s northwest coast, disappeared. One couple left behind the car they’d driven to a local make-out spot; the other abandoned the bicycles they’d ridden to the beach.

What few knew at the time was that these people were abducted by an elite unit of North Korean commandos. Japanese were not the only victims, and dozens also disappeared from
other parts of Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East during the same period. In May 1978 a Thai woman living in Macau was grabbed on her way to a beauty salon. In July 1978 four Lebanese women were taken from Beirut; later that year, a Romanian artist disappeared, having been promised an exhibition in Asia. Some were lured onto airplanes by the prospect of jobs abroad; others were simply gagged,
thrown into bags, and transported by boat to North Korea. Their families spent years searching for the missing, checking mortuaries, hiring private detectives and soothsayers. Only five were ever seen again.

Because the locations they were taken from were dispersed, and their numbers relatively small, almost nobody in Japan drew a connection among the incidents. A local paper slyly described
one couple as having been “burned up” by their passion, the implication being that they had eloped after the woman became pregnant. Rumors about the disappearances surfaced periodically, but newspapers reported them as urban myths, akin to alien abductions. When the families of the missing went to the police, they were told that with no evidence of foul play, there was nothing to investigate. After
all, thousands of people disappear from Japan every year, the police explained, dying lonely deaths or fleeing drugs, debts, or unhappy relationships. While some members of the Japanese government and police force became aware of the abductions, they avoided acknowledging them officially, which would have required them to take action. And what, after all, could be done? Japan had neither diplomatic
relations with North Korea nor a military that could take unilateral action, and its mutual security treaty with the United States wouldn’t be triggered by a handful of kidnappings. And what if a Japanese official raised the issue and North Korea hid the evidence by killing the abductees? “It can’t be helped” (
Shikata ga nai
) is the phrase the Japanese commonly use to rationalize inaction. So,
for the next quarter century, dozens of abductees were fated to languish in North Korea.

1

WELCOME TO THE INVITATION-ONLY ZONE

On the evening of July 13, 1978, Kaoru Hasuike and his girlfriend, Yukiko Okudo, rode bikes to the summer fireworks festival at the Kashiwazaki town beach. The cool night air felt good against their skin as they whisked down the winding lanes of the coastal farming village 140 miles north of Tokyo. They parked their bikes by the public library and made
their way past the crowd of spectators to a remote stretch of sand. It was a new moon, and the fireworks looked spectacular against the black sky. As the first plumes rose, Kaoru noticed four men nearby. Cigarette in hand, one of them approached the couple and asked for a light. As Kaoru reached into his pocket, the four attacked, gagging and blindfolding the couple and binding their hands and legs
with rubber restraints. “Keep quiet and we won’t hurt you,” one of the assailants promised. Confined to separate canvas sacks, Kaoru and Yukiko were loaded onto an inflatable raft. Peering through the sack’s netting, Kaoru caught a glimpse of the warm, bright lights of Kashiwazaki City fading into the background. An hour later he was transferred to a larger ship idling offshore. The agents forced
him to swallow several pills: antibiotics to prevent his injuries from becoming infected, a sedative to put him to sleep, and medicine to relieve seasickness. When he awoke the next evening, he was in Chongjin, North Korea. Yukiko was nowhere in sight, and his captors told Kaoru she had been left behind in Japan.
¹

With his fashionably shaggy hair and ready smile, the twenty-year-old Kaoru Hasuike
impressed those who met him as a young man who was going places. Like much of his generation in Japan, he wasn’t interested in politics and knew almost nothing about Korea, North or South. Cocky and intelligent, he was at the top of his class at Tokyo’s prestigious Chuo University. Yukiko, twenty-two, the daughter of a local rice farmer, was a beautician for Kanebo, one of Japan’s leading cosmetics
companies. She and Kaoru had been dating for a year, and he planned to propose once he finished his law degree. Japan’s economy was surging ahead, and the future looked bright. He’d get a job at a corporation; they’d move from Kashiwazaki to Tokyo and build a life together. That was the plan, anyway.