House Concurrent Resolution 168, Condemning North Korean Abductions

109th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. CON. RES. 168

Condemning the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for the abductions and continued captivity of citizens of the Republic of Korea and Japan as acts of terrorism and gross violations of human rights.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

May 26, 2005

Mr. HYDE (for himself, Mr. CHABOT, Mr. SHIMKUS, Mr. ROHRABACHER, Mr. PITTS, Mr. LYNCH, and Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on International Relations

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Condemning the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for the abductions and continued captivity of citizens of the Republic of Korea and Japan as acts of terrorism and gross violations of human rights.

Whereas since the end of the Korean War, the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has kidnapped thousands of South Korean citizens and as many as a hundred Japanese citizens, including Rumiko Masumoto, Megumi Yokota, and Reverend Kim Dong-shik;

Whereas the forced detention and frequent murder of those individuals abducted by North Korea have caused untold grief and suffering to their families;

Whereas on September 17, 2002, after considerable pressure from the Government of Japan, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il admitted that agents of his government had abducted thirteen Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s and assured Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that this would never happen again;

Whereas despite assurances to the contrary, North Korea continues to order and carry out abductions, and, as recently as August 8, 2004, North Korean agents operating along the Chinese border kidnapped Ms. Jin Kyung-sook, a former North Korean refugee and South Korean passport-holder;

Whereas the abduction policy of North Korea has been integral to its espionage and terrorist activities, and abductees have been kidnapped to work as spies, to train North Korean agents in language, accents, and culture, and to steal identities, as in the case of Mr. Tadaaki Hara;

Whereas the Pyongyang regime used abductee Ms. Yaeko Taguchi as the Japanese language instructor for North Korean terrorist Kim Hyon-hee, who was caught carrying a Japanese passport after planting a bomb on Korean Air Lines flight 858 that killed 115 people in 1987;

Whereas many victims of North Korean abduction have been seized during terrorist attacks, as in the hijacking of South Korean planes in 1958 and 1969, and, decades later, Pyongyang continues to hold twelve passengers of a hijacked Korean Air flight, including passenger Mr. Chang Ji-young and flight attendant Ms. Song Kyong-hi, who has since been allowed a brief visit by her South Korean family;

Whereas North Korean agents have hijacked numerous South Korean ships and kidnapped the seamen and fishermen aboard the vessels, such as Choi Jong-suk, Kim Soon-keun, and ten other crewmen of the Dongjin 27, a ship that was seized in 1987, and Seoul estimates that hundreds of these abductees are still alive in North Korea;

Whereas boat hijackings and the kidnapping of fishermen have devastated South Korean fishing communities, such as Nongso village on the southern island of Geoje, a community of 210 people that lost 14 sons, husbands, and fathers when North Korea seized three ships in 1971 and 1972;

Whereas the North Korean authorities conspired with members of the Japanese Red Army, a group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States Department of State, to kidnap Keiko Arimoto, a young Japanese woman studying abroad;

Whereas according to the records of the Unification Ministry of the Republic of Korea, 486 South Korean abductees are still alive and being held in North Korea, and among these individuals are fishermen, seamen, airline passengers, teachers, students, and pastors;

Whereas North Korean agents have abducted children, causing unimaginable anguish to parents who live decades with the uncertainty of what has happened to their child, as in the cases of Takeshi Terakoshi, a thirteen-year-old boy kidnapped from a fishing boat with his two uncles, and Lee Min-gyo and Choi Seung-min, two seventeen-year-old friends abducted off a beach in South Korea;

Whereas North Korean agents kidnapped thirteen-year-old Megumi Yokota, as she was walking home from school, and subsequently reported that she married and had a daughter in North Korea before committing suicide in 1993, and that Megumi’s daughter remains there separated from her family in Japan;

Whereas the Pyongyang regime has abducted a number of South Korean ministers who were bravely working to rescue North Koreans escaping on the underground railroad through China, including Reverend Ahn Seung-woon and Reverend Kim Dong-shik, the latter of whose welfare is of particular importance to representatives of the State of Illinois;

Whereas on April 21, 2005, the Seoul Central District Court convicted Chinese citizen Ryu Young-hwa of assisting North Korean agents in the abduction of Reverend Kim and, further, that a Chinese court convicted a North Korean citizen of masterminding the abduction of Reverend Ahn, and deported the agent to North Korea in July 1997 following a two-year prison term;

Whereas some of the abductees have risked their lives in trying to escape North Korea, as in the case of South Korean fisherman Im Kuk-jae, who has twice attempted to escape since his kidnapping in 1987, and is now believed to be imprisoned in one of North Korea’s notorious labor camps;

Whereas the North Korean regime continues to deceive the international community regarding its ongoing abductions and has furnished false information concerning eight Japanese abductees, including suspicious accounts of their supposed premature deaths;

Whereas the Government of North Korea has never convincingly accounted for Ms. Rumiko Masumoto and Mr. Shuichi Ichikawa, kidnapped by Pyongyang agents from a beach in Japan on August 12, 1978, and claims that Mr. Ichikawa drowned in the sea, despite his dislike of swimming, and that the formerly healthy Ms. Masumoto died of a heart attack at the age of 27;

Whereas North Korea claims abductees Mr. Toru Ishioka and Ms. Keiko Arimoto, who were kidnapped separately in Europe and later married, supposedly died together with their small daughter of gas poisoning in 1988, two months after they were successful in getting a letter out of North Korea to family members in Japan;

Whereas although the Pyongyang regime claimed to return the alleged cremated remains of Mr. Kaoru Matsuki and Ms. Megumi Yokota to Japanese officials, both remains appear not to be authentic, and, according to Pyongyang, the bodies of the six remaining Japanese abductees have conveniently been washed away during flooding and cannot be recovered to verify the causes of their untimely deaths;

Whereas despite the efforts of the Japanese Government, the Pyongyang regime continues to deny any knowledge of the abductions of Mr. Yutaka Kume, Mr. Minoru Tanaka, and Ms. Miyoshi Soga, the mother of another acknowledged abductee, despite overwhelming evidence of North Korean collusion in their disappearances;

Whereas North Korean abductions have not been limited to northeast Asia and many documented abductees have been kidnapped while abroad, such as Mr. Lee Chae-hwan, a young MIT graduate student traveling in Austria, and Mr. Ko Sang-moon, a South Korean teacher kidnapped in Norway, making the issue of serious concern to the international community;

Whereas there have been credible reports that North Korea may have abducted citizens from many other countries in addition to South Korea and Japan, including persons from China, Europe, and the Middle East;

Whereas for more than fifty years, North Korea has held South Korean prisoners-of-war captured during the Korean War, in clear violation of Article III of the Korean War Armistice Agreement signed on July 27, 1953, and the South Korean Ministry of National Defense estimates that 542 captives are still alive in North Korea, according to testimony given before the National Assembly in February 2005;

Whereas according to the testimony of prisoners-of-war who have successfully escaped from North Korea, South Korean prisoners-of-war have been forced to perform hard labor for decades, often in mines, and are harshly treated by the Pyongyang regime;

Whereas after being forcibly held in North Korea for fifty-one years, South Korean prisoner-of-war Han Man-taek, age 72, escaped to China, was detained by Chinese police and forcibly repatriated to North Korea earlier this year, where he inevitably faced punitive measures and possible execution; and

Whereas these South Korean prisoners-of-war served under the United Nations Command, fighting alongside their American and Allied fellow soldiers, and therefore are the direct concern of the Allied nations who contributed forces during the Korean War: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress–

(1) condemns the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for the abduction and continued captivity of citizens of the Republic of Korea and Japan as acts of terrorism and gross violations of human rights;

(2) calls upon the North Korean Government to immediately cease and desist from carrying out abductions, release all victims of kidnapping and prisoners-of-war still alive in North Korea, and provide a full and verifiable accounting of all other cases;

(3) recognizes that resolution of the nuclear issue with North Korea is of critical importance, however, this should not preclude United States Government officials from raising abduction cases and other critical human rights concerns in any future negotiations with the North Korean regime;

(4) calls upon the United States Government not to remove the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea from the Department of State’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism until such time that North Korea renounces state-sponsored kidnapping and provides a full accounting of all abduction cases; and

(5) admonishes the Government of the People’s Republic of China for the forced repatriation to North Korea of Han Man-taek, a South Korean prisoner-of-war and comrade-in-arms of the United States, and for its failure to exercise sovereign control over teams of North Korean agents operating freely within its borders.

END