Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column Aug 3 2010: “The victim complex and Kim’s killer con”

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The Japan Times: Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2010
JUST BE CAUSE
The victim complex and Kim’s killer con
By DEBITO ARUDOU

Courtesy http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20100803ad.html

It’s fascinating whenever someone cons people out of pots of money — doubly so when someone cons a whole government. Take, for example, Japan’s biggest news story two weeks ago: Kim Hyon Hui’s four-day visit to Japan.

You might recall that in 1987 this North Korean spy, traveling on a fake Japanese passport, blew up a South Korean commercial airliner, killing 115 passengers.

Last July 20, however, this agent of international terrorism was allowed into Japan for a reception worthy of a state guest. Bypassing standard immigration procedures, Kim had her entry visa personally approved by our justice minister, boarded a chartered flight that cost Japan’s taxpayers ¥10 million, and was whisked by helicopter to former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s private dacha to eat with political elites.

Then, flanked by a phalanx of 100 cops (who made sure nobody raised any uncomfortable questions), Kim got to meet the parents of Megumi Yokota, the cause celebre of North Korean kidnappings of innocent Japanese citizens decades ago. Next, at her request, Kim boarded another helicopter (at around ¥800,000 an hour) for an aerial tour of Mount Fuji. As a parting gift, she got an undisclosed amount of “additional remuneration.” Sweet.
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201007230525.html

And what did Japan get? Kim said she had information for the Yokotas about their missing daughter and other Japanese abductees who trained her to be a multilingual spy — even though, way back when, she said she had never met Megumi. So suddenly Kim has a quarter-century-old brain fart and gets the red carpet?

The Megumi Yokota tragedy has for the past decade been a political football in Japanese politics, a means for Japan as a whole to claim victimhood status. That is to say, by portraying itself as a victim of North Korea, Japan gets brownie points at the geopolitical bargaining table and audiences with American presidents. It also creates a villain to mobilize and scare the Japanese public, justifying bunker-mentality policing powers. (Not to mention outright xenophobia. Remember some of the arguments against suffrage for non-Japanese permanent residents (JBC, Feb. 2)? “How dare we give the vote to potential North Korean agents!” We’ll get no national law protecting universal human rights in Japan while the current regime is in place in Pyongyang.)

Yet ironies abound. After decades of virtually ignoring the abductions issue, the government has now firmly entrenched it as one of those “international sympathy” chestnuts, along with “Japan is the only country ever bombed by nuclear weapons,” “Our nation as a whole was a victim of a rapacious military junta during World War II,” and just about any claim of “Japan-bashing” rolled out whenever somebody needs to win a domestic or international argument.

Never mind the hypocrisies, such as Japan’s own wartime atrocities and public complicity, the officially sponsored bashing of non-Japanese residents, and the kidnappings (both international and domestic) of children under Japan’s insane laws covering divorce, child custody and visitation. Portraying Japan as the perpetual “victim of circumstance or historical conspiracy” keeps our past unexamined, the status quo unchallenged, and our society blissfully inculpable.

But as I said earlier, the Kim visit showed how victimhood can be used — even against the pros — for fun and profit.

Think about it. Kim should be the poster child for all that’s bad about North Korea. Masquerading as a Japanese in her attempt to kill as many innocent people as possible, she was a fundamental part of the system that abducted innocent Japanese, and a beneficiary of their captive services. Yet she so effectively converted herself into a “victim of the North” that South Korea commuted her death sentence, and her memoir even became a best seller.

So last month, by joining hands with Japan against a putative common enemy, Kim played our government like a shamisen. She essentially got the trip to Disneyland that fellow North Korean elite Kim Jong Nam (son of the Dear Leader) tried to get when he smuggled himself into Japan on a false passport in 2001. He should have pretended to be a victim, not a Dominican.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,108692,00.html

In sum, Kim Hyon Hui pulled off an awesome con. But consider the damage done.

What was had for this Kim visit? We taxpayers were. “Little information to help solve the long-standing abduction issue was obtained,” according to the Asahi Shimbun. Yet this rot has become even more bureaucratically entrenched: The fiscal 2010 budget allots ¥1.2 billion for “abduction-related activities,” double that of 2009. More money into the sinkhole while other programs are facing cuts?
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201007230525.html

Worse still is the political precedent that has been set. Taking office last year from the corrupt Liberal Democratic Party on the promise of reform, the Democratic Party of Japan has now squandered political capital and goodwill.

This columnist has supported the DPJ mostly because we need a viable alternative to the LDP — an opposition party that can force Japanese politics out of its crapulence and decrepitude. Yet here the DPJ has shown itself unwilling to break the mold of Japan’s elite potentates. Not only are they just as susceptible to the same con that double-agents such as Kim specialize in; they are also just as willing to bend the rules to suit the will of a privileged few.

We saw this happen before spectacularly in the Alberto Fujimori case (JBC, May 5, 2009): An international criminal suspect wanted by Interpol could resign his Peruvian presidency, flee to Japan and get treated as a celebrity. He could even enjoy a safe haven from, yes, being “victimized” under Peru’s allegedly unfair judiciary. “Give us your huddled victims yearning to get rich …”

So I guess the moral is that the new boss is turning out the same as the old boss. Who cares about the rule of law, or cutting deals with international terrorists? We’re hosting a smashing party for our victims, and we don’t want you bounders and oiks to spoil it! Oh, and the bureaucrats want to justify their budgets too, so let’s make like we’re doing something about the abductions. Thus the con is not Kim’s alone.

But spare a final thought for the ultimate victims in this case: the abductees’ families, such as the Yokotas. Lured by false hopes of any news of their loved ones, they got entangled in this political stunt and lost enormous public sympathy for their cause. In the end, they were suckers for a self-proclaimed victim who is in fact a spy, a con artist and a mass murderer.

Debito Arudou coauthored the “Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants and Immigrants.” Twitter arudoudebito. Just Be Cause appears on the first Community Page of the month. Send comments on this issue to community@japantimes.co.jp

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REFERENTIAL ASAHI SHINBUN ARTICLE, for the archives:

Critics say ex-spy treated too well
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN 2010/07/24

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201007230525.html

Kim Hyon Hui arrived in Japan on a government-chartered jet, was given a full police escort to the vacation home of a former prime minister and enjoyed a helicopter tour over the capital. All her expenses were paid for by taxpayers in Japan, plus some additional remuneration.

The official treatment of this former North Korean spy once sentenced to death for blowing up a South Korean airliner and killing 115 people has been likened to that for a state guest.

Despite the huge tab and long list of exceptions made for this to happen, relatives of Japanese who were abducted by North Korea said they were encouraged by what she had to say and now have renewed hopes of seeing their kin again.

Kim’s four-day visit to Japan started Tuesday and ended Friday. In the end, however, most agree that little information to help solve the long-standing abduction issue was obtained.

The extent of the exceptional treatment stunned some foreign media. The British newspaper The Independent reported on the story Wednesday under the headline “Former North Korean spy who bombed jet welcomed by Japan.”

The South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo said Kim, who was pardoned for the 1987 bombing of a South Korean passenger jet, received “state guest” treatment.

Critics including the president of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, Sadakazu Tanigaki, slammed the event as a public-relations feat by the government to impress the public.

However, Hiroshi Nakai, state minister in charge of the abduction issue, countered by saying that if it were merely a political performance, “we would have done it before the Upper House election.”

A source close to the government said, “I heard the government fixed the date (now), to attract public attention to the news after the soccer World Cup finished.”

Japan’s official stance is that 17 of its citizens were abducted by North Korea in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In 2002, Pyongyang admitted to having abducted 13 Japanese citizens and returned five, claiming the rest were dead. Some of the missing abductees are believed to be alive.

The Japanese government had thought that prospects were dim to obtain new information from the former spy that would help solve the abduction issue. Thus, Kim’s visit might have been aimed at showing the public that it was still working on the issue, a government official said.

Kim, 48, should have been barred from entering Japan because she was carrying a fake Japanese passport at the time of the 1987 Korean Air jet bombing. That problem was taken care of by Justice Minister Keiko Chiba, who granted Kim special permission under the immigration control law.

According to a source close to the government, the chartered jet alone cost 10 million yen ($114,810). Add to that several millions of yen more for Kim’s motorcade from Tokyo to Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, which mobilized 100 police officers. It was “comparable to that of U.S. ministerial or deputy ministerial level officials,” the source said.

The helicopter sightseeing tour was a request by Kim, who reportedly wanted to see Mount Fuji. A helicopter flight of that type would cost 800,000 yen an hour, according to an industry source.

For fiscal 2010, 1.2 billion yen was allotted for abduction-related activities, twice the amount in fiscal 2009.

Even amid all the criticism, family members of abductees viewed Kim’s visit in a positive light. Kim met families of the abductees during her visit.

Shigeo Iizuka, who heads the association of the Japanese abductees’ families, said: “She said she was looking forward to seeing (my sister Yaeko Taguchi). I am sure she will continue to help us.”

Sakie Yokota, the mother of Megumi Yokota, who was abducted in 1977 at the age of 13, said, “I was encouraged by (Kim’s) words, ‘I believe she is still alive.'”
ENDS

11 comments on “Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column Aug 3 2010: “The victim complex and Kim’s killer con”

  • Agreed, cracking article. The whole situation is disgusting on so many levels, and you hit the nail on the head.

    Here’s hoping it falls on the right ears and strikes the right chords.

    Reply
  • Debito, Japan does not call itself a victim but call North Korea a terrorist nation. Japan does not want international sympathy but justice against North Korea.

    You should not think lightly about North Korea. Within a few years, the entire earth will be in the range of North Korean nuclear missiles. It has a long history of terrorism and mass murder. No one knows what use it will find when it develops global nuclear attacking capability.

    — I’m more worried that educated people like you are so unable to read with comprehension and without a paranoid nationalist bent.

    Reply
  • HO, if Japan wants justice against North Korea, then why give the known Northern murderer the red carpet? The nation could use that money to look after its own people instead of giving it away so murderers can be comfy while they enter enemy territory.

    — I’m almost ready to push the “Don’t Feed the Troll” button.

    Reply
  • Maybe they can change the Immigration procedures to reflect the new attitude of our “justice” minister.

    All potenetial entrants to Japan should be asked,
    “Are you a terrorist who has killed more than 100 people?”
    “Are you now or were you ever an agent of a terrorist organzation?”

    If the answer to both is “No.” They should wave you through without even checking your passport.
    If the answer to either is “Yes”, well apparently, that’s just fine and dandy, too. Yokoso Japan!

    How about a new microprotest when getting fingerprinted or stopped by cops, “I am not Kim Hyon Hui.”
    Make a “I am not Kim Hyon Hui” button.

    Reply
  • It seems that the after the media fanfare surrounding the visit, the media is actually starting to ask questions. Hiroshi Nakai The State Minister for the Abduction Issue http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/hatoyama/meibo/daijin/nakai_e.html under pressure to explain the reason for the joyflights, claims that it was at the request of the South Korean government (http://news.google.co.jp/news/more?pz=1&cf=all&ned=jp&cf=all&ncl=dUmsRqFE-hrOUzMIkBn1zONgh_0hM) which has of course been vigorously denied by the SK side. Nothing like incompetent politicians on the receiving end of media scrutiny once in a while here. Talk about the media biting the hand that feeds it..you got to love a slow news week in Japan.

    Reply
  • I asked an LDP politician who was on a loudspeaker in Fukuoka City ranting on the abduction issue about what he thought about the lack of balance in the media coverage here. Specifically about why there was hardly any mention of the thousands of Koreans abducted by Japan when it invaded the Korean peninsular. I was told by the LDP politician that Japan had not abducted anyone and that I should return to my own country. I politely told him I had no such intentions.
    Did anyone notice that when Hitomi Soga was reunited with her husband and daughters that it coincidentally happened on the tarmac in Jakarta right on time for a perfect live news feed for the 6 o’clock news in Japan? It was exploitation of the lowest kind.
    What happened to those Japanese who were abducted was a crime motivated by Japan’s previous deeds last century. In some respects those people were abducted a second time by their own politicians in order to serve a conservative revisionist agenda.

    — Calm down and stay on track.

    Reply
  • I think the children abducted by Japanese spouses every year would ve been a more up to date response to the politician. As the American government has recently been saying to Japan, this issue makes it hard for the USA to suppport Japan vis a vis North Korea on the abductee issue. Some of them were returned, 12 or so didnt. Zero out of hundreds of kids absucted by Japanese souses have returned to the US or elsewhere, I believe.

    And when he told you to go back to your own country, you could ve said “thats exactly it. I’ ll lose all contact with my kids if I do leave, so I can’t. By the way, do you have kids?”

    Oh well, always easy to think up these answers after the event, but perhaps you could email him, or call up his office? I’ m happy to do it for you if you dont speak Japanese!

    Pinprick phone protest.

    Reply
  • Not sure the Fujimori example is relevant here, as he has Japanese citizenship, and pretty much every country will work to protect one of their own.

    — Read the JBC article I cite, please.

    Reply
  • You know what strikes me here-the comment of the minister that poor Kim ” won’t go anywhere forever”. Well, there are many foreigners who won’t go anywhere forever, after going back to their poverty and crimes ridden kakusa shakai,many refugees who won’t even survive their next birthday when they are refused asylum, poor war orphans and children without basic medical care and safe water; mothers who lose their children to lack of vaccines, medicines,proper medical care;Japanese who die in ambulances because there arent’t enough doctors to take care of them; the list can go on and on…And he is concerned about the fact that a mass murderer and terrorist, con artist and an ex-spy who lives in an expensive appartment in Seoul and leads better life than the average hard working Korean, won’t be able to go to kaigai ryoko. Excuse my French and English, but what an a$$○.

    Reply

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