The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 9 | Issue 22 | Number 2 | Article ID 3541 | May 24, 2011

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Exodus to North Korea Revisited: Japan, North Korea, and theICRC in the “Repatriation” of Ethnic Koreans from Japan　　北朝鮮への移住再訪−−コリアンの日本からの「帰国」における日本、北鮮、赤十字国際委員会

Tessa Morris-Suzuki

Exodus to North Korea Revisited:Japan, North Korea, and the ICRC inthe “Repatriation” of Ethnic Koreansfrom Japan

Tessa Morris-Suzuki

The Human Faces of Repatriation

Fifty years ago, the mass repatriation of ethnicKoreans from Japan to North Korea wasreaching its peak. In towns and cities all overJapan farewell gatherings were being held, as“returnees” to North Korea packed their bagsand boarded trains that would take them to theport of Niigata where, after various formalitiesincluding a “confirmation of free will” by theInternational Committee of the Red Cross(ICRC), they would board Russian ships for thevoyage to Cheongjin in the Democratic People’sRepublic of Korea (DPRK). Over 49,000 peopleembarked on this journey in 1960 alone, and93,340 over the full span of the “repatriationproject”[帰国事業, 북성사업) from December1959 to July 1984.

The emotions felt by those leaving Japan werevaried and often complex. Many expressed joyand hope at the prospect of a new life in NorthKorea – even though the vast majority cameoriginally from the southern half of the KoreanPeninsula, and were going to a place they hadnever seen before. Some took a more somberview – traveling without high expectations, but

at least in the belief that a future in NorthKorea would be more secure than their life inJapan, where they had been deprived ofcitizenship and had no assured residencerights, very limited access to welfare and (inmost cases) few educational or employmentopportunities.

Some individual stories are particularlytroubling. I will recount one here, not becauseit was typical (on the contrary, this was a quitedistinctive case) but because it helps tohighlight some neglected or misunderstoodaspects of the repatriation project that I shalldiscuss below.

In 1960 ICRC officials, who were in Niigata toconfirm that all returnees to North Korea weredeparting of their own free will, encountered ayoung man whom I shall call “Mr. Heo” (not hisreal name). According to the ICRC notes on hiscase, Mr. Heo had “had to flee from SouthKorea for political reasons” and entered Japanas an il legal immigrant when he was ateenager. He lived in Japan without officialpapers for a while, and then gave himself up topolice. After several years’ confinement inŌmura Detention Centre near Nagasaki, he hadbeen released on parole just as the repatriationto North Korea was beginning.

Mr. Heo told the ICRC officials that in 1957 hehad tried to appeal to the ICRC to be “grantedpermanent res idence in Japan or anopportunity to migrate to another country,Argentina for instance”, but this appeal had

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received no response. The notes on his casestate that “[Heo] really does not want to go toNorth Korea, he prefers to remain in Japan”.However, as a deportee on parole, he had beengiven only a temporary Alien Residence Card,and was afraid of being deported to SouthKorea when it expired, since at that time thosesuspected of being “subversives” were oftenimprisoned in South Korea.

The officials noted that Mr. Heo “was visibly ina state of confusion, in fear and tears”. TheICRC officials therefore pointed out to him thathis temporary Alien Registration Card was stillvalid for a year, and suggested that hepostpone his departure and remain in Japan forthe time being. However, they explained thatthey could not guarantee his right to remainpermanently. That was a matter for Japan’sImmigration Bureau. After listening to thisexplanation, Mr. Heo “calmed down andpromised to give us a definite answer later”.That afternoon, he met the ICRC officials againand told them that he had decided to leave forNorth Korea immediately. He was apparentlyrepatriated the next day.1 What happened tohim thereafter is unknown.

Retelling the Repatriation

I first became involved in research about therepatriation to North Korea almost by chancein 2004, and during the six years in which Ihave been engaged in this research, historicalknowledge about this complex and troublingstory has expanded greatly, as growingnumbers of Cold War archives have beenopened, and the testimony of an expanding flowof refugees from North Korea has becomeavailable. At the time when I began to study the“repatriation project”, a widely held perceptionof this event went (in essence) as follows: Afterthe end of the Asia-Pacific War, around 600,000Koreans remained living in Japan, often inconditions of great insecurity. Although mostoriginated from the southern half of Korea,many were politically sympathetic to the DPRK,

and (from 1955 on) to the North Koreaaffiliated General Association of KoreanResidents in Japan [general ly knownas Chongryun 총련in Korean and as Sōren総連in Japanese].

KOREANS IN JAPANKorean migration to Japan began before the formal annexation of Korea by the Japanese Empire in 1910, andexpanded particularly rapidly during the 1920s and 1930s. According to official figures, there were 136,709 Koreansliving in Japan in 1925, 735,689 in 1937, and more than two million by 1945. Migrants came from a wide variety ofbackgrounds, but many were from poor farm families whose existence had been made more precarious by colonialagricultural policies. From 1939 onward, Japan introduced a series of increasingly coercive recruitment laws underwhich labourers from Korea were brought to Japan to work in mines and on construction projects. An estimated onethird of the Koreans in Japan in 1945 had been recruited under these forced labour schemes.After the liberation of Korea in 1945, the majority of Koreans in Japan returned to Korea, but, against a backgroundof political and social confusion and increasing conflict on the Korean Peninsula, around 600,000 remained in Japan.During the colonial period, Koreans and Taiwanese in Japan had been nationals of the Japanese Empire, but at theend of the postwar occupation of Japan, the Japanese government rescinded the Japanese nationality of formercolonial subjects living in Japan, leaving them without clearly defined rights. From 1947, former colonial subjectswere also required to register under Japan’s Alien Registration Ordinance. Initially, Koreans were registered underthe category Chōsen (Joseon in Korean - the historical name for Korea that had been used in the colonial period, andcontinued to be used post-independence by North Korea), but after protests from the newly created government ofthe Republic of Korea (South Korea), from 1950 they were also allowed to register using theterm Kankoku (Hanguk in Korean – the word for Korea used in the post-independence South). During the 1950s, themajority of Koreans in Japan continued to register themselves as belonging to Chōsen, and those that did so wereoften misleadingly referred to in English as “North Koreans in Japan”, though most originated from the southern partof Korea, and not all identified themselves with the North Korean regime.

In the middle of 1958, a mass movement aroseamongst Koreans in Japan, supported by Sōren,demanding that they be given the right toreturn to North Korea – despite the fact thatJapan had no diplomatic ties and no regulartransport links to North Korea at that time.Soon after, in August 1958, North Koreanleader Kim Il-Sung made an announcementwelcoming Koreans from Japan to “return tothe socialist fatherland”, and this added fuel tothe repatriation movement. In response, thefollowing February, the Japanese governmentannounced that i t was cal l ing on theInternational Committee of the Red Cross toassist in overseeing a project to repatriatethose Koreans in Japan who wished to go toNorth Korea. Despite intense opposition fromSouth Korea, in August 1959, a repatriationagreement between the Red Cross Societies ofJapan and North Korea was signed in Calcutta,and on 14 December 1959, the f i r s trepatriation ship set sail from Niigata toCheongjin.

In my research, though I used some Russian,US, Japanese, and other archival anddocumentary sources, as a well as materialfrom interviews, I focused particularly on amass of newly declassified documents aboutthe repatriation held in the archives of theInternational Committee of the Red Cross inGeneva, for these documents turn out to reveala very different, and previously untold, story. In

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particular, the documents confirmed threesurprising aspects of the story:

Intense and highly secret1.negotiations about a large-scale repatriation had beentaking place between theJapanese government, theJapan Red Cross Society(JRC), their North Koreancounterpar t s and theInternational Committee ofthe Red Cross from 1955 –almost three years beforeK i m I l - S u n g ’ sannouncement.The first concrete proposal2.for a mass repatriation oftens of thousands of ethnicKoreans to North Korea hadcome from the Japanese sidein late 1955.Despite their profound3.ideological antagonisms anddifferences of objective,there had been a remarkabled e g r e eof collaboration between theJapanese and North Koreansides. Each side in essencesought to use the other fori t s o w n e n d s . T h erepatr iat ion was a co-production which wouldhave been imposs ib lewithout this interactionbetween the two sides, aswell as ICRC facilitation.

Meanwhile, declassified Soviet material showedthat North Korea had had little interest inpromoting a mass repatriation from Japan untilthe middle of 1958, when the Kim Il-Sungadministration suddenly changed its positionand began very actively to encourage an inflowof ethnic Koreans. These Soviet documents

gave some hints as to the possible motives forthe North Korean change of policy, but also leftmany questions unanswered.

Since I published an account of the repatriationstory in a book entitled Exodus to NorthKorea (2007), further documents on the storyhave come to light, and new findings by otherresearchers have provided fresh insights to thebackground to the “repatriation project”. Inparticular, research by Park Jung-Jin has castnew light on a number of aspects of postwarJapan-North Korea relations including therepatriation project.2 The fiftieth anniversary ofthe start of the repatriation also saw thepublication of several new works on thes u b j e c t , i n c l u d i n g t w o b y Y o m i u r iWeekly journalist Kikuchi Yoshiaki. Kikuchi, aswell as looking at the material which I used inresearch for Exodus to North Korea hasextensively examined material produced by thel e f t -w ing Korean o rgan i za t i ons i nJapan, Sōren and its predecessor, the UnitedDemocratic Front of Koreans in Japan [ZainichiChōsen Tōitsu Minshu Sensen – abbreviatedto Minsen].3

These works have greatly expanded knowledgeof several aspects of the repatriation project.Park Jung-Jin’s studies show how therepatriation fitted not only into Japan-NorthKorea relations but also into the complexpolitics of Minsen and Sōren, and into therelations of these organizations with the NorthKorean state. Kikuchi Yoshiaki’s researcheshave also shed interesting light on aspects suchas the relationship between the repatriationfrom Japan and inflows of ethnic Koreans intoNorth Korea from Sakhalin and China. At thesame time, several of these more recentwritings have questioned some of the mainarguments which I put forward in Exodus toNorth Korea. In particular, Kikuchi writes, “theclaim that moves towards a ‘mass repatriation’to North Korea originated on the Japanese side(Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Exodus to North Korea),in other words, the ‘Japanese stratagem theory’

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[日本策略論] is clearly a misinterpretation. Oneo f t h e r e a s o n s w h y t h i s k i n d o fmisinterpretation has arisen is becauseProfessor Suzuki has relied too much on thedocuments of the International Committee ofthe Red Cross and has not sufficientlyexamined the repatriation movementsof Minsen and of Sōren in its early stages, orthe moves on the North Korean side which arenot dealt with in detail in those documents.”4 Asimilar criticism has also been made, in lesstemperate language, by Prof. KawashimaTakamine of Meiji University, who argues thatthe plan for a mass repatriation was putforward by Kim Il-Sung at a meeting withrepresentatives of the Japan Socialist Party in1955, and that, in taking up the repatriationissues, the Japanese Red Cross and Japanesegovernment politicians were merely respondingt o r e q u e s t s f r o m N o r t h K o r e aand Zainichi Koreans. 5

I am going to return to these criticisms later,but first I want to make some general remarksabout the issues raised by historical researchon the repatriation project.

The Historiography of the Repatriation

Researching the history of the repatriation has,for me, highlighted two fundamental problemsof history writing. The first is the question ofhow historians and other researchers useresearch materials; the second is the issue ofthe underlying motives which drive historicalresearch. One of the difficulties of research onthe repatriation story today is not a lack ofevidence, but rather the problem of dealingwith an enormous abundance of archivalmaterial. The material in the ICRC archivesalone runs to many thousands of pages, andthousands more exist in archives in Japan,Korea, the US, Britain, Germany, andelsewhere. The team who made a 2007 NHKdocumentary on the repatriation, for example,amassed some 15,000 pages of formerlyclassified documents about the project from

around the world.6 (Unfortunately, the programthen proceeded to use only a tiny handful of thewealth of material collected.) The issuetherefore is how to extract a meaningful andhistorically accurate account from this wealthof detail about a very complex schemeinvolving several different countries andminis tr ies , as wel l as internat ionalorganisations. Since it is not possible to quotefrom all the documents, or to make them allavailable to readers, the task of the historian is,as far as possible, to examine the range ofdocuments and to provide as balanced anaccount as possible of their overall content, aswell as quoting from the particular records thatreveal important facts. No account of therepatriation is ever going to be complete andfaultless, but if we agree that the aim is to worktowards as accurate and comprehensive pictureas possible, then I think we can also agreeabout the basic methods that are necessary topursue that aim.

But our motives for researching history areanother matter. The impulses that impel peopleto study the past are varied and personal and,in a plural society, this is surely the way thingsshould be. Some people study history for itsown sake; others see it always as “the historyof the present”, a source of understandingsabout the world in which we live today; othersagain seek practical ways to use a knowledgeof history to overcome the legacies of historicalinjustice. To me, the repatriation project is ofgreat historical importance because it shedsprofound light on aspects of Cold War politicswhich still affect the nations and people ofNortheast Asia today. Even more importantly,the repatriation project, for many and perhapsall of its participants, led to extreme suffering.An understanding of the history of the projectmay help us to comprehend how and why thishappened, and provide some insights into waysto relieve the continuing suffering of former“returnees” and their families. However, inus ing h is tory to shed l ight on thesecontemporary problems, it is important to

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create a genuine dialogue between past andpresent, and to resist the temptation to forcehistory into the (often simplistic) moulds thatsuit our present day concerns.

In this context, I want to refer briefly to therecent writings of Sakanaka Hidenori.Sakanaka was a senior official in Japan’sImmigration Bureau, which he joined in 1970,ten years after the start of the repatriationproject. He became well known for his far-reaching but controversial visions of the placeof the Korean minority in Japanese society, andafter his retirement, in 2005 he established theJapan Aid Association for North KoreanReturnees [Dappoku Kikokusha Shien Kikō], abody to assist former “returnees” from Japan toNorth Korea who have since fled the DPRK andreturned to Japan. In practical terms, Sakanakahas done as much as anyone to assist these“returnee-refugees”. However, the way that helinks a historical account of the repatriation tohis contemporary campaign on behalf of the“returnee-refugees” is rather troubling.Sakanaka argues, quite simply, that the“repatriation project” amounted to a massabduction of ethnic Koreans from Japan by theNorth Korean s tate : “ the abduct ionof Zainichi Koreans under the name of‘repatriation’”7, he argues, resulted inunmitigated misery, suffering, discriminationand persecution for the “returnees”, who longto return to Japan, which is their true“homeland”.8

But this depiction of the repatriation as an“abduction” denies al l agency to the“returnees”, who were undoubtedly bothpushed by forces from within Japan and luredby misleading propaganda from Chongryun andfrom North Korea, but who nevertheless did tryto make their own choices within the limitedrange of possibilities open to them. It likewiseelides the role of the Japanese state in planningand promoting the exodus. While it is certainlytrue that the repatriation has brought greatsuffering to the “returnees”, and that this

suffering has been directly caused byrepressive North Korean policies, the nature oftheir experiences and sufferings in North Koreahas not been uniform, and it is not possible toconfirm whether all would wish to return toJapan. (In fact, while around 200 returnee-refugees have so far resettled in Japan, asubstantially larger number have, throughchoice or circumstances, settled in SouthKorea. Through force of circumstances, themajority of the surviving “returnees” of courseremain in North Korea, and are unable toexpress their true wishes openly.) A failure torecognize these complexities in the history ofthe repatriation risks generating a one-sidedresponse to the equally complex contemporaryproblems and needs of “returnees” (including“returnee-refugees”) and their families.

The Origins of the Repatriation and theRole of the Japanese State

There are many aspects of the repatriationproject which need further investigation, buthere I want to return to the question of the roleplayed by the Japanese government and theJapan Red Cross Society, both because this hasbeen the most controversial aspect of my bookon the repatriation, and because I think it isfundamental to understanding the full history.Kikuchi Yoshiaki, in assessing the roles of theJapanese and North Korean sides in therepatriation, divides the problem into threeissues: (1) Why did the repatriation projectoccur? (2) Why did it became a “massrepatriation”? (3) Why did it became atragedy?9 Kikuchi himself expresses somereserva t ions about the term “massrepatriation”, but accepts the use of the termaccording to the following definition: “arepatriation exceeding several thousand orseveral tens of thousands of people, whichcannot be carried out by a few sailings ofrepatriation ships over a short period of time,but can only be achieved by a medium to long-term repatriation scheme”. This is a usefulworking definition which I shall also adopt.

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Japan, Kikuchi argues, did play a role in (1) –the establishment of the repatriation project.However, the creation of the project itself wasnot a problem – on the contrary, Japan’s role(he argues) helped to make the repatriationproject more humanitarian than it wouldotherwise have been. On the other hand, thereasons for (2) and (3) – the reasons why theproject became a “mass migration” and alsobecame a tragedy – can (according to Kikuchi)be firmly attributed to North Korea and Sōren.I agree that the sufferings experienced by thereturnees in the DPRK are the responsibility ofthe North Korean state. A key problem lies,however, in our understanding of issue 2: Whydid the repatriation become a mass outflow ofpeople? For it was, after all, the scale of therepatriation that turned something that mighthave been a more limited story of humandisplacement and suffering into a much largercalamity affecting over 90,000 “returnees” andhundreds of thousands of their relatives both inNorth Korea and in Japan. The answers to thisquestion are complex, and for reasons of spaceI cannot hope to answer it fully here. However,I do hope to present some further documentaryevidence that helps to shed light on theemergence of the mass repatriation project.

Before looking at this evidence, it is firstnecessary to return to the starting point, and topose two questions: What were the underlyingorigins and causes of the problem ofrepatriation to North Korea? What optionswere open to the Japanese state in respondingto this problem?

In 1945 there were more than two millionKoreans living in Japan, and although aroundtwo-thirds returned to South Korea in themonths immediately following Liberation, over600,000 remained in Japan. In particular, risingCold War tensions quickly put an end topostwar repatriation to the northern half of theKorean peninsula. As a result a number ofKoreans whose roots lay in North Korea wereunable to return home. A survey conducted in

March 1946 found that just over half a millionpeople sought repatriation to Korea south ofthe 38th Parallel, from which the vast majorityof Koreans had migrated, and just under 10,000to Korea north of the 38th Parallel. Against abackground of deteriorating political conditionsin Korea, most of these people decided toremain in Japan, at least for the time being.However, since only 351 Koreans wereofficially repatriated to North Korea during theOccupation period (1945-1952), it is possiblethat at least several hundred, and perhapsseveral thousand, were sti l l awaitingrepatriation to the DPRK after the KoreanWar.10

But the roots of the repatriation also lie in theuncertain status of the Korean community inpostwar Japan. At the end of the occupation,the Japanese government chose to interpret itsacceptance of the 1945 Potsdam Declaration asimplying that all Korean and Taiwaneseresidents in Japan (who had previously heldJapanese nationality under Japanese andinternational law) were now foreigners. Thisdecision was taken despite earlier suggestionsfrom Occupation authority legal staff thatKoreans and Taiwanese in Japan should begiven a choice between retaining Japanesecit izenship or adopting that of theirindependent homelands. The change in statushad very serious implications, because it meantthat the provisions of Japan’s recentlyintroduced 1951 Migration Control Ordinance[ later , Migrat ion Control Law] wereretrospectively applied to former colonialsubjects, who had but recently been Japanesecit izens. This law gave the Japanesegovernment the power to deport foreignerswho had committed crimes with a sentence ofover one year’s imprisonment, as well as thosewho were deemed subversive, were unable toprovide their own means of subsistence, orsuffered from mental or certain physicaldiseases. In practice, Japan’s ImmigrationBureau used its own discretion in applying thelaw to Koreans and Taiwanese: law-breakers

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were given deportation notices, but thedestitute and mentally ill were not. A universalor even rigorous application of the law to theimpoverished Korean community in Japanwould have produced massive deportations,seriously straining Japan’s already tenserelationship with South Korea and probablyarousing widespread international criticism aswell as domestic social unrest. However, thestatus of Koreans as foreigners under theMigration Control Law made their life in Japanvery insecure, as they were never sure whenthe s ta te might choose to app ly theImmigration Control Law more rigorously.11

Both South Korea (from the end of theoccupation) and North Korea (from mid-1955onwards) argued vigorously that Japan shouldexplicitly acknowledge the special status ofKoreans in Japan, and exempt them from theprovisions of the Migration Control Law. SouthKorea in particular refused to accept Koreanswho were scheduled for deportation becausethey had broken the law in Japan, and this ledto an intensifying dispute during which, fromOctober 1954, South Korea began to refuse toaccept any Korean deportees from Japan at all.As a result, the number of Koreans held in theImmigration Bureau’s Ōmura Detention Centrerose from 413 at the beginning of 1954 to1,383 at the beginning of 1957.12 Faced withindefinite detention in Ōmura, and (in somecases) fearing deportation to a fiercely anti-communist and politically repressive SouthKorea, a number of these detainees began todemand to be deported to North Korea instead.Meanwhile, by mid-1955, several hundredother Koreans in Japan were also requestingrepatriation to the North, and in 1953 the left-wing organization Minsen also lobbied theJapanese government to allow a repatriationw h i c h w o u l d i n c l u d e s e v e r a lhundred Zainichi Korean technicians to assistwith postwar reconstruction. As the Japanesegovernment repeatedly pointed out, there wasnothing preventing individual Koreans from re-locating to North Korea provided they could

pay their own fare and arrange their owntransport, and a small number of people didthis. However, a problem arose in the case ofwould-be returnees who lacked the means topay for their own repatriation.

What options, then, were open to the Japanesegovernment as it sought to respond to theseproblems from the mid-1950s onward? First, itcould simply have ignored or rejected thedemands for assisted repatriation to NorthKorea. Such a rejection would undoubtedlyhave caused distress to some Koreans in Japan,and could have raised humanitarian andpolitical problems. It is worth noting, though,that throughout the 1950s and 1960s, theJapanese government firmly rejected demandsfrom the DPRK and Sōren for the “freemovement of people” – i.e., for people to beallowed to travel back and forth between Japanand the DPRK – also arguably a humanitarianissue.

A second option would have been for Japan torespond to the demands from both South andNorth Korea by creating a policy recognizingthe special status of Koreans in Japan (anapproach which was in fact gradually adoptedfollowing the normalization of relations withSouth Korea in 1965). This option could havebeen pursued whether or not the governmentgave its approval to a program of repatriationto North Korea. For example, the ImmigrationBureau could have decided to cease thepractice of deporting Koreans and Taiwaneseconvicted of criminal offenses, allowing them toremain in Japan after completing theirsentences.13 The Japanese government couldalso have officially confirmed the right offormer colonial subjects to claim welfarewithout fear of deportation or discrimination.These steps would have rel ieved theovercrowding of Ōmura Detention Centre andwould have greatly assisted the process ofpursuing the normalization of relations withSouth Korea. They would also have made theposition of Koreans in Japan much more secure,

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and the option of repatriation to North Koreamuch less attractive for many.

However, in the mid-1950s the Japanesegovernment was adamantly opposed topursuing this option. Instead, Japanesepoliticians and bureaucrats expressedincreasing unwillingness to continue thediscretionary practice of paying welfare toimpoverished Koreans. In early 1956, asJapanese officials began to develop their ownplans for a repatriation project, the Ministry ofHealth and Welfare launched a campaign whichresulted in the reduction or termination ofl i ve l i hood pro tec t i on payments t oapproximately 75,000 Zainichi Koreans14; andcrucially, when the Japanese governmentintroduced a new comprehensive nationalwelfare system in 1959 – the year when themass “repatriation project” started – foreigners(including Koreans and Taiwanese) wereexplicitly excluded from this scheme. Thesemeasures undoubtedly made the option ofrepatriation more attractive than it wouldotherwise have been for those summarily cutfrom welfare rolls. Meanwhile, by the secondhalf of 1955, as we shall see, the Japanesegovernment itself was increasingly looking torepatriation to North Korea as a means toreduce the size of the Korean community inJapan, thereby (amongst other things) relievingthe problem of Ōmura, but also to reduce thescale of welfare payments to the Koreancommunity.

The First Steps Towards Repatriation

New detai ls of the background to therepatriation project are revealed by animportant Japanese government documentdeclassified in the latter part 2007. Thisdocument outl ines the history of therepatriation in the context of diplomaticnegotiations between Japan and South Korea,and (amongst other things) offers intriguinginformation on two issues: the “Lee Ho-YeonIncident” of 1953-54, and the Foreign

Ministry’s draft repatriation plan of December1955. In the process, it provides vividillustrations of the “co-production” betweenJapanese and North Korean sides whichcreated the repatriation scheme.

According to this document, immediately afterthe Korean War armistice of 1953 someKoreans in Japan began to seek repatriation toNorth Korea. The left-wing Zainichi Koreanmovement Minsen took up their cause with theJapanese government, and officials of theMinistry of Justice and Ministry of ForeignAffairs discussed the issue. The officials notedthat the simplest solution would be to allow theKoreans to travel to North Korea via China andto pay for the journey themselves, but that “iftheir departure is at their own expense, wecannot hope that many will go”.15 On the otherhand, there was a lso concern that arepatriation supported by the Japanese RedCross, let alone one supported by the Japanesegovernment, would provoke an angry reactionfrom South Korea. The officials thereforedecided to “observe moves byMinsen, anddecide future ways to deal with the issue”.16

In autumn of 1953, Lee Ho-Yeon, Chairman ofthe Central Committee of Minsen, approachedthe Japanese Immigration Bureau seekingtravel documents which would enable him toattend a conference in China and then return toJapan. In fact, however, it became clear thatLee was planning to go via China to NorthKorea. His aim was to discuss issues includingthe repatriation of Koreans from Japan to NorthKorea with members of the DPRK regime. AsKikuchi Yoshiaki points out,Minsen wasparticularly interested in developing a schemeto enable several hundred Zainichi Koreantechnicians to go to North Korea to assist withpostwar reconstruction. By this time, however,Japan’s conflict with South Korea over theŌmura detainees was becoming increasinglyserious, and the Immigration Bureau quicklyrealised that Lee’s negotiations with NorthKorea might “serve Japan’s interests”, and

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particularly that the “realization [of Lee’s visit]might make a slight contribution in relation tot h e d e p o r t a t i o n t o N o r t h K o r e a o fimpoverished Zainichi Koreans and those whohave received deportation notices etc. butwhom South Korea will not accept.”17

So, after high-level consultation with theForeign Ministry and the police and securityagencies, Japan’s Immigration Bureau enteredinto a secret agreement with Lee Ho-Yeon,which would allow him to travel to North Koreaand return to Japan, on the understanding thathe was going to open discussions with NorthKorea about the possibility of repatriation. Oneclause of the deal between Lee and theImmigration Bureau has been blacked out inthe declassified document, and remains secretto this day. In the event, however, nothingcame of this unusual understanding betweensenior Japanese government officials andthe Minsen Chairman. The Japanesegovernment had insisted on strict secrecy fromLee, and was alarmed when, shortly before hisplanned departure in May 1954, he gaveinterviews to the press which threatened toreveal too much. The agreement was rescindedand his permission to travel was hastilycancelled. The Lee Ho-Yeon Incident indicatesthat by late 1953 both Minsen and sections ofthe Japanese bureaucracy had an interest inopening discussions with North Korea aboutrepatriation, and were willing to collaborate inachieving this, but neither as yet seems to havehad detailed plans for a mass repatriationproject. However, as we shall see, a clear plandid emerge towards the end of 1955.

Meanwhile, on 6 January 1954, the Japan RedCross had contacted its North Koreancounterpart via the League of Red CrossSocieties, asking for North Korean assistancein identifying and returning Japanese nationalswho were still living in the DPRK (and whosenumber was estimated at anything betweenseveral hundred and two thousand). Themessage from Tokyo stated that if the Japanese

nationals were returned to Japan, the JapaneseRed Cross would be “willing to assist yournationals in Japan desirous of returning to yourcountry [the DPRK] in their repatriation.”18 TheNorth Korean Red Cross replied that it wasprepared to help the repatriation of Japanese inNorth Korea, but made no mention of therepatriation of Koreans from Japan.19 InSeptember 1955, the newly appointed head ofthe Japan Red Cross Society’s Foreign AffairsDepartment, Inoue Masutarō, held discussionsin Geneva with senior ICRC officials, duringwhich he asked for ICRC help in repatriatingthe Japanese in North Korea, and foreshadoweda future request for help with the repatriationof Zainichi Koreans to North Korea.20

As Park Jung-Jin has pointed out, by 1955North Korea was taking a more active approachto seeking relations with Japan, while theinternat ional pol icy of the Japanesegovernment under the Prime Ministership ofHatoyama Ichirō (in power from December1954 to December 1956) favoured thepossibility of opening at least limited links tosome communist countries.21 North KoreanForeign Minister Nam Il had already made astatement on the treatment of Zainichi Koreans(including Ōmura detainees) in August 1954,and a further demand for the release of Ōmuradetainees was issued by the North KoreanForeign Ministry on 15 October 1955.22 Thereare indications that by 1955 the DPRK viewedcloser involvement with the Zainichi Koreancommunity as a way of developing relations toJapan and also as an indirect route ofcommunication with South Korea.

Following the creation of Sōren in May 1955,representatives of that organization traveled toPyongyang to meet members of the NorthKorean leadership, and in October 1955 anunofficial delegation of Japanese socialistparliamentarians also visited the DPRK and metKim Il-Sung. It was on this occasion that, asKawashima Takamine notes, the North Koreanl e a d e r e x p r e s s e d a w i s h t o

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help Zainichi Koreans “return” to the DPRK. Itis clear that by 1955 North Korea had an activepolicy of encouraging the repatriation of Ōmurad e t a i n e e s a n d s e v e r a l h u n d r e dother Zainichi Koreans. 2 3 However ,documentary evidence (including a report onthe discussions held between Japan Red CrossSociety representatives and North Koreanofficials in January-February 1956, discussedbelow) shows that at this stage North Koreasaw repatriation as part of a wider policy of“stabilizing the livelihood” of Koreans in Japan.In other words, the North Korean governmentsought to persuade the Japanese governmentnot only to allow some Koreans to “return” tothe DPRK, but also to improve the accessof Zainichi Koreans to welfare, employment andeducation. It also hoped to use the issues ofrepatriation and welfare rights as a lever topersuade the Japanese government to allowNorth Korean Red Cross representatives intoJapan, thus increasing North Korea’s directa c c e s s t o a n d i n f l u e n c e o v e rthe Zainichi Korean community, and possiblyopening a path to unofficial negotiations withthe Japanese government.24 Mindful of SouthKorean opposition, the Japanese governmentfirmly denied such access.

Kawashima Takamine argues that Sōren’s 1955activities and the Socialist Party’s Octoberdelegation to Pyongyang were the decisiveevents in initiating the repatriation project, andsuggests that Sōren took advantage of theJapanese Red Cross negotiations with NorthKorea about the Japanese nationals in theDPRK, “making ‘hostages’ of the weakness ofthese Japanese” in order to push the case forrepatriation of Zainichi Koreans.25 Thiscriticism is a puzzling one since, as we haveseen, the first message from the Japan RedCross Society to North Korea in January 1954already linked the question of the Japanese inNorth Korea with the question of therepatriation of Zainichi Koreans. Moreover,viewed in historical context, Kawashima’sanalysis surely overestimates the significance

of the October 1955 Socialist Party delegationto Pyongyang. Socialist Party politicians werecertainly among the most enthusiasticsupporters of the repatriation to North Korea,and some (including Hoashi Kei) later played arole as intermediaries between the Japaneseand North Koreans sides. But importantbackground moves on the repatriation werealready underway before October 1955, and ithardly seems likely that this small group ofopposition politicians could have had the powerto persuade the Japanese Foreign Ministry andruling Liberal Democratic Party to take thesignificant steps on repatriation which (as weare about to see) they embarked on inDecember 1955 and January 1956.

Rather, the declassified Japanese documentsshow that, in the context of developmentsthroughout 1955, senior Japanese governmentofficials realised once again that a movement infavour of repatriation, this time supported bythe newly-formed Sōren, coincided with theirperception of the national interest. Against thisbackground, on 15 December 1955, SectionFive of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s AsiaBureau produced a draft “Plan for Resolvingthe Problem of Sending Volunteers forRepatriation to North Korea”[Hokusen e noKikan Kibōsha no Sōkan Mondai Shori Hōshin,北鮮への帰還希望者の送還問題処理方針]. Thisdocument for the first time put forward aconcrete and detai led proposal for arepatriation of ethnic Koreans to North Korea,including a draft “Outline of Procedures for theRepatriation” [Sōkan Tetsuzuki Yōkō,送還手続要綱]. There is no mention in the document ofthe number of expected returnees, but thescope of the plan and the proposed registrationprocedure clearly implies that the project wasexpected to be carried out on a substantialscale.26

The Foreign Ministry plan proposed thatrepatriation be carried out on the basis ofnegotiations between the Japanese and NorthKorean Red Cross Societies, with the

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understanding of the relevant Japanesegovernment ministries and “requesting thecooperation of the General Association ofKorean Residents in Japan [Sōren]” inimplementing the repatriation. The Japanesegovernment would pay the travel costs ofreturnees within Japan, and asked the JapanRed Cross Society to undertake negotiationswith its North Korean counterpart on thefollowing basis

“1. The people to be repatriatedshall be impoverished people only.

2. The North Korean side shall beconsulted as to whether therepatriates can be accepted or not.

3. The repatriation will be carriedout on the basis of a register ofnames provided by Sōren.

4. The North Korean Red Crosswill send repatriation ships toports designated by the Japaneseside (The costs of this will not beborn by the Japanese side).”

The Plan also requested the Japan Red CrossSociety to “use Sōren as its partner andrequest the organization’s cooperation,” in factto enter into a written agreement with Sōren.“The two organizations will exchangedocuments to confirm the correct conduct ofeach item of business.”2 7 The “items ofbusiness” included:

“1. Sōren will conduct a survey ofimpoverished people who wish tobe repatriated to North Korea,compile a register of all thosewishing repatriation, and presentthis to the Japanese Red Cross.

2. The repatriation to North Koreaof people not included in the

register under this process will befirmly prohibited.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was to handlethe task of dealing with South Korea (whichwas certain to be very hostile to the scheme),and the Ministries of Transport and Welfarewere to provide transport for returnees withinJapan, while the Immigration Bureau was to“place departure stamps on the ‘RepatriationCertificates’ issued by Sōren”.28

Initially, some officials seem to have beenconsidering using the ship used by Japanesenationals returning from North Korea astransport for this repatriation, but because offeared repercussions from South Korea, thisidea was quickly dropped. Instead, at theurging of the Japan Red Cross Society, it wasagreed that the ICRC should also be broughtinto the repatriation process.

As in the case of the agreement between theImmigration Bureau and Lee Ho-Yeon, onesentence of the 15 December 1955 remainsblacked out – still secret today. What is clearfrom this document is that by December,significant elements within the JapaneseMinistry of Foreign Affairs had a well-developed vision of a large-scale repatriation toNorth Korea, to be conducted via the Japan RedCross Soc ie ty in c lose cooperat ionwith Sōren.29 The procedure outlined in thedraft plan is in fact in many respectsremarkably similar to that actually put intoeffect from December 1959 onward (though thescheme implemented from 1959 was notlimited to the “destitute”.) Meanwhile, two daysbefore this report was finalized, on 13December 1955, Japan Red Cross PresidentShimazu Tadatsugu, with the approval of theJapanese Foreign Ministry and Ministry ofJustice, had written to the InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross in Genevaenclosing a petition fromZainichi Koreans whowished to return to North Korea (though notstating the names or number of the petitioners)

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and asking the ICRC’s help in carrying out therepatriation. On 16 December, ForeignMinister Shigemitsu Mamoru, replying to aquestion in the Diet Foreign Affairs Committeefrom LDP parl iamentarian YamamotoToshinaga, expressed an intention to explorepossibilities for a solution to the repatriationissue30, and in the middle of the followingmonth, the Foreign Affairs Committee of theruling Liberal Democratic Party also agreedthat “Koreans in Japan who want to go homeshould be sent back”, and contacted theJapanese Red Cross to encourage them topursue this aim.31

A Vision of “Mass Repatriation”

To summarise, then, moves towards arepatriation from 1953 onward came fromseveral directions simultaneously. After thearmistice in the Korean War, there were anumber of Koreans in Japan who were eager tobe repatriated to North Korea. There werealmost certainly a larger number who had somevaguer aspiration to seek repatriation at sometime in the future. (The question of numbersw i l l b e d i s c u s s e d i n t h i s s e c t i o n . )B o t h M i n s e n a n d i t s s u c c e s s o rorganization Sōrenraised the issue with theJapanese and North Korean governments.Certain Japanese officials saw repatriation toNorth Korea as a way to resolve the problem ofthe Ōmura detainees and the much largerquest ion of the tens of thousands ofimpoverished Koreans in Japan who were partlyor wholly dependent on welfare. However, theywere also very cautious about likely SouthKorean and US reactions to a repatriation ofKoreans to the DPRK. The Japan Red CrossSociety argued that the best way to achieve arepatriation in this context would be throughthe good offices of the ICRC. North Korea sawrepatriation and the Ōmura problem, as well asbroader support for the “stabilization of thelivelihood” of Koreans in Japan, as a means toadvance its foreign policy aims by increasing itsinfluence over the Korean community in

Japan.

Diverse groups therefore had an interest inrepatriation, and at times they cooperatedacross ideological lines in the hope of achievingtheir own aims. However, I argue here that theForeign Ministry’s 15 December plan was thefirst detailed proposal for a mass repatriationfrom Japan to the DPRK. Kikuchi Yoshiaki, aswe have seen, denies that the idea of a massrepatriation originated with Japanesepoliticians, bureaucrats or Red Crossofficials.32 Instead, he claims that the onlygroup to have any serious notion of a massrepatriation before 1958 was Sōren, which sawthis not as an immediate aim but as a futurepossibility, and cited a long-term figure of30,000 to 60,000: “According to ICRCd o c u m e n t s , p e o p l e a s s o c i a t e dwith Sōren envisaged that, if the repatriationwere realised, the number of people who wouldwish to return [to the DPRK] would be about30,000-60,000. The Sōren side became involvedin the repatriation movement with theexpectation that, if the repatriation were putinto ef fect , i t would become a ‘massrepatriation’”.33 Since Kikuchi says nothingabout any Japan Red Cross or Japanesegovernment predictions of tens of thousands ofreturnees, this statement gives the impressionthat the vision of a mass repatriation waspursued by Sōren alone.

The scale and nature of the repatriation beingdiscussed by Sōren (and presumably also bythe North Korean government) in 1955 can beapproximately grasped from several eventswhich took place in the second half of thatyear. On 15 July 1955, Sōren organized agathering of would-be Korean returnees toNorth Korea in Tokyo. At this gathering, it wasreported that the number of Koreans seekingrepatriation to the DPRK throughout Japan was410, of whom about one hundred lived inTokyo.34 According to a report in the JapaneseCommunist Party newspaper Akahata ,representatives of the would-be returnees

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visited the Japan Red Cross Society on 28September 1955.This report cites a largern u m b e r : a b o u t 5 0 0 T o k y o -based Zainichi Korean technicians and otherswishing to go to North Korea, and a numbernat ionwide that was probably in thethousands.35 As I have noted elsewhere, in astatement to the Japanese Diet Foreign AffairsC o m m i t t e e o n 1 4 F e b r u a r y1956, Sōren officials cited an estimate of about1,424 known would-be returnees nationwide,although they also expressed an aspiration fora larger “return” at some t ime in thefuture.36 In April 1956, shortly before the returnof Japanese repatriates from North Korea toJapan, a demonstration by Zainichi Koreanwould-be “returnees” to the DPRK was heldoutside the headquarters of the Japan RedCross Society in Tokyo. At that time, on thebasis of statements by the protestors, theJapanese media reported the number ofKoreans seeking to return to North Korea to bearound 2,050.37

The Japanese Foreign Ministry’s plan of 15December 1955 seems to have envisaged alarge-scale movement of people, andspecifically of “impoverished” Koreans. In laterJapanese documents, from the beginning of1956 onward, the expression “impoverished”started to be replaced by the more euphemisticphrase “certain Koreans residing in Japan”, butthe meaning of this phrase was made clear intwo reports written by the Japan Red CrossSociety’s Inoue Masutarō: The RepatriationProblem of Certain Koreans Residing inJapan (October 1956); and FundamentalConditions of Livelihood of Certain KoreansResiding in Japan (November 1956). Thesecond of these reports provides a detailedstatistical analysis of the Korean community inJapan, emphasizing its high levels ofunemployment and of marginal or “anti-social”employment (by which Inoue means areas ofactivity such as pachinko parlours, illegalbrewing and scrap collecting). This report alsoemphasized that large numbers of Koreans

were unable to survive without relying onwelfare. Inoue went on to argue that theseproblems were deeply rooted in the history andstructure of the Korean community in Japan,and would not be resolved by economic growth.The statistics, he concluded, demonstratedthat: “whatever they try, certain Koreanscannot live on under present circumstances inJapan and there seems to be no prospect ofsolution in the near future and the only way leftis repatriation.”38

Inoue also had a specific estimate of thenumber of Koreans involved: 60,000. As I havewritten elsewhere, according to the Japan RedCross Society, this was the number supplied tothem by Sōren at some date before 13 January1956.39 At that stage, however, there was noindication that Sōren had actually carried outthe survey proposed by the Foreign Ministryplan of 15 December 1955. Indeed, it wouldsurely have been impossible for them tocomplete such a major survey in less than amonth. It is, of course, quite possible that thisfigure had been given to the Red Cross bysomeone within Sōren, but I have so far beenunable to find any evidence that Sōren or theNorth Korean government made use of thefigure of 60,000 would be repatriates in itspolitical support for repatriation in 1955-1958.

Further interesting light on this issue, however,is provided by the long and detailed reportwhich Inoue compiled for ICRC PresidentBoissier about his meetings with North KoreanRed Cross and government officials inPyongyang between 27 January and 28February 1956. In this report, Inoue describeshow, during a series of confidential meetings,he energetically sought to persuade his NorthKorean counterparts of the “necessity of massrepatriation” of Zainichi Koreans to theDPRK.40 Reporting these discussions, he againreminded Boissier of the number of 60,000returnees, stating “in fact, once the way ofmass repatriation of Koreans in Japan beopened, it is evident that all Koreans who

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cannot earn their living in Japan, will request tobe returned to Korea. The General League ofKorean Residents in Japan [i.e. Sōren] hasestimated the number repatriated in thiscase will reach approximately 60,000, thefigure that I reported to you”.41 This statementsuggests that the figure of 60,000 wasa Sōren estimate of the number of people whowould be repatriated if allKoreans who wereunable to support themselves in Japanvolunteered for repatriation (a very differentmatter from the number who were actuallyseeking repatriation in early 1956). Inoue goeson to observe that repatriating such a largenumber of people might be seen as boostingNorth Korea’s potential military resources, andthus violating the 1953 Armistice which endedthe Korean War. It is not clear whether heactually cited the figure of 60,000 returnees inhis discussions with North Korean officials, buthe did raise the issue of the armistice and itsrelationship to mass repatriation. On balance,he argued, armistice would not be a problem.In his report to Geneva, he writes, “it seems tome that it is possible to consider that the massrepatriation of Koreans, suspended by theKorean War, has started again, and that therepatriation of 60,000 Koreans that is only 6%of all the Koreans formerly repatriated [in theperiod 1945-1950] cannot be considered toviolate the armistice clause, especially whenone stands on the humanitarian viewpoint.”42

Inoue, however, also discovered that the NorthKorean side was not very interested in pursuingt h e t o p i c o f a m a s s r e p a t r i a t i o nof Zainichi Koreans, and instead “changed thesubject of discussion from the problem ofrepatriation to the stabilization of livelihood ofKoreans in Japan saying this latter is the moreimportant one, for the number of repatriates isless than 1,000”.43 It seems clear from thisreport, indeed, that in early 1956 the NorthKorean authorities were primarily concernedw i t h “ s t a b i l i z i n g t h e l i v e l i h o o d ”of Zainichi Koreans. Repatriation was lower onthe DPRK agenda, and their estimate of the

number of Koreans seeking repatriation toNorth Korea was nowhere near the level of60,000. Inoue, on the contrary, sought topersuade his North Korean counterparts that“the mass repatriation of Koreans is the mostappropriate way to stabilize the livelihood ofKoreans and, at the same time, this isnecessary for the Japanese side too. Withoutthis repatriation, the problem will never besolved at present.”4 4 A month after thePyongyang meeting, he wrote to ICRCExecutive Director Roger Gallopin that “itappears that the number of Koreans who willgo back to Korea is about 60,000. This numberis minimum, less than which there would be noeffect for the stabilization of life of Koreans inJapan.” He also added that “if 60,000 Koreanswill actually go home, there arises the problemof transportation”, and proceeded to present adetailed analysis of various routes in whichsuch a large number of people could be movedfrom Japan to North Korea over a short periodof time.45

In the same month, Inoue also told a meeting ofthe Supreme Advisors’ Conference [Board ofCouncillors] of the Japan Red Cross Societythat “in order to solve the problem ofstabilization of livelihood of Koreans in Japan, itis indispensable to repatriate at least 60,000Koreans within this year”. He reported to theICRC that Socialist Party politician MatsuokaKomakichi had been particularly vocal in hissupport of this view, but also that all thoseattending the meeting “agreed with myopinion.”46 When ICRC representatives WilliamMichel and Eugène de Weck visited East Asiafor discussions on the matter in April-May1956, an official of the Ministry of Health andWelfare cited 60,000 as a possible number of“returnees” (noting that if this number ofKoreans left for North Korea, the Japanesegovernment might consider covering theirtransport costs).47As we can see from thequotations above, the number 60,000 wasbeing debated in Japan Red Cross andgovernment circles, not as a vague future

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possibility, but as the number to be repatriatedimmediately.

Cover page of "The Repatriation Problemof Certain Koreans Residing in Japan"

including photographs of demonstrationsin Omura Demonstration Centre during

visits by ICRC representatives, from ICRCArchives B AG 232 105-027.

The thinking behind Inoue’s stress on thenecessity of repatriating 60,000 Koreans isclearly spelled out in his writings. As hecommented inThe Repatriation Problem ofCertain Koreans Residing in Japan, “frankly, itis for the interest of the Japanese governmentto get rid of these troublesome Koreans. TheJapanese government is spending yearly about2.4 billion yen to support their livelihood. Nocountry is obligated to keep a foreigner at theexpense of its national treasury. A foreignerunable to earn his l iving is general lydeported.”48 As a democratic country, Inouewr i tes , Japan cannot s imply deportimpoverished Koreans en masse, but avoluntary repatriation of such Koreans ispresented as being very much in Japan’sinterests. The crucial fact about thesestatements is that these are not just the viewsof a somewhat eccentric individual. Inoue’s tworeports were read and approved by seniorfigures in the Japan Red Cross Society

including its President, Shimazu Tadatsugu,who officially transmitted them both to theICRC and to the Japanese government.Moreover, as Shimazu informed the ICRC,although The Repatriation Problem of CertainKoreans Residing in Japan was described as an“unofficial” report, “the contents of thisdocument have passed through carefulexamination of the authorities concerned of theForeign Office and other Departments of theJapanese Government, therefore it can beconsidered as fully agreed by the Japanesegovernment.”49

Shimazu himself reinforced the point byinforming the ICRC in July 1956 that “Koreansin Japan cannot go back neither [sic] to Northnor to South Korea. They cannot get any goodmeans of livelihood in Japan lacking concurrentability in the overpopulated country where evenJapanese themselves can hardly find jobs. Ifthey handle black-market business, they aresued, while the total amount of livelihood relieffund for them has been cut down, thus drivingthem into more diff icult situation, incontradiction to the elevation of Japanesestandard of living. Their only way of livingtherefore is to repatriate to North Korea wherec o n s t r u c t i o n i s d e m a n d i n g m o r elabour.”50 According to William Michel’s reportto the ICRC on his visit to East Asia in 1956,the ICRC representatives had learnt frommeetings with “the various [Japanese]ministries responsible” that “the Japanesegovernment desires, for financial and securityreasons, to put an end to the residence of about60,000 Koreans on its territory.”51

From Desire to Action

Did the desire to promote the large-scale exit ofimpoverished Koreans – whether forhumanitarian or for more cynical motives –remain nothing more than a desire, or was ittranslated into action? There seems to be nodispute that the Japanese Red Cross, workingin consultation with the government, took a

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series of important steps from the end of 1955onward to initiate a repatriation project.52 In1956, responding to demonstrations by a groupof 48 would-be returnees to North Korea, theJapan Red Cross Society sought energetically tofind ships to carry the returnees, and to involvethe ICRC in their repatriation.5 3 As thedeclassified Japanese government documentnotes, “Japan Red Cross Foreign AffairsDepartment Director Inoue made great effortsto achieve the repatriation of these 48 people.His idea was that if this succeeded, using themethod of ICRC travel documents, self-fundedexit from Japan and foreign ships, the numberof people could be steadily increased, and moreand more volunteers could be repatriated.Eventually he even envisaged that the[Japanese ship] Kōan could be re-registered asa Swiss vessel, and a large number ofrepatriates could thus be shipped [to NorthKorea]”.54

Repatriation ship prepares to departNiigata Port

Throughout 1956 and 1957 the repatriationissue was indeed among the most significantprojects taken up by senior Japanese Red Crossand ICRC officials. The steps they took tocreate the basis of a repatriation project weremany and complex, and here I shall just verybriefly highlight some of the most significant:

T h e J a p a n R e d C r o s s1.Society, through ongoingcorrespondence with itsN o r t h K o r e a ncounterpart55 and at leasttwo face-to-face meetingswith North Korean RedCross officials in January-February and in June 1956,energetically sought topersuade North Korea of the“necess i ty” o f a massr e p a t r i a t i o nof Zainichi Koreans.56 TheJune 1956 meeting involveddetailed discussions onpossible ways in which Japanand North Korea mights h a r e t h e c o s t s o frepatriating Zainichi Koreans who lacked the means tocover their own transportexpenses.57

After unsuccessful efforts to2.find other means to shipreturnees to North Korea58,as early as June 1956, theJapan Red Cross Societytook the initiative of invitingits North Korean counterpartto join it in approaching theSoviet Union to ask forSoviet ships to be made

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available for repatriation.This approach was rejected,since at that time the SovietUnion had no diplomaticrelations or direct shippinglinks with Japan. However,i n J u n e 1 9 5 8 , a f t e rdiplomatic ties to the SovietUnion were normalized, theJapan Red Cross Societyagain proposed to Sōren, thepro-North Korean Japan-Korea Association [NicchōKyōkai] and a Japanesepolitician with close links toNorth Korea that they shouldcontact the North Koreangovernment to ask the USSRto provide repatriationships.59 These negotiationsform the background to theuse of two Soviet vessels,the Kryl’ion and Tobol’sk,which were in fact loaned bythe USSR to the NorthKorean Red Cross, andprovided transport duringt h e f i r s t y e a r s o f t h erepatriation.Very energetic lobbying from3.the Japan Red Cross Society,conducted with the fullknowledge and support ofthe Japanese government,led by early 1957 to thedrawing up of a draft set ofg u i d e l i n e s f o r I C R Cinvolvement in a large-scalerepatriation to North Korea.These constituted a furthermajor step in creating thebasis for the repatriationproject actually put intoeffect in 1959.60

By early 1957, then, initiatives from the

Japanese side had alerted the North Koreangovernment to Japan’s serious interest in amass repatriation to the DPRK, persuaded theICRC to draw up a dra f t p lan for i t sparticipation in the repatriation, and openedinitial negotiations on the shipping route thatwould ultimately be used to carry out therepatriation. However, these initiatives hadalso provoked a fierce response from SouthKorea, which threatened to retaliate bycapturing and detaining an increasing numberof Japanese fishermen. As a result, during1957, the Japanese government switched thefocus of its attention to resolving this crisis inthe relationship with South Korea – particularlyto the problem of the detained Japanesefishermen. It is very clear, however, that therepatriation plan had not been abandoned.Throughout 1957 and the first half of 1958, aswell as working to resolve the crisis in relationswith South Korea, the Japan Red Cross Societycontinued to lobby the ICRC to take the centralrole in the repatriation, and to provide shippingfor the project, since it was believed that thiswou ld be the mos t e f f ec t i ve way o fcircumventing South Korean objections.61

To understand the repatriation project, it isessential to recognize that the North Koreanside and the Japanese side were in constant(direct and indirect) communication, and eachside reacted to moves by the other (though notnecessarily in the way that the other sideanticipated). Kim Il-Sung’s decision inmid-1958 to back a mass repatriationof Zainichi Koreans was taken with the fullknowledge that significant sections of theJapanese government strongly favoured massrepatriation, but were afraid of its likely impacton Japan-South Korea relations and of possibleobjections from the US, and therefore insistedon a central role for the ICRC. If we take thisinto account, certain aspects of North Korea’sstrategy become clear. In particular, NorthKorea’s sudden adoption of the idea of a massrepatriation combined with its strongopposition to ICRC involvement can clearly be

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seen as a move calculated to wreak maximumdamage on Japan’s relations with South Koreaat a crucial moment in their evolution.

The Confirmation of Free Will

One further issue requires discussion here.Recent publications on the repatriation havesuggested that the role of the Japanesegovernment and Japan Red Cross Society in thecreation of the repatriation project was indeeda humanitarian one, because it ensured thatthe ICRC carried out a “confirmation of freewill” before returnees embarked on theirjourney to North Korea. Kikuchi Yoshiaki, whileacknowledging that social prejudice towardsKoreans in Japan was a factor behind therepatriation, also argues that “the Japanesegovernment and Japan Red Cross Societycarried out the repatriation in the presence ofan ICRC ‘confirmation of free will’, which hadnot occurred in cases such as the repatriationto South Korea immediately after the war. Evenif this was far from being a sufficient conditionto prevent the ‘tragedy’ which followed therepatriation, it was certainly a necessarycondition for respecting the interests of thereturnees”.62 He goes on to note that in factsome 25% of the 141,892 people whoregistered for repatriation between 1959 and1967 changed their minds and remained inJapan. In other words, by bringing in the ICRCto oversee the operation – to interview everyreturnee in Niigata and ensure that each wasdeparting voluntari ly – the Japanesegovernment and Red Cross saved many from agrim fate in the DPRK.

This, however, presents a somewhat confusingpicture of the repatriation process. The vastmajority of these cancelled departures hadnothing whatsoever to do with the presence ofthe ICRC or its “confirmation of free will”.Almost all cancelled their applications beforethe confirmation of free will took place, orsimply failed to board the trains which weresupposed to transport them to Niigata. For

example, by the end of May 1960, 23,712people had actually been repatriated, 277 hadchosen to remain in Japan, and several hundredmore had changed their repatriation plans (forexample, by choosing to leave on a laterrepatriation ship). However, of the 277 whostayed in Japan, 276 had changed their mindsbefore going to Niigata, and four disappearedfrom the Niigata Repatriation Centre aftercompleting their “confirmation of free will”.Only 6 actually changed their minds during the“confirmation of free will” before the ICRCrepresentatives in Niigata.63 Both the memoriesof former repatriates and the ICRC documentst h e m s e l v e s s h o w t h a t m a n ydeparting Zainichi Koreans had only a vagueawareness of the role of the ICRC in theprocess.64

In fact, the ICRC “confirmation of free will” hadbeen subjected to so many restrictions and somany compromises that it had almost no impactat all. ICRC representatives had very littleopportunity to speak to repatriates except inthe so-called “special rooms” in Niigata wherethe official confirmation of free will took place.Kawashima Takamine claims that I “fabricated”the name “special room”. He writes: “rooms forthe confirmation of free will certainly existed atthe Niigata Centre, but these were rooms thatall returnees without exception entered beforeboarding the ships, and they were notparticularly called ‘special rooms’”.65 In fact,the rooms were routinely referred to as“special rooms” by the ICRC and Japaneseauthorities at the time. This term appears inthe official “Guide for Mr. Returnee” producedby the Japan Red Cross Society in 1959 (in theJapanese version the term used is tokubetsu naisshitsu).

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Map of the Red Cross Repatriation Centrein Niigata. The "special rooms" (markedhere as "Chambres pour Confirmation deVolonte") are in the centre at the bottom

of the map. (Source: ICRC Archives, B AG 251105-031.03)

Responding to vigorous objections to theprocess from North Korea via Sōren, theJapanese government had agreed that theconfirmation would occur by family group, notindividually, and that only a very limited rangeof standard questions could be posed toreturnees. Most remarkably of all, thecompromise – worked out by a group includingJapan Red Cross representatives, Japanesegovernment officials and politicians Hoashi Kei(Japan Socialist Party), Iwamoto Nobuyuki(LDP) and Hozumi Shichirō (Japan SocialistParty) – included a structural modification tothe “special rooms”.6 6 As the amendedguidelines for the repatriation processexplained: “a ‘special room’ in the Red CrossCentre in Niigata is not a ‘secret room’ but anordinary room from which the doors have beenremoved”. 6 7 Kawashima condemns mystatement in Exodus to North Korea that thedoors of the special rooms had been removedand replaced with screens. He claims this is aconfused “invention”, and that the reference toscreens refers to the repatriation registrationwindows that existed all over Japan, and not tothe rooms in the Niigata Centre where the

confirmation of free will took place.68 As thedocuments cited here show, however, he ismistaken.

The curious architectural re-arrangement ofthe “special rooms” caused consternation inGeneva and prompted the following questionf rom Ot to Lehner , the ICRC’s ch ie frepresentative in Tokyo, “Why no doors? If arepatriate wants to change his mind, why doeshe have to do so, so to speak, in public?” Theresponse from a senior official of the Ministryof Foreign Affairs was that “the windows [i.e.“special rooms”] at Niigata will be ordinaryoffice rooms with the doors taken off the hingesand screens, of course, put in their place; thusrepatriates cannot be seen, but they can ofcourse be heard; but it is not foreseen thatthere should be anyone hanging around thecorridor separating the two groups of fiveoffices constituting the ten windows throughwhich repatriates will pass before finallyleaving Japan”.69 In fact, archival film footage ofthe Niigata Centre in the early stages of therepatriation clearly shows throngs of peoplequeuing in the corridors immediately outsidethe open doorways, so that the repatriates werein effect “speaking in public”.

The ICRC documentation provides someevidence of the pressures which Sōren appliedto Zainichi Koreans to induce them to join therepatriation. (or, in more exceptional cases, toprevent them from repatriating). Thoughattempts to document sporadic reports ofviolence or threats against reluctant“returnees” proved difficult,70 it was clear tothe ICRC representatives in Japan that a largepart of the process was being organizedby Sōren. As one representative put it, “wehave the impression that the applicants [forrepatriation] are scrupulously following Soren’sinstructions because they consider this as themost appropriate and promising way to start anew life in North Korea”.71 The documents onthe repatriation also make it clear that theJapan Red Cross Society, Japanese government

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and police were perfectly aware of thepressures being exerted by Sōren. Knowingthis, and knowing that Sōren officials were aforceful presence within the Niigata Red CrossCentre , why d id they acquiesce in acompromise arrangement in which the“confirmation of free will” was always indanger of being overheard by agents of Sōren?The willingness to compromise this far, despitevigorous objections from the United States aswell as South Korea,72 only makes sense if wetake seriously Inoue Masutarō’s statement thatthe ICRC confirmation of free will was above alla matter of political strategy: “a means toobtain the approval of the ROK side”73 (or atleast to deflect the force of ROK opposition).Indeed, as the recently declassified Japanesegovernment material i l lustrates, theconfirmation of free will was almost alwaysdebated by officials in the context of deflectingSouth Korean or US objections to therepatriation, rather than in the context ofassuring the future welfare of “returnees”.

Meanwhile, of course, deportations from Japanto North Korea were also underway: of thoseembarking on the repatriation ships, over 2,300were Zainichi Korean deportees from theŌmura Detention Centre. Most of them werepeople who, like “Mr. Heo”, had been releasedon parole, but on short-term visas which wouldsoon expire. 421 of the deportees, however,had been taken straight from Ōmura andplaced on the repatriation ships.74 For these“returnees”, the only choice was betweendeportation to South Korea or departure to theNorth. A number of the deportees (includingMr. Heo) pleaded to be allowed to stay in Japanor be deported to a third country, but it isunclear whether any of these pleas wereaccepted.75 Sakanaka Hidenori’s description ofthe repatriation as a mass abduction by NorthKorea seems particularly problematic whenapplied to the deportees. North Koreanpropaganda can certainly be blamed for havinginfluenced their decision to choose deportationto the DPRK rather than to the ROK. But many

were people who had fled the ROK for politicalreasons, and the future that would haveawaited them in South Korea was not a happyone. It is difficult to see how people deported tothe DPRK by Japan’s Immigration Bureau canbe described by Japanese commentators ashaving been abducted by North Korea.

Unanswered Questions

New Home: North Korean propagandaimage of "returnees" settling into their

new home

The evidence presented here shows that somemembers of the Japanese bureaucracy andJapan Red Cross Society, as well as some rulingparty and opposition politicians, played a role,not simply in creating the repatriation scheme,but specifically in pursuing and creating a“mass repatriation”. It also highlights theextent to which, almost from the start, thesepeople envisaged Sōren as a potential partnerin the repatriation process – a role which (itcould be argued) the organization in fact cameto fulfill. In this sense, I would argue, theyshare with Sōren and the North Korean

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government a particular responsibility towardswhose who suffered as a result of therepatriation. Several questions about Japan’srole in the organization of the repatriation alsoremain to be answered. Why did the Japanesegovernment not insist on a more effective andtightly controlled ICRC “confirmation of freewill”? Why did it not seek to find alternativedestinations for Korean deportees whojustifiably feared deportation to either half ofthe Korean Peninsula?

A further crucial question concerns the failureof the Japanese government to publicizeinformation (which it received as early as thesecond half of 1960) showing that many“returnees” were suffering as a result of theharsh conditions in North Korea.

Intelligence on the repatriation gathered by thegovernment included letters sent back by“returnees” to their families in Japan. Theseletters revealed that the standard of living wassimilar to that of Japan in the desperate finalphases of the Pacific War, that many basiccommodities including food were in shortsupply. By August 1961, the Japanese Ministryof Foreign Affairs was secretly sharing thisinformation with allied governments (includingthe United Kingdom) but despite thisknowledge (as far as I can determine) took nosteps to reassess the future of the repatriationscheme.76

The Well 2: Life in North Korea. Drawingby a "repatriate refugee" of women andchildren hauling water to the top of an

apartment block

And, finally, why did the Japanese governmenttake no measures to provide some possibleavenue of return to Japan for repatriates(including Japanese nationals) who faceddifficulties once they arrived in North Korea?While it compromised drastically in response toNorth Korean opposit ion to the ICRC“confirmation of free will”, the Japanesegovernment resolutely opposed North Koreandemands for an opening of doors to greatertwo-way movement between North Korea andJapan, and insisted on the creation of arepatriation which was a “one-way street”.Those leaving Japan had no right of re-entry.77

None of these criticisms or questionsdiminishes the responsibility of the NorthKorean government for bombarding Koreans inJapan with utterly misleading propagandaabout the repatriation, and then subjectingmany to terrible persecution once they had“returned”.78 But the complexities of therepatriation story need to told, and thequestions raised above still need to beanswered. As intensifying economic andpolitical problems in the DPRK propel freshwaves of migration across the borders ofNortheast Asia, the search for answersbecomes more pressing than ever.

Tessa Morris-Suzuki is Professor of JapaneseHistory in the Division of Pacific and AsianHistory, College of Asia and the Pacific,Australian National University, and a JapanFocus associate. Her most recent books areExodus to North Korea: Shadows from Japan'sC o l d W a r(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0742554422/?tag=

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theasipacjo0b-20) , Borderline Japan:Foreigners and Frontier Controls in theP o s t w a r E r a(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0521864607/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) and To the DiamondMountains: A Hundred-Year Journey ThroughC h i n a a n d K o r e a(http://www.amazon.com/dp/1442205032/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20).

Recommended citation: Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Exodus to North Korea Revisited:Japan, North Korea, and the ICRC in the“Repatriation” of Ethnic Koreans fromJapan, The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 22No 2, May 30, 2011.

Articles on related topics:

• T e s s a M o r r i s - S u z u k i(https://apjjf.org/-Tessa-Morris_Suzuki/3490),Guarding the Borders of Japan: Occupation,Korean War and Frontier Controls

• C h a r l e s K . A r m s t r o n g(https://apjjf.org/-Charles_K_-Armstrong/3460),The Destruction and Reconstruction of NorthKorea, 1950 – 1960

• Lawrence Repeta with an introduction byG l e n d a S . R o b e r t s( h t t p s : / / a p j j f . o r g / - G l e n d a _ S _ -Roberts/3450), Immigrants or TemporaryWorkers? A Visionary Call for a “Japanese-styleImmigration Nation”

• T e s s a M o r r i s - S u z u k i( h t t p s : / / a p j j f . o r g / - T e s s a -Morris_Suzuki/3241), The Forgotten Japanesein North Korea: Beyond the Politics ofAbduction

• G a v a n M c C o r m a c k( h t t p s : / / a p j j f . o r g / - G a v a n -McCormack/3188), History Too Long Denied:Japan’s Unresolved Colonial Past and Today’sNorth Korea Problem

• T e s s a M o r r i s - S u z u k i(https://apjjf.org/-Tessa-Morris_Suzuki/3110),Refugees, Abductees, “Returnees”: HumanRights in Japan-North Korea Relations

• G l e n d a S . R o b e r t s( h t t p s : / / a p j j f . o r g / - G l e n d a _ S _ -Roberts/2519), Labor Migration to Japan:Comparative Perspectives on Demography andthe Sense of Crisis

• T e s s a M o r r i s - S u z u k i( h t t p s : / / a p j j f . o r g / - T e s s a -Morris_Suzuki/2210), Invisible Immigrants:Undocumented Migration and Border Controlsin Early Postwar Japan

Notes

1 Special Case, Tokyo r. no. 204, op. no. 135, inICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-028, Problème durapatr iement des Coréens du Japon,dossier XVIII , 17/01/1961-28/12/1964.

2 Park Jung-Jin, Reisenki Nicchō Kankei noKeisei, 1945-1965 nen, Tokyo, University ofTokyo PhD thesis, 2009.

3 Kikuchi Yoshiaki, Kita Chōsen Kikoku Jigyō:‘Sodai na Rachi’ ka ‘Tsuihō’ ka, Tokyo, ChūkōShinsho, 2009; in Sakanaka Hidenori, Han Sok-Kyu and Kikuchi Yoshiaki, Kita ChōsenKikokusha Mondai no Rekishi to Kadai, Tokyo,Shinkansha, 2009, pp. 197-318. There is nostandard English translation for ZainichiChōsen Tōitsu Minshu Sensen, which isvariously translated as “Koreans’ UnitedDemocratic Front in Japan”, “United Front ofDemocratic Korean Residents of Japan” etc.

4 Kikuchi Yoshiaki, “Kikoku Undō, Kikoku Jigyōto Kikokusha no ‘Higeki’”, in Sakanaka, Hanand Kikuchi, Kita Chōsen Kikokusha Mondai noRekishi to Kadai, pp. 197-318.

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5 Kawashima Takamine, “Kita Chōsen KikokuJigyō, Ima, sono Shinjitsu o Kataru: TessaMorris-Suzuki shi no Kyogi ni Tsuite”, HikariSase! No. 4, 10 December 2009, pp. 84-104;Kawashima expresses his disagreement bydescribing my research as being full of“fabrications” [kyokō]and “malicious lies”[akushitsu na uso], and writes that my “title ofProfessor at the Australian National Universityhas given ridiculous credibility to thesemalicious lies. The Australian government,which has paid attention to immigration policy,should feel truly regretful about this.” I do notwish to burden this text with detailedresponses to Professor Kawashima’s opinions,but, in the hope of moving towards a morecomplete and accurate picture of therepatriation, I have outlined my responses tosome of his key claims in the footnotes below.

6 NHK Special, Kita Chōsen Kikokusen:Shirazaru Hanseiki no Kiroku [North KoreaRepatriation Ships: An Fifty-Year UnknownRecord], first broadcast 10 October 2007 (Link(http://www.nhk.or.jp/special/onair/071008.html), accessed 3 March 2008).

7 Sakanaka Hidenori, “Kita Chōsen KikokushaMondai no Honshitsu”, in Sakanaka, Han andKikuchi, Kita Chōsen Kikokusha Mondai noRekishi to Kadai, pp. 7-114, quotation from p.77.

8 Sakanaka, “Kita Chōsen Kikokusha Mondai noHonshitsu”, p. 44.

9 Kikuchi, “Kikoku Undō, Kikoku Jigyō toKikokusha no ‘Higeki’”, pp. 303-317.

10 See Kōseishō Engokyoku ed., Hikiage to EngoSanjūnen no Ayumi, Tokyo, Gyōsei, 1978; KimYeong-dal, Zainichi Chōsenjin no Rekishi,Tokyo, Akashi Shoten, 2003, pp. 103-104.

11 Information from a declassified Japanesegovernment document suggests that, in thecontext of repatriation debates in 1956,Japanese government and / or Red Crossoff ic ials discussed the possibi l i ty ofimplementing the clause in the ImmigrationControl Law allowing the state to deportKoreans who were unable to supportthemselves without welfare payments.However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs“regretfully” [遺憾ながら] rejected this ideabecause “one can easily imagine that thisapproach would provoke South Korea”. [そのような方途は韓国政府を刺激することが十分予想されるので]; Nikkan Kokkō Seijōka Kōshō noKiroku, Sōsetsu Vol. 6 – Zainichi Chōsenjin noK i k a n M o n d a i t o K i k a n K y ō t e i n oTeiketsu, document 126 of the third release ofofficial material pertaining to Japan-ROKrelations, released 16 November 2007, p. 71.

1 2 S e e H ō m u s h ō N y ū k o k uKanr ikyoku , Shutsunyūkoku Kanr iHakusho, Shōwa 34-Nen, Tokyo, ŌkurashoInsatsukyoku, 1959, p. 95.

13 Although at the end of 1957, in response tointense pressure from South Korea, the Bureaudid allow one group of such deportees the rightto remain in Japan, it refused to relinquish theright to deport lawbreakers until after thenormalization of relations with South Korea.Even then, this right was not abandoned, butthe range of offenses for whichZainichi Koreanscould be deported was restricted. See“Nihonkoku Kyojū suru TaikanminkokuKokumin no Hōteki Chii oyobi Taigu in kansuruNihonkoku to Taikanminkoku no aida noKyotei”, April 1966, pp. 3-4.

14 Professor Wada Haruki, in a review of Exodusto North Korea, rightly points out that mystatement in that book that “the number ofKoreans receiving livelihood protection wasreduced by about eighty-one thousand” is

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incorrect. According to a report in the TokyoShinbun (evening edition), 24 May 1956,payments to 24% of Korean recipients wereterminated, and payments to 30% of Koreanrecipients were reduced. The total number ofKorean recipients at the beginning of thecampaign was 117,073. Thus, the total numberof people affected by the cuts was around75,000. Some commentators argue that, since asharp rise in the number of applicants forrepatriation did not occur until the latter partof 1958, the large number of would-bereturnees could not have been a product of thewelfare cuts. This is an oddly mechanisticargument. Since there was no clear route forrepatriation to North Korea in 1956-1957,those whose lives were affected by the welfarecuts could not have been expected instantly tovolunteer for repatriation. However, there isabundant circumstantial evidence that theeffects of, as well as fears about, welfarereduction and termination were among theimportant factors influencing the decision ofKoreans to seek repatriation once a route hadbeen established and North Korea had begun tooffer housing and welfare to returnees. SeeKikuchi, “Kikoku Undō, Kikoku Jigyō toKikokusha no ‘Higeki’”, p. 238; Park, ReisenkiNicchō Kankei no Keisei, p. 322.

15「自費出国、中共経由が望ましいが、自費出国であれば多数が期待できない」. Nikkan KokkōSeijō ka Kōshō no Kiroku, Sōsetsu 6 op. cit.,p.1.

16 Nikkan Kokkō Seijōka Kōshō no Kiroku,Sōsetsu 6, op. cit. p. 1.

17 在日朝鮮人貧困者や強制退去を受けている者等韓国側が引取に応じないものの北鮮[ママ]への送還について,本件の実現が若干資するところあり－Nikkan Kokkō Seijōka Kōshō no Kiroku,Sōsetsu 6, op. cit., pp. 14-35, quotation from p.28

1 8 Telegram from League of Red CrossSocieties, Geneva, to Red Cross DPRK,Pyongyang, 6 January 1954, in ICRC Archives,B AG 232 055-001, Ressortisants japonais enCorée-du-nord, 22/01/1954-11/05/1956.

19 Telegram from Red Cross DPRK Pyongyangto League of Red Cross Societies, Geneva, 6February 1954, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232055-001.

20 For further details of these discussions, seeMorris-Suzuki, Exodus to North Korea, pp.85-87.

21 Park Jung-Jin, “Kikoku Undō no RekishitekiHaikei: Sengo Nicchō Kankei no Kaisho”, inTakasaki Sōji and Park Jung-Jin eds., KikokuJigyō to wa nan datta no ka: Fūin sareta NicchōKankeishi, Tokyo, Heibonsha, 2005, pp. 54-92.

22 See “Statement of the Foreign Minister of theDPRK in protest against persecution of theKorean nationals in Japan”, 30 August 1954,and “Statement of the spokesman of theForeign Ministry of the DPRK in connectionwith the question of the Korean internees inOmura camp”, 15 October 1955, both in On theQuestion of 600,000 Koreans in Japan,Pyongyang, Foreign Languages PublishingHouse, 1959, pp. 22-28.

23 Further evidence on this issue comes fromsubsequent Soviet documentation. In mid-1958,during the discussions with the Soviet Chargéd’Affairs in which he revealed his newly-madedecision to encourage a mass repatriation, KimIl-Sung recalled that “two or three years ago[i.e. in 1955-1956], our economic position didnot make it possible for us to raise the ideathat, for example, one hundred thousandfamilies of Koreans living in Japan might returnto the DPRK and be provided with homes and

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work.” It was only after further years ofeconomic reconstruction and growth that theNorth Korean government had finally come tosee such a mass repatriation as a realisticpolicy; “Record of Conversation with ComradeKim Il-Sung, 14 and 15 July 1958”, in Diary ofV. I Pelishenko, 23 July 1958, Foreign PolicyArchives of the Russian Federation, archive0102, collection 14, file 8, folder 95.

24 This approach is spelled out clearly in amessage from DPRK Foreign Minister Nam Il,sent to Japan by the North Korean Red Crosson 31 December 1955. Kawashima claims that Ihave behaved “maliciously” in quoting sectionsof this telegram to support the argument thatrepatriation was just part of a wider NorthKorean policy towards Zainichi Koreans. TheNam Il message, however, unmistakably dealswith the education of Zainichi Korean children,the supply of textbooks to Korean schools inJapan, the problem of travel between Japan andNorth Korea and the North Korean request forits Red Cross representatives to enter Japan, aswell as the problems of repatriation and theŌmura detainees. It also refers to ShigemitsuMamoru’s 16 December 1955 statement in theDiet Foreign Affairs Committee. See “Full textof the statement by Nam Il, Foreign Minister ofthe DPRK”, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232105-002.

25「朝鮮総連は、結成されて間もない一九五五年七月に、北朝鮮政府へ帰国事業について、それを切望し、問い合わせをしていたのである。日本が、一九五四年一月、北朝鮮朝鮮残留日本人の帰還を求めてはじめた問い合わせを利用し、その残留邦人という弱みをいわば人質として、残留邦人帰還交渉を在日朝鮮人帰還事業へと、転換させていたのが北朝鮮帰還事業の契機である。社会党議員はその橋渡しを行ったのである.」(“In July 1955, immediately after itsformation, Sōren expressed its desire for arepatriation project and made enquiries aboutthis to the North Korean government. The firstJapanese enquiry to the North Korean

government about the Japanese nationalsremaining in North Korea, which had beenmade in January 1954, was exploited, turningthe negotiations on the return of Japaneseoverseas into a project to repatriate Koreans inJapan, and making “hostages” of the weaknesso f these J apanese . Soc i a l i s t Pa r t yparliamentarians acted as the intermediaries inthis process”.); Kawashima, “Kita ChōsenKikoku Jigyō” op. cit., p. 103.

26 Nikkan Kokkō Seijōka Kōshō no Kiroku,Sōsetsu 6, op.cit.p. 47. (for full Japanese textsee Appendix 1)

27 Nikkan Kokkō Seijōka Kōshō no Kiroku,Sōsetsu 6, op. cit., pp. 47-50.

28 Nikkan Kokkō Seijōka Kōshō no Kiroku,Sōsetsu 6、op. cit., p. 51.

29 Although Kikuchi Yoshiaki refers to the newlyreleased document in his writings, he makes nomention of the information that it containsabout the Lee Ho-Yeon Incident or about theDecember 1955 Foreign Ministry plan.

30 Kokkai Gijiroku: Shūgiin Gaimu Iinkai, 16December 1955.

31 For a discussion of Shimazu’s letter and thediscussion in the Foreign Affairs Committee ofthe LDP, see Morris-Suzuki, Exodus to NorthKorea, pp. 88-92. (Japanese translation: TessaMorris-Suzuki, Kita Chōsen e no Ekusodasu:‘Kikoku Jigyō no Kage o Tadoru, Tokyo, AsahiShinbunsha, 2007, pp. 105-107) KawashimaTakamine quotes my statement that “strangely”Shimazu’s letter did not give the names ornumber of people who signed the petition.Taking exception to the word “strangely”,Kawashima claims that I am accusing theJapanese Red Cross of “inventing” the

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existence of the July 1955 Tokyo repatriates’gathering and the petition from returnees. Mybook, however, clearly mentions the existenceof the (relatively small-scale) gathering ofwould-be returnees in July 1955, and adds“perhaps this was the source of the petitionthat Shimazu sent to Geneva in December”.The word “strangely” therefore obviously doesnot imply that the Japan Red Cross forged thepetition. It refers to the somewhat surprisingfact that they forwarded an important petitionwithout including the names of the signatories,and without stating how many people hadsigned it. See Morris-Suzuki,Exodus to NorthKorea, pp. 88 and 90 (Japanese translation pp.106 and 108); Kawashima, “Kita Chōsen KikokuJigyō” op. cit., p. 98.

3 2 “We cannot say that the Japanesegovernment was the first to move towards a‘mass repatriation’. When the Japanese RedCross began, from the end of 1955, to seek tocarry out a repatriation under the ICRC… thiswas a move based on repeated demands by pro-Sōren Zainichi Koreans for repatriation to becarried out. This assistance for those wishingrepatriation, as humanitarian assistance,fulfilled the ideals and mission of the JapaneseRed Cross.” Kikuchi, “Kikoku Undō, KikokuJigyō to Kikokusha no ‘Higeki’”, pp. 307-308.

33 Kikuchi, “Kikoku Undō, Kikoku Jigyō toKikokusha no ‘Higeki’”, pp. 307-308.

34 Kim Yeong-dal and Takayanagi Toshio, KitaChōsen Kikoku Jigyō Kankei Shiryōshū, Tokyo,Shinkansha, 1995, p. 349.

35 Akahata, 30 September 1955.

36 Morris-Suzuki, Exodus to North Korea:Shadows from Japan’s Cold War, p. 96.

37 Asahi Shinbun, 7 April 1956.

38 Inoue Masutarō, and Fundamental Conditionsof Livelihood of Certain Koreans Residing inJapan, Tokyo, Japan Red Cross Society, 1956, p.57.

39 The information sent from the Japan RedCross Society to the ICRC speaks of 60,000 asbeing the “number of Koreans wishing toreturn to the North as said by the North KoreanLeague”; “Exposé synoptique du télégrammede la Croix-Rouge japonaise du 13 janvier1956”, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-002. Iquoted this statement in Morris-Suzuki,Exodusto North Korea, op. cit., p. 93. Prof. Kawashimaalso quotes this passage, and then claims that Ihave told a “malicious lie” [akushitsu na uso]by stating that “from December 1955 on, thisnumber was cited again and again by theJapanese Red Cross as the likely number ofreturnees” and that “the origin of this figure isa mystery”. Kawashima, “Kita Chōsen KikokuJigyō” op. cit., p. 100. However, the origin ofthe figure is patently a mystery – as explainedin this article, it is very different from thefigures presented by Sōren to other audiences,and there is no way of telling on what basis itwas calculated, or who did the calculation. Ihope, however, that the discussion in thisarticle has shed a little more light on thematter.

40 Masutaro Inoue, Report of the PhyongyangConference held by Japanese and North KoreanRed Cross Societies (January 27th-February28 th 1956), March 17 1956, p. 3, in ICRCArchives, B AG 232 055-001, p. 17.

41 Inoue, Report of the Phyongyang Conference,op. cit., p. 17.

4 2 Inoue , Report o f the Phyongyang

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Conferenceop. cit. , p. 18.

4 3 Inoue , Report o f the PhyongyangConferenceop. cit. , pp. 18-19.

4 4 Inoue , Report o f the PhyongyangConferenceop. cit. , p. 19.

45 Letter from Inoue Masutarō to RogerGallopin, 26 March 1956, ICRC Archives, BAG232 105-002,Problème du rapatriement desCoréens du Japon, dossier I – Généralités,27/02/1953-11/10/1957.

46 Letter from Inoue to Boissier, 31 March1956,ICRC Archives, B AG232 105-002,emphasis added.

47 “Déroulement de la visite des délégues duCICR au Japon”, 27 May 1956, p. 1, in ICRCArchives, B AG 232 105-002, p. 7; an articlepublished in the Asahi newspaper in August onthe ongoing demonstrations by would-berepatriates also noted that by that time thenumber of volunteers for repatriation wasestimated at about 3,000, but that the “relevantJapanese authorities” [日本の関係当局]expected “at least 60,000” to depart if arepatriation scheme were established in thefuture; Asahi Shinbun (evening edition), 8August 1956.

48 Japan Red Cross Society, The RepatriationProblem of Certain Koreans residing in Japan,October 1956, pp. 17-18; in ICRC Archives 232105-027, Documentation concernant lerapatriement des Coréens et des pêcheursj a p o n a i s d é t e n u e s à P u s a n ,10/10/1956-04/03/1959.

49 Letter from Shimazu Tadatsugu to LeopoldBoissier, 28 February 1957, ICRC Archives B

AG 232 105-002.

50 Letter from Shimazu to Boissier, 19 July1 9 5 6 , I C R C A r c h i v e s B A G 2 3 2105-004, Problème du rapatriement desCoréens du Japon, dossier III: rapatriement de4 8 C o r é e n s e n C o r é e - d u - N o r d ,28/05/1956-03/12/1957.

5 1 ICRC, minutes of the Consei l de laPresidence, Thursday 19 June 1956, p. 6, inICRC Archives B AG 251 075-002,Mission deWilliam H. Michel et d’Eugène de Weck, du 27mars au 2 julliet 1956, visites aux Sociétésnationals et problème du rapatriement de civilsentre la Corée et le Japon, première partie,01/03/1956-06/08/1956. The minutes go on tostate that 60,000 people is equivalent to 60% ofthe Korean population of Japan – evidently amisprint for 10%.

52 Kikuchi Yoshiaki indeed refers to many ofthese steps in his sole-authored book though(perhaps for reasons of space) skims over themin his co-authored work. Almost all of thesesteps are also omitted from the “Chronology ofthe North Korean Repatriation Project”appended to the back of this latter book.Sakanaka, Han and Kikuchi, Kita ChōsenKikokusha Mondai no Rekishi to Kadai. pp.320-337.

53 It was in the midst of this process that theNorth Korean government issued CabinetOrder No. 53, “On Stabilizing the Living ofKorean Citizens Arriving from Japan”.Kawashima Takamine presents this documentas though it were a major revelation, but I hadin fact already discussed its existence andquoted from it in Exodus to North Korea (p.130). Kawashima also promises futuresignificant revelations about the “phantom firstrepatriation ship”; see Kawashima, “KitaChōsen Kikoku Jigyō” op. cit. This ship,

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arranged through the energetic activities ofInoue Masutarō, was the Norwegian vessel HaiLee, which set sail for North Korea from Mōjion 6 December 1956 with 20 of the original 48repatriates and three others on board. Theremaining 28 (again with Inoue’s assistance)left for North Korea from Hakata on a Japanesefishing vessel on 31 March 1957 and arrived inCheongjin on 4 April – see Nikkan KokkōSeijōka Kōshō no Kiroku, Sōsetsu 6, op. cit., p.64. Prof. Kawashima’s further revelations areeagerly awaited.

54 Nikkan Kokkō Seijōka Kōshō no Kiroku,Sōsetsu 6, op. cit., pp. 63-64.

55 For example, Shimazu to Li Byung-Nam, 6June 1956, ICRC Archives B AG 105-002.

56 Inoue Masutarō, “Report of the Red CrossConference Held by the Japanese and NorthKorean Red Cross Societies, January 27th–February 28th 1956”, ICRC Archives B AG 232055-001, pp. 17 and 19; Shimazu to Li Byung-Nam, 6 June 1956, ICRC Archives B AG105-002; Inoue to Boissier, 2 July 1956, ICRCArchives B AG 232 105-002; Inoue to Boissier,16 June 1956, ICRC Archives B AG 232105-004. During the first of these meetings andthrough letters and telegrams, the NorthKoreans were informed that Japan insisted oninvolving the ICRC, and that ICRC participationwas needed in order to overcome objectionsfrom South Korea.

57 Inoue to Boissier, 2 July 1956, ICRC ArchivesB AG 232 105-002; see also Inoue to Boissier,16 June 1956, ICRC Archives B AG 232105-004, which makes it clear that the meetingwas at Inoue’s initiative. Park Jung-Jin haswritten of this meeting that “its topic was theproblem of the repatriation of the 47 (later 48)people conducting a sit-down strike outside theJapanese Red Cross Headquarters. The result

of the meeting was that both sides wouldaccept ICRC visas and pursue a plan for themto enter through Hong Kong or Shanghai andtravel via China.” (Park, Reisenki NicchōKankei no Keisei, p. 320). However, Inoue sawthe meeting in the context of the longer-termissue of repatriation. The 47 (48) returnees hadalready agreed to cover the cost of their owntravel to North Korea. The outcome of theTientsin talks was a verbal agreement that, inthe case of returnees who could not cover theirown expenses, Japan would pay the cost oftravel for those who had been forcibly recruitedas labourers or served in the Japanese armedforces during the war, and North Korea wouldpay the costs of other returnees. Because of thedelicate situation of negotiations with SouthKorea, North Korea was asked in the firstinstance to pay the travel costs of all returneeswho could not afford to pay for their owntravel, with the idea that Japan would start topay its contribution later, once negotiationswith South Korea had progressed. See Inoue toBoissier, 2 July 1956, ICRC Archives B AG 232105-002.

58 These included an approach to the HongKong based British shipping firm Butterfield.The chairman of the shipping firm wasinformed by JRC President Shimazu that theaim of the approach was “to establish a firstprecedent that North Koreans in Japan can berepatriated in mass safely without raising anyprotestation of the South Korean Governmentwhatsoever”. Shimazu to Carey, 11 June 1956,in ICRC Archives B AG 232 105-004.Ultimately, South Korea obtained knowledge ofthis plan and pressured Butterfield towithdraw.

59 Inoue Masutarō, “Report: Visit to the OmuraDetention Camp, June 28 1958, p. 8. ICRCArchives, B AG 232 105-006,Problème duRapatriement des Coréens du Japon, dossier V:année 1958, 10/10/1958-15/12/1958. Memofrom International Committee of the Red Cross

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Japan Delegation (Harry Angst) to ICRCGeneva, “Distribution of Monetary Relief fromthe North Korean Red Cross Society among theinmates of the Omura Immigration Center onJune 28 1958”, 3 July 1958, p. 4. ICRCArchives, B AG 232 105-006.

60 Shimazu to Boissier, 12 January 1957, ICRCArchives B AG 232 105-005; Boissier toShimazu, 26 February 1957, ICRC Archives BAG 232 105-005.

61 See for example Shimazu to Boissier, 12January 1957, ICRC Archives B AG 232105-005; Durand to Angst, 1 May 1957, ICRCArchives B AG 232 105-005, Problème durapatriement des Coréens du Japon, dossier III,16/07/1956-08/01/1958.

62 Kikuchi, “Kikoku Undō, Kikoku Jigyō toKikokusha no ‘Higeki’”, p. 303.

63 André Durand, “Aide Memoire: Rapatriementdes Coréens du Japon”, 23 June 1960, pp. 7-8,in ICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-019, Problèmedu rapatriement des Coréens du Japon,dossier XVI, 1960 14/01/1960-30/12/1960.

64 ICRC chief delegate André Durand noted thatKoreans in the Niigata Centre often mistookthe ICRC representatives for “Russians orAmericans”; Durand to ICRC, 14 March 1960,in ICRC Archives, B AG 105-016, Problème durapatr iement desCoréens du Japon,dossier XIV , 05/01/1960-08/04/1960.

65 Kawashima, “Kita Chōsen Kikoku Jigyō”, p.88.

66 Nikkan Kokkō Seijōka Kōshō no Kiroku,Sōsetsu 6, op. cit., p. 206.

67 新潟センターの「特別な一室」の意味は、いわゆる「密室」ではなくドアのない普通の部屋である. “Supplementary Explanations onCertain Aspects of Actual Operations ofRepatriation Work”, 28 October 1959, in ICRCArchives, B AG 105-013, Problème durapatriement des Coréens du Japon, dossier XI,11/10/1959-29/12/1959; for Japanese versions,see Nihon Sekijūjisha, Nihon SekijūjishaShishikō, vol. 7, Tokyo, Nihon Sekijūjisha,1986, pp. 204 and 208.Kawashima, “KitaChōsen Kikoku Jigyō”, p. 88.

68 Kawashima, “Kita Chōsen Kikoku Jigyō”, p.89.

69 See ICRC Archives, “Concerning Meetingwith M. Miaki, Gaimucho, Asian Department,MM. Kasai and Inoue JRCS and, for the ICRC,Mr. Lehner, Hoffmann, Gouy and Borsinger”,31 October 1959, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232105-013. This document is also cited andreferenced in Exodus to North Korea, p. 213(Japanese translation p. 279). As the quotationfrom the relevant document given here shows,Professor Kawashima is mistaken.

7 0 See André Durand, “Aide Memoire:Rapatriement des Coréens du Japon”, op. cit.,p. 12.

71 George Hoffman, “Weekly Report for thePeriod from 2 November till 7 November 1959”in ICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-013.

72 Telegram from Douglas MacArthur II, USAmbassador in Tokyo, to US Secretary of State,30 October 1959, in National Archives andRecords Administration (NARA), College Park,decimal file no. 294.9522/10-3059.

73 Inoue to Boissier, 31 May 1957,in ICRCArchives, B AG 232 105-005.

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74 Immigration Control Bureau, “MonthlyReport on Repatriation to North Korea no. 59”,Nov. 30 1964, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232103-030.

75 For example, memo from InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross Japan Delegation(Harry Angst) to ICRC Geneva, “Distribution ofMonetary Relief from the North Korean RedCross Society among the inmates of the OmuraImmigration Center on June 28 1958”, 3 July1958, p. 4. ICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-006. Angst mentions the case of two deserters fromthe South Korean navy who fear deportation toeither half of Korea, and seek refugee statuseither in Japan or a third country.

76 See “Information for Judgement of NorthKorean Situation”, report prepared by Ministryof Foreign Affairs, Japan, and given to BritishForeign Office (in English) as part of anexchange of information; see British NationalArchives, file no FO 371-158554.

77 As early as January 1957, Shimazu Tadatsuguhad made it plain that “the entry of North

Koreans from North Korea to Japan is notpermitted. In other words, re-entry to Japan ofthose Koreans wishing to repatriate to NorthKorea is not approved in principle except insome rare humanitarian cases. It seems thatthe North Korean side is intentionally mixingthe ‘freedom to choose places of residence’which is a humanitarian problem with the ‘freecomings and goings between nations’ which isa political problem”. Shimazu to Boissier, “TheRepatriation Problem of Koreans in Japan”, 12January 1957, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232105-005, 12.12.1956-12.01.1957; in practice,the humanitarian cases seem to have been veryrare indeed. When one “returnee’ who was inCambodia for a sporting contest soughtpolitical asylum in the Japanese Embassy inPhnom Penh in 1966, he was handed over tothe Cambodian authorities, who returned himto North Korea.

78 For further information on those sufferings,see Han Sok-gyu, Nihon kara “Kita” ni KaetaHito no Monogatari, Tokyo, Shinkansha, 2007;Ishimaru Jirō, Kita Chōsen Nanmin, Tokyo,Kōdansha, 2002; see also Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Exodus to North Korea, op. cit, ch. 19.