＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49) on X
<Updated October 14, 2021> North Korean defector files lawsuit against North Korean government for compensation
On the 14th, a trial was held at the Tokyo District Court for five men and women seeking compensation from the North Korean government, claiming that they were forced to live harsh lives for long periods of time as a result of the “Repatriation Project,” which saw Korean residents in Japan and their Japanese wives migrate to North Korea from the 1950s onwards. According to the legal team, this is the first time that a trial has been held against the North Korean government.
The five men and women are all men and women who traveled to North Korea as part of the “Repatriation Project” and later defected to live in Japan.
The “Repatriation Project,” which ran for 25 years from 1959, saw approximately 93,000 people, including Korean residents in Japan and their Japanese wives, migrate to North Korea.
The five are seeking a combined 500 million yen in compensation from the North Korean government, claiming that they were forced to live harsh lives without being provided with enough food at the time.
I happened to recently watch the NHK BS1 special “The Untold Diplomatic Battle of the ‘Repatriation Project’ to North Korea: Confessions 60 Years Later,” which aired on August 9, 2020, and was shocked by the terrifying truth.
I know a little about the internal situation in North Korea from fragmented information and the analysis of experts on the situation on the Korean Peninsula. The “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” is an absolute monarchy known as the “Kim Dynasty” in name only.
Recently, Chairman Kim Jong-un has been frequently purging and executing officials he dislikes, like Soviet dictator Stalin, and has been sending people critical of the Kim Dynasty regime to political prison camps or executing them.
They have also continued their nuclear development and repeatedly launched missiles, while ordinary people appear to be suffering from hunger and poverty.
1. What is the North Korean “Repatriation Project”?
What North Korea calls the “repatriation project” actually refers to the “repatriation project for Korean residents in Japan.” This was the collective permanent return or emigration of Korean residents in Japan and their families from Japan to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) that took place over a 25-year period from 1959 to 1984.
A total of 93,340 Korean residents in Japan and their families (including approximately 6,700 family members with Japanese nationality) returned to North Korea. This was a “mass ethnic migration” that accounted for one in 6.5 of the population of Japan.
2. Background of the Repatriation Project
When the repatriation project began, Koreans living in Japan were unable to enroll in national health insurance or national pension plans, and discrimination meant they had no decent jobs, leading many to suffer from poverty.
In 1958, the Kim Il-sung regime of North Korea, which needed “unskilled labor,” used the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) to urge Koreans living in Japan to return to Japan and “participate in the construction of a developing socialist homeland.”
Chongryon officials promoted North Korea as a “paradise on earth” to encourage repatriation.
In Japanese society, this was positioned as a “humanitarian project to allow Koreans to return to their homeland,” and was supported and encouraged by political parties from the Liberal Democratic Party to the Communist Party, many local governments, labor unions, and cultural figures.
The Japanese government appears to have promoted the project, seeing it as an opportunity to rid itself of Koreans.
Since Japan and North Korea did not have diplomatic relations, the Japanese Red Cross Society and the Korean Red Cross Society handled the practical aspects of the repatriation.
3. The subsequent fate of the returnees
According to “The Crimes and Punishments of Our Korean Residents in Japan,” a book by former Chongryon agent Han Kwang-hee, “When a family traveled to North Korea, their assets, such as land and factories, became the property of Chongryon. This was because Chongryon signed a pledge that if they made donations, they would be guaranteed an appropriate share of their assets in their home country. Naturally, this promise was not kept.” In other words, they “scammed them out of their assets and deceived them into going away.”
Those traveling from Japan to North Korea boarded the boats believing they would reach a “paradise on earth,” but the moment they arrived in North Korea, they instinctively sensed something was not right. This was because they were better dressed and in good health, while their North Korean counterparts who welcomed them were poorly dressed and seemed in poor health.
Meanwhile, the North Koreans who welcomed them had expected their pitiful compatriots to return from Japan, skin and bones, but when they saw at a glance that they were wealthier and better nourished than they were, they instinctively sensed something was not right.
With their abundant foreign currency, returnees were able to shop for luxury goods at high-end stores and complain about their difficult lives in North Korea. They were discriminated against as “poisoned by capitalism” and sent to political prison camps. Some were even executed.
South Korean President Park Chung-hee normalized diplomatic relations with Japan in 1965, and with Japan’s economic cooperation, achieved economic development that would later be known as the “Miracle on the Han River.”
Meanwhile, Kim Il-sung strengthened his dictatorial regime and invested heavily in national defense to counter South Korea, causing the economy to stagnate and making life difficult for returnees.
As news of the situation in North Korea began to reach Japan through letters and other means, the number of returnees decreased, and the program was discontinued in 1967.
However, the Japanese Red Cross Society continued to receive calls for people to return to North Korea. At the time, the Japanese Red Cross Society also only received fragmented information about the situation in North Korea.
In 1971, after a four-year hiatus, the repatriation program resumed following negotiations between the Japanese and North Korean Red Cross Societies. This restarted program saw many Chongryon officials and their families, who had previously sent repatriates, boarding ships.
By this time, North Korea began to rely not only on repatriates as “simple labor,” but also on the industrial products and foreign currency (technology and money) they brought with them from Japan, where rapid economic growth was taking place. Even more foreign currency was brought in by “homeland visit groups” consisting of family members who remained in Japan.
This “policy to obtain foreign currency from Japan” is said to have been spearheaded by Kim Jong-il, who began to emerge in the public eye in the 1970s. To establish his position as Kim Jong-il’s successor, Kim Il-sung also focused on “ideological control.” In 1973, he established the “National Political Security Department” to crack down on political prisoners, purged dissidents, and created a sense of fear in North Korean society.
I was struck by the lonely monologue of an elderly North Korean defector who returned to Japan and is now living in South Korea. He said, “I don’t have a single friend because I’m discriminated against in Japan as a Korean, in North Korea as a returnee from Japan, and in South Korea as a North Korean defector.”
It is said that there are currently around 200 people living in Japan who traveled to North Korea as part of the repatriation program, but who escaped after suffering poverty and discrimination, and who claim that the description of “paradise on earth” is a lie.