Left Behind

• Share

When Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi departed for North Korea last Saturday, it was the biggest gamble of his career. Koizumi's mission was to fly back with the relatives of five Japanese citizens whom North Korea abducted in the 1970s and '80s. When Koizumi returned to Tokyo later that same night with five of the eight family members, his gamble—at least in part—seemed to have paid off. Still left behind, however, was the family of 45-year-old abductee Hitomi Soga: her 64-year-old American husband, Charles Robert Jenkins, and their two daughters, 20-year-old Mika and 18-year-old Belinda. At a press conference in Pyongyang, Koizumi said he spent about an hour trying to persuade Jenkins to get on the plane, but Jenkins resisted because he feared prosecution by the United States.

According to the U.S., Jenkins defected to North Korea as a 24-year-old U.S. Army sergeant in 1965 while he was on patrol near the Korean Demilitarized Zone, and Washington wants to court-martial him. (His relatives in the U.S. maintain that he was abducted and then brainwashed by North Korea.) If Jenkins leaves North Korea, however, the Japanese would prefer that he stay in Japan for the sake of his family. Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi recently conferred with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on the Jenkins case; Koizumi also talked to President George W. Bush on the telephone last week about his planned trip to North Korea.

As of late last week, American military, legal and diplomatic experts apparently still hadn't decided what to do if Jenkins did fly to Japan, although they have several options. An unequivocal demand for Jenkins, one that left Japan no way to say no, could run the risk of alienating Koizumi's government. But an outright pardon, which Japan has suggested, would send the wrong message about discipline and desertion to U.S. troops. A third tack, according to one diplomatic source, would be for the U.S. to ask Japan to hand over Jenkins—but not complain when it fails to do so. In that case, Jenkins would be a fugitive from justice and liable to arrest if he ever returns home. Washington has a while to refine its strategy: Koizumi announced that Japan was arranging a meeting in Beijing "very soon" for Soga, Jenkins and their daughters to discuss their options.