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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
Fifty years ago, the mass repatriation of ethnic Koreans from Japan to North Korea was reaching its peak. In towns and cities all over Japan farewell gatherings were being held, as “returnees” to North Korea packed their bags and boarded trains that would take them to the port of Niigata where, after various formalities including a “confirmation of free will” by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), they would board Russian ships for the voyage to Cheongjin in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Over 49,000 people embarked on this journey in 1960 alone, and 93,340 over the full span of the “repatriation project”[帰国事業, 북성사업) from December 1959 to July 1984.
1 Special Case, Tokyo r. no. 204, op. no. 135, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-028, Problème du rapatriement des Coréens du Japon, dossier XVIII, 17/01/1961-28/12/1964.
2 Park Jung-Jin, Reisenki Nicchō Kankei no Keisei, 1945-1965 nen, Tokyo, University of Tokyo PhD thesis, 2009.
3 Kikuchi Yoshiaki, Kita Chōsen Kikoku Jigyō: ‘Sodai na Rachi’ ka ‘Tsuihō' ka, Tokyo, Chūkō Shinsho, 2009; in Sakanaka Hidenori, Han Sok-Kyu and Kikuchi Yoshiaki, Kita Chōsen Kikokusha Mondai no Rekishi to Kadai, Tokyo, Shinkansha, 2009, pp. 197-318. There is no standard English translation for Zainichi Chōsen Tōitsu Minshu Sensen, which is variously translated as “Koreans' United Democratic Front in Japan”, “United Front of Democratic Korean Residents of Japan” etc.
4 Kikuchi Yoshiaki, “Kikoku Undō, Kikoku Jigyō to Kikokusha no ‘Higeki‘”, in Sakanaka, Han and Kikuchi, Kita Chōsen Kikokusha Mondai no Rekishi to Kadai, pp. 197-318.
5 Kawashima Takamine, “Kita Chōsen Kikoku Jigyō, Ima, sono Shinjitsu o Kataru: Tessa Morris-Suzuki shi no Kyogi ni Tsuite”, Hikari Sase! No. 4, 10 December 2009, pp. 84-104; Kawashima expresses his disagreement by describing my research as being full of “fabrications” [kyokō]and “malicious lies” [akushitsu na uso], and writes that my “title of Professor at the Australian National University has given ridiculous credibility to these malicious lies. The Australian government, which has paid attention to immigration policy, should feel truly regretful about this.” I do not wish to burden this text with detailed responses to Professor Kawashima's opinions, but, in the hope of moving towards a more complete and accurate picture of the repatriation, I have outlined my responses to some of his key claims in the footnotes below.
6 NHK Special, Kita Chōsen Kikokusen: Shirazaru Hanseiki no Kiroku [North Korea Repatriation Ships: An Fifty-Year Unknown Record], first broadcast 10 October 2007 (Link, accessed 3 March 2008).
7 Sakanaka Hidenori, “Kita Chōsen Kikokusha Mondai no Honshitsu”, in Sakanaka, Han and Kikuchi, Kita Chōsen Kikokusha Mondai no Rekishi to Kadai, pp. 7-114, quotation from p. 77.
8 Sakanaka, “Kita Chōsen Kikokusha Mondai no Honshitsu”, p. 44.
9 Kikuchi, “Kikoku Undō, Kikoku Jigyō to Kikokusha no ‘Higeki‘”, pp. 303-317.
10 See Kōseishō Engokyoku ed., Hikiage to Engo Sanjūnen no Ayumi, Tokyo, Gyōsei, 1978; Kim Yeong-dal, Zainichi Chōsenjin no Rekishi, Tokyo, Akashi Shoten, 2003, pp. 103-104.
11 Information from a declassified Japanese government document suggests that, in the context of repatriation debates in 1956, Japanese government and / or Red Cross officials discussed the possibility of implementing the clause in the Immigration Control Law allowing the state to deport Koreans who were unable to support themselves without welfare payments. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs “regretfully” [遺憾ながら] rejected this idea because “one can easily imagine that this approach 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 no Kiroku, Sōsetsu Vol. 6 - Zainichi Chōsenjin no Kikan Mondai to Kikan Kyōtei no Teiketsu, document 126 of the third release of official material pertaining to Japan-ROK relations, released 16 November 2007, p. 71.
12 See Hōmushō Nyūkoku Kanrikyoku, Shutsunyūkoku Kanri Hakusho, Shōwa 34-Nen, Tokyo, Ōkurasho Insatsukyoku, 1959, p. 95.
13 Although at the end of 1957, in response to intense pressure from South Korea, the Bureau did allow one group of such deportees the right to remain in Japan, it refused to relinquish the right to deport lawbreakers until after the normalization of relations with South Korea. Even then, this right was not abandoned, but the range of offenses for which Zainichi Koreans could be deported was restricted. See “Nihonkoku Kyojū suru Taikanminkoku Kokumin no Hōteki Chii oyobi Taigu in kansuru Nihonkoku to Taikanminkoku no aida no Kyotei”, April 1966, pp. 3-4.
14 Professor Wada Haruki, in a review of Exodus to North Korea, rightly points out that my statement in that book that “the number of Koreans receiving livelihood protection was reduced by about eighty-one thousand” is incorrect. According to a report in the Tokyo Shinbun (evening edition), 24 May 1956, payments to 24% of Korean recipients were terminated, and payments to 30% of Korean recipients were reduced. The total number of Korean recipients at the beginning of the campaign was 117,073. Thus, the total number of people affected by the cuts was around 75,000. Some commentators argue that, since a sharp rise in the number of applicants for repatriation did not occur until the latter part of 1958, the large number of would-be returnees could not have been a product of the welfare cuts. This is an oddly mechanistic argument. Since there was no clear route for repatriation to North Korea in 1956-1957, those whose lives were affected by the welfare cuts could not have been expected instantly to volunteer for repatriation. However, there is abundant circumstantial evidence that the effects of, as well as fears about, welfare reduction and termination were among the important factors influencing the decision of Koreans to seek repatriation once a route had been established and North Korea had begun to offer housing and welfare to returnees. See Kikuchi, “Kikoku Undō, Kikoku Jigyō to Kikokusha no ‘Higeki‘”, p. 238; Park, Reisenki Nicchō 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 Kokkō Seijō 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
18 Telegram from League of Red Cross Societies, Geneva, to Red Cross DPRK, Pyongyang, 6 January 1954, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232 055-001, Ressortisants japonais en Corée-du-nord, 22/01/1954-11/05/1956.
19 Telegram from Red Cross DPRK Pyongyang to League of Red Cross Societies, Geneva, 6 February 1954, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232 055-001.
20 For further details of these discussions, see Morris-Suzuki, Exodus to North Korea, pp. 85-87.
21 Park Jung-Jin, “Kikoku Undō no Rekishiteki Haikei: Sengo Nicchō Kankei no Kaisho”, in Takasaki Sōji and Park Jung-Jin eds., Kikoku Jigyō to wa nan datta no ka: Fūin sareta Nicchō Kankeishi, Tokyo, Heibonsha, 2005, pp. 54-92.
22 See “Statement of the Foreign Minister of the DPRK in protest against persecution of the Korean nationals in Japan”, 30 August 1954, and “Statement of the spokesman of the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK in connection with the question of the Korean internees in Omura camp”, 15 October 1955, both in On the Question of 600,000 Koreans in Japan, Pyongyang, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1959, pp. 22-28.
23 Further evidence on this issue comes from subsequent Soviet documentation. In mid-1958, during the discussions with the Soviet Chargé d'Affairs in which he revealed his newly-made decision to encourage a mass repatriation, Kim Il-Sung recalled that “two or three years ago [i.e. in 1955-1956], our economic position did not make it possible for us to raise the idea that, for example, one hundred thousand families of Koreans living in Japan might return to the DPRK and be provided with homes and work.” It was only after further years of economic reconstruction and growth that the North Korean government had finally come to see such a mass repatriation as a realistic policy; “Record of Conversation with Comrade Kim Il-Sung, 14 and 15 July 1958”, in Diary of V. I Pelishenko, 23 July 1958, Foreign Policy Archives of the Russian Federation, archive 0102, collection 14, file 8, folder 95.
24 This approach is spelled out clearly in a message from DPRK Foreign Minister Nam Il, sent to Japan by the North Korean Red Cross on 31 December 1955. Kawashima claims that I have behaved “maliciously” in quoting sections of this telegram to support the argument that repatriation was just part of a wider North Korean policy towards Zainichi Koreans. The Nam Il message, however, unmistakably deals with the education of Zainichi Korean children, the supply of textbooks to Korean schools in Japan, the problem of travel between Japan and North Korea and the North Korean request for its Red Cross representatives to enter Japan, as well as the problems of repatriation and the Ōmura detainees. It also refers to Shigemitsu Mamoru's 16 December 1955 statement in the Diet Foreign Affairs Committee. See “Full text of the statement by Nam Il, Foreign Minister of the DPRK”, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-002.
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 its formation, Sōren expressed its desire for a repatriation project and made enquiries about this to the North Korean government. The first Japanese enquiry to the North Korean government about the Japanese nationals remaining in North Korea, which had been made in January 1954, was exploited, turning the negotiations on the return of Japanese overseas into a project to repatriate Koreans in Japan, and making “hostages “of the weakness of these Japanese. Socialist Party parliamentarians acted as the intermediaries in this process”.); Kawashima, “Kita Chōsen Kikoku Jigyō” op. cit., p. 103.
26 Nikkan Kokkō Seijōka Kōshō no Kiroku, Sōsetsu 6, op.cit.p. 47. (for full Japanese text see 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 newly released document in his writings, he makes no mention of the information that it contains about the Lee Ho-Yeon Incident or about the December 1955 Foreign Ministry plan.
30 Kokkai Gijiroku: Shūgiin Gaimu Iinkai, 16 December 1955.
31 For a discussion of Shimazu's letter and the discussion in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the LDP, see Morris-Suzuki, Exodus to North Korea, pp. 88-92. (Japanese translation: Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Kita Chōsen e no Ekusodasu: ‘Kikoku Jigyō no Kage o Tadoru, Tokyo, Asahi Shinbunsha, 2007, pp. 105-107) Kawashima Takamine quotes my statement that “strangely” Shimazu's letter did not give the names or number of people who signed the petition. Taking exception to the word “strangely”, Kawashima claims that I am accusing the Japanese Red Cross of “inventing” the existence of the July 1955 Tokyo repatriates’ gathering and the petition from returnees. My book, however, clearly mentions the existence of the (relatively small-scale) gathering of would-be returnees in July 1955, and adds “perhaps this was the source of the petition that Shimazu sent to Geneva in December”. The word “strangely” therefore obviously does not imply that the Japan Red Cross forged the petition. It refers to the somewhat surprising fact that they forwarded an important petition without including the names of the signatories, and without stating how many people had signed it. See Morris-Suzuki,Exodus to North Korea, pp. 88 and 90 (Japanese translation pp. 106 and 108); Kawashima, “Kita Chōsen Kikoku Jigyō” op. cit., p. 98.
32 “We cannot say that the Japanese government was the first to move towards a ‘mass repatriation’. When the Japanese Red Cross began, from the end of 1955, to seek to carry out a repatriation under the ICRC… this was a move based on repeated demands by pro-Sōren Zainichi Koreans for repatriation to be carried out. This assistance for those wishing repatriation, as humanitarian assistance, fulfilled the ideals and mission of the Japanese Red Cross.” Kikuchi, “Kikoku Undō, Kikoku Jigyō to Kikokusha no ‘Higeki‘”, pp. 307-308.
33 Kikuchi, “Kikoku Undō, Kikoku Jigyō to Kikokusha no ‘Higeki‘”, pp. 307-308.
34 Kim Yeong-dal and Takayanagi Toshio, Kita Chōsen 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 Conditions of Livelihood of Certain Koreans Residing in Japan, Tokyo, Japan Red Cross Society, 1956, p. 57.
39 The information sent from the Japan Red Cross Society to the ICRC speaks of 60,000 as being the “number of Koreans wishing to return to the North as said by the North Korean League”; “Exposé synoptique du télégramme de la Croix-Rouge japonaise du 13 janvier 1956”, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-002. I quoted this statement in Morris-Suzuki,Exodus to North Korea, op. cit., p. 93. Prof. Kawashima also quotes this passage, and then claims that I have told a “malicious lie” [akushitsu na uso] by stating that “from December 1955 on, this number was cited again and again by the Japanese Red Cross as the likely number of returnees” and that “the origin of this figure is a mystery”. Kawashima, “Kita Chōsen Kikoku Jigyō” op. cit., p. 100. However, the origin of the figure is patently a mystery – as explained in this article, it is very different from the figures presented by Sōren to other audiences, and there is no way of telling on what basis it was calculated, or who did the calculation. I hope, however, that the discussion in this article has shed a little more light on the matter.
40 Masutaro Inoue, Report of the Phyongyang Conference held by Japanese and North Korean Red Cross Societies (January 27th-February 28th 1956), March 17 1956, p. 3, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232 055-001, p. 17.
41 Inoue, Report of the Phyongyang Conference, op. cit., p. 17.
42 Inoue, Report of the Phyongyang Conferenceop. cit., p. 18.
43 Inoue, Report of the Phyongyang Conferenceop. cit., pp. 18-19.
44 Inoue, Report of the Phyongyang Conferenceop. cit., p. 19.
45 Letter from Inoue Masutarō to Roger Gallopin, 26 March 1956, ICRC Archives, B AG232 105-002,Problème du rapatriement des Coréens du Japon, dossier I - Généralités, 27/02/1953-11/10/1957.
46 Letter from Inoue to Boissier, 31 March 1956, ICRC Archives, B AG232 105-002, emphasis added.
47 “Déroulement de la visite des délégues du CICR au Japon”, 27 May 1956, p. 1, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-002, p. 7; an article published in the Asahi newspaper in August on the ongoing demonstrations by would-be repatriates also noted that by that time the number of volunteers for repatriation was estimated at about 3,000, but that the “relevant Japanese authorities” [日本の関係当局] expected “at least 60,000” to depart if a repatriation scheme were established in the future; Asahi Shinbun (evening edition), 8 August 1956.
48 Japan Red Cross Society, The Repatriation Problem of Certain Koreans residing in Japan, October 1956, pp. 17-18; in ICRC Archives 232 105-027, Documentation concernant le rapatriement des Coréens et des pêcheurs japonais détenues à Pusan, 10/10/1956-04/03/1959.
49 Letter from Shimazu Tadatsugu to Leopold Boissier, 28 February 1957, ICRC Archives B AG 232 105-002.
50 Letter from Shimazu to Boissier, 19 July 1956, ICRC Archives B AG 232 105-004, Problème du rapatriement des Coréens du Japon, dossier III: rapatriement de 48 Coréens en Corée-du-Nord, 28/05/1956-03/12/1957.
51 ICRC, minutes of the Conseil de la Presidence, Thursday 19 June 1956, p. 6, in ICRC Archives B AG 251 075-002,Mission de William H. Michel et d'Eugène de Weck, du 27 mars au 2 julliet 1956, visites aux Sociétés nationals et problème du rapatriement de civils entre la Corée et le Japon, première partie, 01/03/1956-06/08/1956. The minutes go on to state that 60,000 people is equivalent to 60% of the Korean population of Japan – evidently a misprint for 10%.
52 Kikuchi Yoshiaki indeed refers to many of these steps in his sole-authored book though (perhaps for reasons of space) skims over them in his co-authored work. Almost all of these steps are also omitted from the “Chronology of the North Korean Repatriation Project” appended to the back of this latter book. Sakanaka, Han and Kikuchi, Kita Chōsen Kikokusha Mondai no Rekishi to Kadai. pp. 320-337.
53 It was in the midst of this process that the North Korean government issued Cabinet Order No. 53, “On Stabilizing the Living of Korean Citizens Arriving from Japan”. Kawashima Takamine presents this document as though it were a major revelation, but I had in fact already discussed its existence and quoted from it in Exodus to North Korea (p. 130). Kawashima also promises future significant revelations about the “phantom first repatriation ship”; see Kawashima, “Kita Chōsen Kikoku Jigyō” op. cit. This ship, arranged through the energetic activities of Inoue Masutarō, was the Norwegian vessel Hai Lee, which set sail for North Korea from Mōji on 6 December 1956 with 20 of the original 48 repatriates and three others on board. The remaining 28 (again with Inoue's assistance) left for North Korea from Hakata on a Japanese fishing vessel on 31 March 1957 and arrived in Cheongjin on 4 April - see Nikkan Kokkō Seijōka Kōshō no Kiroku, Sōsetsu 6, op. cit., p. 64. Prof. Kawashima's further revelations are eagerly awaited.
54 Nikkan Kokkō Seijōka Kōshō no Kiroku, Sōsetsu 6, op. cit., pp. 63-64.
55 For example, Shimazu to Li Byung-Nam, 6 June 1956, ICRC Archives B AG 105-002.
56 Inoue Masutarō, “Report of the Red Cross Conference Held by the Japanese and North Korean Red Cross Societies, January 27th-February 28th 1956”, ICRC Archives B AG 232 055-001, pp. 17 and 19; Shimazu to Li Byung-Nam, 6 June 1956, ICRC Archives B AG 105-002; Inoue to Boissier, 2 July 1956, ICRC Archives B AG 232 105-002; Inoue to Boissier, 16 June 1956, ICRC Archives B AG 232 105-004. During the first of these meetings and through letters and telegrams, the North Koreans were informed that Japan insisted on involving the ICRC, and that ICRC participation was needed in order to overcome objections from South Korea.
57 Inoue to Boissier, 2 July 1956, ICRC Archives B AG 232 105-002; see also Inoue to Boissier, 16 June 1956, ICRC Archives B AG 232 105-004, which makes it clear that the meeting was at Inoue's initiative. Park Jung-Jin has written of this meeting that “its topic was the problem of the repatriation of the 47 (later 48) people conducting a sit-down strike outside the Japanese Red Cross Headquarters. The result of the meeting was that both sides would accept ICRC visas and pursue a plan for them to enter through Hong Kong or Shanghai and travel via China.” (Park, Reisenki Nicchō Kankei no Keisei, p. 320). However, Inoue saw the meeting in the context of the longer-term issue of repatriation. The 47 (48) returnees had already agreed to cover the cost of their own travel to North Korea. The outcome of the Tientsin talks was a verbal agreement that, in the case of returnees who could not cover their own expenses, Japan would pay the cost of travel for those who had been forcibly recruited as labourers or served in the Japanese armed forces during the war, and North Korea would pay the costs of other returnees. Because of the delicate situation of negotiations with South Korea, North Korea was asked in the first instance to pay the travel costs of all returnees who could not afford to pay for their own travel, with the idea that Japan would start to pay its contribution later, once negotiations with South Korea had progressed. See Inoue to Boissier, 2 July 1956, ICRC Archives B AG 232 105-002.
58 These included an approach to the Hong Kong based British shipping firm Butterfield. The chairman of the shipping firm was informed by JRC President Shimazu that the aim of the approach was “to establish a first precedent that North Koreans in Japan can be repatriated in mass safely without raising any protestation of the South Korean Government whatsoever”. Shimazu to Carey, 11 June 1956, in ICRC Archives B AG 232 105-004. Ultimately, South Korea obtained knowledge of this plan and pressured Butterfield to withdraw.
59 Inoue Masutarō, “Report: Visit to the Omura Detention Camp, June 28 1958, p. 8. ICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-006,Problème du Rapatriement des Coréens du Japon, dossier V: année 1958, 10/10/1958-15/12/1958. Memo from International Committee of the Red Cross Japan Delegation (Harry Angst) to ICRC Geneva, “Distribution of Monetary Relief from the North Korean Red Cross Society among the inmates of the Omura Immigration Center on June 28 1958“, 3 July 1958, p. 4. ICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-006.
60 Shimazu to Boissier, 12 January 1957, ICRC Archives B AG 232 105-005; Boissier to Shimazu, 26 February 1957, ICRC Archives B AG 232 105-005.
61 See for example Shimazu to Boissier, 12 January 1957, ICRC Archives B AG 232 105-005; Durand to Angst, 1 May 1957, ICRC Archives B AG 232 105-005, Problème du rapatriement des Coréens du Japon, dossier III, 16/07/1956-08/01/1958.
62 Kikuchi, “Kikoku Undō, Kikoku Jigyō to Kikokusha no ‘Higeki‘”, p. 303.
63 André Durand, “Aide Memoire: Rapatriement des Coréens du Japon”, 23 June 1960, pp. 7-8, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-019, Problème du rapatriement des Coréens du Japon, dossier XVI, 1960 14/01/1960-30/12/1960.
64 ICRC chief delegate André Durand noted that Koreans in the Niigata Centre often mistook the ICRC representatives for “Russians or Americans”; Durand to ICRC, 14 March 1960, in ICRC Archives, B AG 105-016, Problème du rapatriement 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 on Certain Aspects of Actual Operations of Repatriation Work”, 28 October 1959, in ICRC Archives, B AG 105-013, Problème du rapatriement des Coréens du Japon, dossier XI, 11/10/1959-29/12/1959; for Japanese versions, see Nihon Sekijūjisha, Nihon Sekijūjisha Shishikō, vol. 7, Tokyo, Nihon Sekijūjisha, 1986, pp. 204 and 208.Kawashima, “Kita Chōsen Kikoku Jigyō”, p. 88.
68 Kawashima, “Kita Chōsen Kikoku Jigyō”, p. 89.
69 See ICRC Archives, “Concerning Meeting with 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 232 105-013. This document is also cited and referenced in Exodus to North Korea, p. 213 (Japanese translation p. 279). As the quotation from the relevant document given here shows, Professor Kawashima is mistaken.
70 See André Durand, “Aide Memoire: Rapatriement des Coréens du Japon”, op. cit., p. 12.
71 George Hoffman, “Weekly Report for the Period from 2 November till 7 November 1959” in ICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-013.
72 Telegram from Douglas MacArthur II, US Ambassador in Tokyo, to US Secretary of State, 30 October 1959, in National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), College Park, decimal file no. 294.9522/10-3059.
73 Inoue to Boissier, 31 May 1957, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-005.
74 Immigration Control Bureau, “Monthly Report on Repatriation to North Korea no. 59”, Nov. 30 1964, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232 103-030.
75 For example, memo from International Committee of the Red Cross Japan Delegation (Harry Angst) to ICRC Geneva, “Distribution of Monetary Relief from the North Korean Red Cross Society among the inmates of the Omura Immigration Center on June 28 1958”, 3 July 1958, p. 4. ICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-006. Angst mentions the case of two deserters from the South Korean navy who fear deportation to either half of Korea, and seek refugee status either in Japan or a third country.
76 See “Information for Judgement of North Korean Situation”, report prepared by Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan, and given to British Foreign Office (in English) as part of an exchange of information; see British National Archives, file no FO 371-158554.
77 As early as January 1957, Shimazu Tadatsugu had made it plain that “the entry of North Koreans from North Korea to Japan is not permitted. In other words, re-entry to Japan of those Koreans wishing to repatriate to North Korea is not approved in principle except in some rare humanitarian cases. It seems that the North Korean side is intentionally mixing the ‘freedom to choose places of residence’ which is a humanitarian problem with the ‘free comings and goings between nations’ which is a political problem”. Shimazu to Boissier, “The Repatriation Problem of Koreans in Japan”, 12 January 1957, in ICRC Archives, B AG 232 105-005, 12.12.1956-12.01.1957; in practice, the humanitarian cases seem to have been very rare indeed. When one “returnee' who was in Cambodia for a sporting contest sought political asylum in the Japanese Embassy in Phnom Penh in 1966, he was handed over to the Cambodian authorities, who returned him to North Korea.
78 For further information on those sufferings, see Han Sok-gyu, Nihon kara “Kita” ni Kaeta Hito 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.
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