No.2118.

 

KOREAN EMBASSY

36, CARDIGAN SQUARE,

LONDON, S. W. I.

YTK/TJ/RJ/D

18th December, 1959.

To : His Excellency The Foreign Minister.
From : Korean Embassy, London.
Subject : Japanese Deportation of the Korean Residents in Japan to the North.
I should like to briefly report on the British reaction respecting the deportation of Korean residents in Japan to the Communist north which finally was implemented on the 14th December, as follows:—
1). The London Times printed two despatches from Japan on December 12th and 15th respectively, but there has been no editorial comment on this matter at all. The Guardian printed every brief despatch from Reuter about the same time and there was no editorial comment by the Guardian either.
2). It was learnt that on the 16th December some press men at the usual press conference held at the Foreign Office asked the spokesman to comment on the latest development of the deportation issue in Japan, namely, the first shipment of the Korean residents to the North from the Port of Niigata, but the spokesman refused to make any comment implying that he did not wish to intervene. It was further learnt that the spokesman pretended to know very little about the latest development of the deportation issue in order to set aside the question raised by the pressmen.
3). On December 17th, Second Secretary Yoon had an occasion to call on Mr. Jones, desk officer of the Korean Affairs at the Foreign Office in order to discuss the matter of obtaining a list of the bereaved families of the British soldiers who died in Korea during the war.
Mr. Yoon, at the same time, was instructed to acquaint Mr. Jones with the latest development of the deportation issue and find out what his reaction would be, which he did.
According to Secretary Yoon Mr. Jones's re-action did not differ substantially from the comments he previously made although he listened to Mr. Yoon with great interest and care. Secretary Yoon reported to me that these Korean residents being deported from Japan to the Communist North might well be compared to the young man being drafted into military service which implied that when they were received by the recruiting officers they usually received very good care and nice treatment, but after a couple of months when the real service life began, they suffered so much from hard life. He further commented that if the Korean residents to be deported by Japan could be limited in a small number, for instance, 5000 or 10,000, the Republic of Korea, in his opinion, will have won over the Communists in world propaganda because the Communists have been telling the world that as many as 100,000 Koreans were preared to go to the North. Secretary Yoon seemed to have tried hard to impress Mr. Jones again that from our point of view even a single Korean resident in Japan should not be deported to the Communist north.
4). In an effort to continue our publicity work we carried the contents of the Presidential press conference regarding the deportation case in our latest issue of the Korean news which was issued on the 15th December.
For your information, I enclose a copy of the Korean News Bulletin.

Yu Taik Kim Ambassador.

Information copy to:
His Excellency The President