FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JULY 31, 1959

THE KOREAN VIEW ON JAPAN'S SCHEDULE TO KOREAN RESIDENTS IN JAPAN
1. On January 30, 1989, Japanese Foreign Minister Aiichiro Fujiyama announced his country's unilateral decision to deport to Communism many of the Korean residents that Japan had misused as forced laborers. This decision else included the dependents of such Koreans, Announcement was made at a moment when the Korean Government was preparing to resume the recessed discussions with Japan regarding these very residents and other outstanding problems. On February 13, the Japanese Cabinet gave its endorsement to Mr. Fujiyama's intentions.
2. On April 13, 1959, utilising the name of the Japan Red Cross Society, Japan opened Geneva negotiations with the puppet regime of Communist-occupied northern Korea on this mass deportation plan. The Geneva site was chosen in the hope of providing an International Committee of the Red Cross facade behind which the scheme could be carried out. At first, there was ostensible debate on the possible role of ICRC, but it soon developed that Japan was not interested id impartial supervision, but merely wanted ICRC to camouflage the fact of forcible mass deportations - a cloak for Japan's lack of humnnitarianiam. When the Communists objected to a real voice for ICRC, the Japanese quickly accepted a meaningless advisory assignment for the international organisation.
3. The case of the Korean residents in Japan is unique. Some two million Koreans were compelled to go to Japan during the 1905-45 period of the Japanese occupation, most of them during the period that Japan was engaged in aggressive warfare against the Allied nations. From 1942 to 1945, approximately 520,000 Koreans were taken to Japan for forced labor in mines, munitions plants and other war machinery factories. In 1939, there were 981,591 Koreans in Japan, but by 1944 this number had increased to 1,936,800. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, about 1,340,000 Korean. were repatriated to the territory of what is now the Republic of Korea. They received no compensation for their years of forced labor, their property losses, and their mistreatment. Consequently, some 800,000 destitute Korean. chose to remain in Japan.
4. International law is fairly well establiahed and clear With regard the status of immigrants and alien residents. But the situation of the, Korean residents differs from both of these categories in that they were forced to immigrate, that they were utilized as forced labor, and that Japan classed them as Japanese nationals, although not on a basis of equality with Japanese citizens. Special and privileged treatment should have been accorded them after the restoration of Japanese independence in 1952. Instead the Japanese Government has studiously denied them equal treatment and discriminated against them in employment, in education, in welfare, in law enforcement, and in social acceptance.
5. The Republic of Korea has followed the policy of accepting the individual, voluntary repatriation of Koreans in Japan. This Government has declared repeatedly that it will accept a voluntary mass repatriation, provided the Japanese Government pays just and due compensation, and thus affords them with opportunity to make a new start in life. The amount of such compensation would be established through negotiation. But instead of discussing this proposal and thus observing the Korea-Japan agreement of December 31, 1957, the Japanese decided to deport as many Koreans as possible to the Communists.
6. Ordinary diplomatic usage should have stopped Japan from ever raising the deportation issue. The status and future of the Korean residents have been on the agenda of four Korea-Japan Conferences held during the last seven years, and is still scheduled for discussion and settlement at the fourth conference, now in recess. Precedent clearly identifies this as a political issue to be approached only through bilateral negotiations of Korea and Japan and without the involvement of any third party. Japan's action in abandoning the talks with the Republic of Korea and attempting to enter into es bargain with Communists is a violation of international courtesy and stipulated agreement. To date the only Japanese excuse, has been that the situation changed - in other words, that it suddenly suited Japan's convenience to attempt the deportations to Communism.
7. Japan has sought to distinguish between the deportation plean and other Korea -Japan issues on the grounds that to send the residents to Communism is "humanitarian," whereas the other problems are of a political nature. It is also interesting to note that to accomplish these "voluntary repatriations," the Japanese Government is prepared to spend the sum of 130,000,000 yen (about $360,000), and that the Japanese Cabinet had to make the "repatriation" decision, although Japan maintains that no issue except
humanitarianism is involved.
8. This new "humanitarianism" of Japan is reminiscent of the fact that Japan forcibly dislocated about 400,000 Korean farmers, under the disguise of "voluntary" basis, and sent them to Japan to supplement her labor force shortage between 1910 and 1918, when Japanese land policy created a surplus agricultural population in Korea. Japan has also tried to excuse itself for the massacre of thousands of Korean residents at the time of the Tokyo earthquake and fire in 1923, and for incarcerating Koreans in concentration camps without charge, trial, or hope of release during the last few years.
9. To keep up the humanitarian pretense, Japan has sent representatives of its quasi-govermental Red Cross Society to Geneva and has maintained that the Red Cross is entirely responsible. Yet from the very beginning, the deportation scheme has been directed by personnel from the Japanese Foreign Office and the Ministries of Justice and Social Welfare. In Japan, this is admitted freely, but the same confession is never made abroad.
10. Japan's effort to hide its intentions behind the International Committee of the Red Cross is apparent in the Japanese agreement with the Communists. That accord, already initialed by the Japanese and puppet representatives, does not provide any role for ICRC and does not require ICRC approval. The myth of ICRC participation and approval is entirely of Japanese origin- a unilateral declaration of Japan that Japan can repudiate at any time. Even the Communists, understanding the motives of the dual Japanese diplomacy, have become so impatient as to rereal Japan's duplicity and bluntly declare that they care nothing about ICRC and that ICRC has no part in the bilateral proceedings.
11. Another Japanese camouflage is the mis-use of Universal Declaraction of Human Rights and its provision, for free choice of residence. Aside from the fact that Japan itself is violating the Declaration by forcible attempts to deport the Korean residents, it is also true that the Declaration could never be used to defend the sending of human beings to Communism. Once there, the individuals will have no freedom to depart, and this is the antithesis of the assurance provided in the Declaration. Japanese commentators and others also have tried to compare the deportation of Koreans with the repatriation agreement set forth in the Korean Armistice Agreement and carried out under the Neutral Nations Repatriations Commission.
There are many differences between the two situations one that involves civilians resident in a foreign country-and one that claimed them as nationals-for a long period of time, and that the other involved prisoners of war, etc. But the most important point was that true stipulations were designed to prevent the involuntary return of human beings to Communism. Under the Japan-Communist agreement, precisely the opposite is true. Innocent people will be importuned to leave the Free World, and they will have no protection against forcible measures.
12. Japan claims that many Korean residents have "freely" expressed their will to go to the Communist-held north. This misinformation stems from a registration procedure conducted by the Communists themselves. Japanese sources have attested that those who said they wanted to go were bribed, were lied to, were intimidated, and in some cases even forced to sign. The Communists spent approximately 600 million yen (approximately 1.6 million dollars) on this campaign, but their own hard-core members did not sign. This effectively destroys the Japanese argument that it vants the deportations in order to expel Communists or Communist sympathizers. It is enlightening to note another aspect of the Japanese claim that many Koreans expressed their "free will" to go; a very large number of Korean residents are so hard-pressed economically that they are literally faced with a "free choice" between star- vation and deportation. It is natural that these desperate Koreans are extremely vulnerable to deceptive propaganda by the Communists. If Japan were truly humanitarian in its attitude toward them, it should at least have taken minimum measures to alleviate their sufferings before it had brought up the problem of deportation. It also must be noted that 97 percent of the Korean residents are from the southern half of Korea or of south Korean ancestry. Even those few who came from the north have never lived under Communism in Korea, nor in any other country. Thus they know nothing of Communism, and in most cases the deportations could not be considered "repatriations" in either a political or geographical sense.
13. In maintaining that there is no political involvement in the deportations, Japan has chosen to ignore the fact that the Communists of the north are desperately short of manpower for their military and labor forces. That, aside from the propaganda values, is the reason the Communists want the Korean residents. Such augmentation of Communist manpower would seriously threaten the security of the Republic of Korea and the Free world defense position in Northeast Asia. Tenseness of the Korean theater has already been demonstrated in a series of Demilitarized Zone incidents and the shooting down of a U.S. Navy patrol plane over the Eastern Sea. Ironically, any strengthening of the north Korean Communist forces also will increase the danger to Japan.
14. Japanese intent to be rid of Koreans at minimum cost is also revealed in the announcement that illegal Korean entrants will not be indicted and tried if they agree to deportation to Communism. This is without regard to where they came from. Aside from callous immorality, this gesture has aspects of giving direct espionage aid and comfort to the Communists. Instead of risking the mountain passes of the Demilitarized Zone or the heavily guarded coastal waters, returning agents could go to Japan by regular ship and thence to the north.
15. The Republic of Korea has the only lawful government on the Korean peninsula and is so recognized by the United Nations. The Korean Government thus has the right and the obligation to protect Korean nationals wherever they may be, and especially if their future and their very lives are jeopardized. Japan's deportation attempt is tantamount to a denial of the Republic of Korea's sovereignty over the peninsula, and a step toward recognition of the Communist regime whose aggression was resisted by the United Nations and which was denounced by the U.N. as an international gangster.
16. International law and justice prohibit slavery. Yet Japan is now literally conspiring to send scores of thousands of people into a slave system - many of them through compulsion -- to suit its own convenience.
It refuses to consult with the legal, duly recognized government of these people, and takes refuge in false claims of humanitarian-motivation. The Government of Japan realizes all this, and is also aware that the deportation scheme is undermining all hope of friendship and cooperation between Korea and Japan. This Government can only conclude that Japan has no present intention of settling the problems and differences that exist between the two countries, and that Japan may further have ulterior designs and motives affecting this sovereignty and Korean soil.