April 23, 2006

(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)WASHINGTON, April 22_(Kyodo) _ The kin and supporters of both Japanese and South Korean citizens abducted by North Korea issued an appeal Saturday for ordinary U.S. citizens and President George W. Bush to provide help to rescue the abductees, at a rally in front of the White House.

"Citizens of the United States, please join forces with our struggle," said Kenichi Ichikawa, elder brother of Shuichi Ichikawa, who vanished from a Kagoshima Prefecture beach in 1978 at age 23 along with his girlfriend Rumiko Masumoto, then 24.

In September 2002, North Korea acknowledged having abducted the couple, but claimed that Ichikawa died of a heart attack while swimming in 1979 after marrying Masumoto the same year.

Misa Morimoto, twin sister of Miho Yamamoto, who went missing from Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture, in 1984 at age 20, told the rally, "I will go on appealing to people until I can meet my sister."

In a letter handed to organizers and read out at the rally, 82-year-old Choi Gye Wol, the mother of a South Korean man believed to have been abducted in 1978 to train North Korean spies and thought to be the husband of Japanese abductee Megumi Yokota, called for help to secure his repatriation.

"Mr. Bush, fellow Korean-Americans, please, please help me to see my son before I die. Please help this old mother's wish come true," she said in the letter.

"I dream about your coming into my arms, then I wake up while screaming your name," according to the English translation of the letter.

On Thursday, Sakie Yokota, the mother of Megumi, is to testify before a U.S. congressional hearing on the case of her daughter and those of other abductees.

Megumi, abducted in 1977 at age 13, married a Korean man in 1986 and gave birth to a daughter in 1987, according to the North Korean government's 2002 explanation to the Japanese government.

On April 11, the Japanese government, releasing the results of DNA tests on Kim's relatives and Kim Hye Gyong, Megumi's daughter, said Megumi's husband is most likely Kim Young Nam.

Kim is among five men abducted by North Korea between 1977 and 1978 from southern parts of South Korea when they were between the ages of 16 and 18, according to Choi Seong Ryong, the head of a group of South Korean abductees' family members. Choi had flown in to Washington to join the rally.

Shoichi Osawa, elder brother of Takashi Osawa, believed to have been kidnapped in 1974 at age 27 in Sado, Niigata Prefecture, said, "A resolve to continue this movement at any cost until I can get back my brother is growing in me, now that solidarity has formed with South Koreans."

Shoichi is one of some 50 participants in the rally to drum up support for the abductees' cause.

North Korea has admitted its agents abducted 13 Japanese and brought them to the country from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. But Japan has recognized 16 nationals, including the 13, as having been abducted.

LINK TO ORIGINAL