North Korea's mystery guest
By Sarah Buckley
BBC News Online
The last person you might expect to find in North Korea is an American soldier, especially one who has chosen to stay there voluntarily.
But Charles Robert Jenkins has been in the isolated North since 1965. When offered a ticket to Tokyo by visiting Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi last week, he refused.
No-one knows for sure how Mr Jenkins arrived in North Korea
He desperately wants to be reunited with his Japanese wife, who returned to her homeland in 2002 after Pyongyang admitted kidnapping her and several others in the 1970s.
But if he joined her, he would risk arrest by the US military, which accuses him of desertion.
The 62-year-old American GI disappeared from duty on 5 January 1965, when he was serving in South Korea to help guard the armistice which ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
He was leading a patrol near the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), when he told his platoon he was going to investigate a noise. He never came back.
Days later, his arrival in North Korea was broadcast over the loudspeakers on the DMZ, according to Nobuharu Kumada, a Japanese man who says he served with Mr Jenkins.
It's too many unanswered questions
Charles Jenkins' nephew, James Hyman
The US military has said Mr Jenkins left behind four notes which stated his intention to defect.
"I am sorry for the trouble I will cause you. I know what I have to do. I am going to North Korea. Tell family I love them very much. Love, Charles," one of the notes, allegedly left near his footlocker, is reported to have said.
But James Hyman, a nephew in North Carolina, said that the military has no hard evidence of his uncle's supposed defection, and believes instead he was kidnapped.
He pointed out that the army lost the original copies of the notes.
"Of course they weren't able to be found. There were no four letters," he told BBC News Online.
The separation has been tough on his wife, Hitomi Soga
[The quoted note] "was signed 'Love, Charles,' and the family didn't know him as Charles. They knew him as Robert or 'Super'," Mr Hyman said.
He said his uncle was a loyal serviceman who would not have deserted.
"Every time I saw him he always had his uniform on," Mr Hyman, who was four years old when he last saw Mr Jenkins.
Life in the North
The only person who knows the truth is Mr Jenkins himself, and he has given very few media interviews.
He told a Japanese magazine in 2002 that he was living happily in North Korea, and thanked the country's leader Kim Jong-il for his good treatment.
But it is difficult to ascertain how far Mr Jenkins' comments reflect the truth in a country which operates close surveillance and does not tolerate disloyalty.
North Korea's propensity for disinformation could also explain the incriminating radio broadcasts, and his appearance, according to the Pentagon, in a North Korean propaganda film called Nameless Heroes.
Mr Jenkins met his wife, Hitomi Soga, in North Korea, as her English teacher. Mr Jenkins told the Japanese magazine they were drawn together by their mutual loneliness, and they married in 1980 - a union, he said, which brought them great happiness.
JAPAN'S MISSING
Snatched in the '70s and '80s
Used as cultural trainers for N Korean spies
Five allowed home in 2002
Five children now freed from N Korea
Eight said to be dead, others missing
No plaudits for Koizumi
Heartbreak over missing
Ms Soga has since written a letter to Mr Hyman saying that Mr Jenkins "was a caring husband and a loving father, and... always put others before himself".
This domestic contentment was shattered in October 2002, when the Japanese Government arranged for Ms Soga, and four other kidnap victims, to visit their home country for the first time since their abduction in 1978.
Mr Jenkins said he had only learned the truth of his wife's history two weeks before.
The homecoming was supposed to be brief, but Tokyo never allowed the five to return, and went on to campaign for their families to join them.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi succeeded in bringing about that reunion for the families of four of the abductees last week, after talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
But he failed to persuade Mr Jenkins, and the couple's teenage daughters, Belinda and Mika, to come to Japan too.
The Pentagon has charged Mr Jenkins with desertion and five other related charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Lieutenant Commander Flex Plexico told the BBC that the alleged letters and propaganda broadcasts amounted to "pretty strong evidence".
Mr Jenkins and his daughters have not seen Hitomi for 20 months
Media reports say Mr Jenkins could face up to five years in jail if convicted. Lieutenant Plexico would not be drawn on possible penalties.
"It all depends upon a lot of circumstances and what arrangements are made in advance. There's too many variables to give an honest answer," he said.
Tokyo has pledged to lobby Washington to pardon Mr Jenkins, but the US Government has not given any indication that it will listen.
Mr Hyman said he had made it his life's work to help his uncle, and was confident he would eventually be cleared.
"The lawyer that I'm talking with (says) it's very probable.
"He has done numerous presidential pardonings and he says this is very do-able... it's too many unanswered questions."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3753967.stm
--------------------------------
I'd be inclined to pardon him.
He must be the only Westerner thats spent the last 35 years in that whacky country and the insight he could provide must be pretty unique and would never be repeated.
Any book by him would make interesting reading.
[This message was edited by eek on May 31, 2004 at 09:59 PM.]
By Sarah Buckley
BBC News Online
The last person you might expect to find in North Korea is an American soldier, especially one who has chosen to stay there voluntarily.
But Charles Robert Jenkins has been in the isolated North since 1965. When offered a ticket to Tokyo by visiting Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi last week, he refused.
No-one knows for sure how Mr Jenkins arrived in North Korea
He desperately wants to be reunited with his Japanese wife, who returned to her homeland in 2002 after Pyongyang admitted kidnapping her and several others in the 1970s.
But if he joined her, he would risk arrest by the US military, which accuses him of desertion.
The 62-year-old American GI disappeared from duty on 5 January 1965, when he was serving in South Korea to help guard the armistice which ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
He was leading a patrol near the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), when he told his platoon he was going to investigate a noise. He never came back.
Days later, his arrival in North Korea was broadcast over the loudspeakers on the DMZ, according to Nobuharu Kumada, a Japanese man who says he served with Mr Jenkins.
It's too many unanswered questions
Charles Jenkins' nephew, James Hyman
The US military has said Mr Jenkins left behind four notes which stated his intention to defect.
"I am sorry for the trouble I will cause you. I know what I have to do. I am going to North Korea. Tell family I love them very much. Love, Charles," one of the notes, allegedly left near his footlocker, is reported to have said.
But James Hyman, a nephew in North Carolina, said that the military has no hard evidence of his uncle's supposed defection, and believes instead he was kidnapped.
He pointed out that the army lost the original copies of the notes.
"Of course they weren't able to be found. There were no four letters," he told BBC News Online.
The separation has been tough on his wife, Hitomi Soga
[The quoted note] "was signed 'Love, Charles,' and the family didn't know him as Charles. They knew him as Robert or 'Super'," Mr Hyman said.
He said his uncle was a loyal serviceman who would not have deserted.
"Every time I saw him he always had his uniform on," Mr Hyman, who was four years old when he last saw Mr Jenkins.
Life in the North
The only person who knows the truth is Mr Jenkins himself, and he has given very few media interviews.
He told a Japanese magazine in 2002 that he was living happily in North Korea, and thanked the country's leader Kim Jong-il for his good treatment.
But it is difficult to ascertain how far Mr Jenkins' comments reflect the truth in a country which operates close surveillance and does not tolerate disloyalty.
North Korea's propensity for disinformation could also explain the incriminating radio broadcasts, and his appearance, according to the Pentagon, in a North Korean propaganda film called Nameless Heroes.
Mr Jenkins met his wife, Hitomi Soga, in North Korea, as her English teacher. Mr Jenkins told the Japanese magazine they were drawn together by their mutual loneliness, and they married in 1980 - a union, he said, which brought them great happiness.
JAPAN'S MISSING
Snatched in the '70s and '80s
Used as cultural trainers for N Korean spies
Five allowed home in 2002
Five children now freed from N Korea
Eight said to be dead, others missing
No plaudits for Koizumi
Heartbreak over missing
Ms Soga has since written a letter to Mr Hyman saying that Mr Jenkins "was a caring husband and a loving father, and... always put others before himself".
This domestic contentment was shattered in October 2002, when the Japanese Government arranged for Ms Soga, and four other kidnap victims, to visit their home country for the first time since their abduction in 1978.
Mr Jenkins said he had only learned the truth of his wife's history two weeks before.
The homecoming was supposed to be brief, but Tokyo never allowed the five to return, and went on to campaign for their families to join them.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi succeeded in bringing about that reunion for the families of four of the abductees last week, after talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
But he failed to persuade Mr Jenkins, and the couple's teenage daughters, Belinda and Mika, to come to Japan too.
The Pentagon has charged Mr Jenkins with desertion and five other related charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Lieutenant Commander Flex Plexico told the BBC that the alleged letters and propaganda broadcasts amounted to "pretty strong evidence".
Mr Jenkins and his daughters have not seen Hitomi for 20 months
Media reports say Mr Jenkins could face up to five years in jail if convicted. Lieutenant Plexico would not be drawn on possible penalties.
"It all depends upon a lot of circumstances and what arrangements are made in advance. There's too many variables to give an honest answer," he said.
Tokyo has pledged to lobby Washington to pardon Mr Jenkins, but the US Government has not given any indication that it will listen.
Mr Hyman said he had made it his life's work to help his uncle, and was confident he would eventually be cleared.
"The lawyer that I'm talking with (says) it's very probable.
"He has done numerous presidential pardonings and he says this is very do-able... it's too many unanswered questions."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3753967.stm
--------------------------------
I'd be inclined to pardon him.
He must be the only Westerner thats spent the last 35 years in that whacky country and the insight he could provide must be pretty unique and would never be repeated.
Any book by him would make interesting reading.
[This message was edited by eek on May 31, 2004 at 09:59 PM.]
