Humanity wins

The agreement reached by the Indonesian, Japanese, North Korean and American governments to allow Charles Robert Jenkins to meet wit his wife Hitomi Soga in Indonesia has touched not only the hearts of all Japanese, but many people across the globe who have followed the dramatic story of these two people.

Jenkins is an American soldier who deserted during the Korean War 39 years ago, while Soga was one of the Japanese women kidnapped by the North Korean government to train its spies in Japanese language and culture. Both were among the hundreds of millions of victims of Cold War political adventures, but love united them and gave them two children.

Their agony continued when Soga was allowed by the North Korean government to return to Japan two years ago. She wanted to go with her beloved husband and children, but Jenkins could not go to Japan given the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Japan. Under U.S. law, he is a criminal.

Until the Jakarta meeting, the Japanese government had tried to solve the problem politically, but to no avail. This is because the U.S. government sticks to the law. Anyway, the U.S. is a country where the law holds supremacy, something that the Americans are very proud of and which helps make the nation the champion of democracy.

History shows that the implementation of the law is sometimes painful and in conflict with humanitarian feelings, and governments most of the time do not much care about these consequences and stick to the law.

The Jenkins-Soga drama is a rare event in history where humanity has won out over the law, where the power of love has broken all the obstacles set up by governments.

All of the people of Japan are certainly very grateful to Indonesia for its efforts to make this reunion a reality.

YASUYUKI SATO Jakarta