Return of five abductees from Pyongyang

The Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo

The scenes of hugging, broad grins and tears that played out at the foot of the plane ramp at Haneda airport Tuesday were most heart-warming. Yasushi Chimura held his father in a tight embrace and muttered something, their foreheads pressed together. Hitomi Soga dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, clasping her younger sister's hand.

Kaoru Hasuike, Yukiko Okudo and Fukie Hamamoto were also part of this teary scene.

Finally, 24 years after they were abducted by agents of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), a Japanese government charter plane managed to bring them home.

The five faced the media calmly. "I missed you so much," said one. "I caused you so much worry over many years," said another. "I am happy that my parents are looking so well," said yet another. The comments were terse, but the victims seemed to be expressing their deep feelings for their families.

Welcome home. Relax and enjoy every moment of your visit. One does not have to be family to genuinely mean this. What these people must have gone through is beyond our imagination.

For their families, the "24-year blank" must have been sheer torture. When we think of the length of that period, we cannot but gasp in horror at the cruelty of the North Korean system.

We must not forget, however, that those 24 years were anything but a "blank period" for the victims. From the moment they were seized and taken to North Korea, they must have lived every day in mortal fear of their lives.

Chimura and Hamamoto got married, and so did Hasuike and Okudo. Their children are now in university and junior high school. Soga married a former U.S. serviceman, and the couple have two daughters in university. All five were young when they were abducted, but are now middle-aged men and women.

We have only fragmented information about their lives in North Korea. With families of their own, uprooting themselves and changing their lives completely is probably far more difficult than we can imagine.

North Korea is a dictatorship where free speech does not exist. These five people have their loved ones waiting there. We have no idea how the latter are feeling now.

We hope the returnees will take their time to discuss their future with their Japanese families. The worst thing we could do would be to pressure them into making a quick decision or forcing our values on them. We just want them to relax and rediscover their roots at leisure. We intend to let them be and accept them warmly for who they are.

The abduction issue is certainly not resolved yet. These five people are not the only victims. As for those reported dead by Pyongyang, there is no solid proof, and the given causes and circumstances of their death are hardly credible.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi says the probe has only begun and must continue. This is obvious.

We insist the government remain firmly committed to getting to the bottom of the issue, and keep demanding a thorough explanation from North Korea at upcoming normalization talks.