TOKYO (AFP) — Japan’s government said Oct. 6 it had approved 500,000 tons of rice aid for famine-struck North Korea, ignoring protests from families of Japanese allegedly kidnapped by North Korean spies.
The food aid was approved at a morning cabinet meeting, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa told a news conference.
“It is true that there is a big problem with North Korea’s food situation,” Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori told the cabinet meeting, according to Nakagawa.
The aid is considerably more than the 195,000 tons of rice requested from Japan by the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) last month.
The WFP has appealed to the international community for food aid worth 100 million dollars to help millions of people at risk of severe food shortages in North Korea, following a series of natural disasters.
Up to eight million people could be affected by the shortages, and the WFP estimates that 195,000 tons of extra food will have to be provided for vulnerable North Koreans in the next three months.
South Korea sent 20,000 tons of corn to North Korea on Oct. 5 and is preparing another shipment of 10,000 tons of Thai rice, as part of a deal struck with the crisis-stricken North this week for emergency food supplies.
But the families of 10 Japanese nationals allegedly kidnapped by North Korean agents since the 1960s accused the government of selling them out by agreeing to the aid.
Around 50 protesters, including six kidnap relatives, staged a sit-in protest outside the headquarters of Mori’s Liberal Democratic Party as the government deliberated on the North Korean aid.
“It is hard for me to accept that they are giving 500,000 tons. I am wondering whether these politicians are Japanese or in fact North Korean,” said Hatsui Hasuike, the 68-year-old mother of one abductee.
She said her second son Kaoru disappeared from his home in northern Japan in 1978, aged 21, while on his way to the local library. He is one of 10 victims reported by North Korean defectors.
“The United States helps its kidnapped out, but only Japan allows the kidnapped to die alone. Our politicians must think our children are no better than worms,” Hasuike said.
But Mori insisted his government had not disregarded the fate of the missing Japanese, who were allegedly abducted to train North Korean agents in local customs.
“It is true that the government is trying to do its utmost over the kidnapping issue,” the Prime Minister told the cabinet.
“But we want to confirm their whereabouts by realizing a normalization of ties (with North Korea), allowing them to meet their relatives and finally letting them return home,” Mori said.