Opinion | Shinzo Abe and North Korea’s Kidnappers

Abe spent much of his life in politics working to get North Korea to acknowledge the Japanese it had kidnapped and reunite those still living with their families in Japan. He raised the issue as a backbench member of the Diet. He took part in the first Japan-North Korea summit in 2002, when then-Prime Minister

Junichiro Koizumi

negotiated the return of five Japanese kidnap victims. During his two terms as Prime Minister, he pressed the issue with successive American Presidents, encouraging them to meet with the families of Japanese abductees.

In his work to free the captives, Abe peered into the heart of darkness at the core of the Kim family regime that has ruled North Korea since before he was born. Some of the captives were forced to train North Korean spies to pass as Japanese nationals when carrying out terrorist operations abroad.

North Korea’s lies and evasions on the abduction issue taught the former Prime Minister not to trust the regime’s promises on its missile and nuclear programs. His experience with North Korea, which he saw as a major security threat, also fueled his commitment to bolstering his country’s self-defense capabilities.

North Korea has kidnapped citizens from at least a dozen countries, and a United Nations Commission found in 2014 that some victims are still imprisoned there. The late Prime Minister did the world a service by raising international awareness of Pyongyang’s abductions and exposing the evil nature of a regime that has little regard for human life. On the day he was assassinated he was wearing his blue memory pin.