Jenkins Soga reunion at hotel
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
- (9 Jul 2004) SHOTLIST
1. Charles Jenkins, his wife Hitomi Soga and their daughters Mika and Belinda welcomed into lobby
2. Soga and their daughters Mika and Belinda are handed flowers
3. Photo opportunity of family
4. Family leaves lobby
STORYLINE
An American who allegedly deserted his Army unit 40 years ago to defect to North Korea arrived in Indonesia with his two daughters on Friday and was reunited with his Japanese wife.
Charles Jenkins and his daughters arrived at Jakarta's Sukarno-Hatta International Airport on a plane sent to North Korea by the Japanese government.
He was met by his wife, Hitomi Soga, said Yugi Hamada, a Japanese diplomat.
The family posed for photographs before boarding a bus and heading to the Intercontinental Hotel in Jakarta's business district.
At the hotel, the family was welcomed by a mixture of hotel guests, diplomats, Japanese friends and citizens, as well as hundreds of journalists.
Soga and her daughters Mika, 21 and Belinda, 18, were presented with flowers on arrival.
Soga was abducted by spies and taken to the North in 1978 and then repatriated to Japan nearly two years ago.
Earlier, a North Korean TV broadcast in Japan showed Jenkins and his daughters before departure wearing North Korean flag pins.
He smoked a Marlboro cigarette, a luxury item in the impoverished state.
A statement released by the Japanese embassy, which organised the reunion and strictly limited access to the family, said Soga had commented that her two teenage daughters "appeared more fashionable now because they are wearing earrings."
Jenkins was serving in a US-army unit based on the Demilitarised Zone between the two Koreas when he disappeared during a routine patrol in 1965.
He met and married Soga in 1980 in Pyongyang.
Soga spent nearly a quarter-century in North Korea, before leader Kim Jong Il agreed with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi two years ago to allow her and four other kidnap victims to return home.
The US government still considers Jenkins to be a military deserter, and the 64-year-old has refused to be reunited with his wife in Japan because of the possibility he could be extradited to stand trial in the United States.
Indonesia, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, was picked as the venue for the reunion after Washington rebuffed Tokyo's requests that it refrain from prosecuting Jenkins.
Soga arrived on a commercial flight at Jakarta's international airport on Thursday, and a police escort accompanied her to a hotel. Before boarding her flight in Japan, she said she was happy.
It was unclear what would happen next for the family. There are reports they will stay in Indonesia to celebrate their youngest daughter's birthday.
Soga has said she will try to persuade her husband to join her in Japan, but he is reportedly still afraid of facing legal action by the United States and wants to return to North Korea.
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日本の報道陣の怒鳴る声が情けなくなる
I followed all this story as was happening. It touched my heart.
おめでとう以外に思いつく言葉はない
悔しいけど西洋人は愛という概念が
ありますね❤
ne arasam bu kanaldan cikiyor aq
I hate to say it, but he got treated better than many black americans get treated when they are unjustly sentenced to prison. they don't get to have a wife and kids and etc...
True. But well, this story had a happy ending.
That is such a stupid bitter comparison. You must be a really angry hateful person
@@johnLennon255 Not exactly. His time in North Korea was horrible for him but as an American defector he got a ton of privileges that most North Korean civilians don't even get. It was a gilded cage. At one point he played a villain in a North Korean movie, which he had to be beaten into doing by fellow defector James Joseph Dresnok. There are some ways in which his situation was worse than the American prison system but overall the bad stuff was the same and the good stuff was way better. It's a nuanced situation.
@@morganalabeille5004 lmfao have you ever been in an American jail let alone prison?
All Americans are White.
The irony of this situation with "Americans" who defected to North Korea is, they were all "white" males & registered republicans who realized the world was a bit too large for them.
Let's try to summarize the actions of the nation they defected to:
North Korea
- Had killed and, in many cases, buried American soldiers alive during the Korean War.
- Kidnaped multiple Asian women & men to become slave labor (to include sex).
- Systematically ran criminal operations from their embassies in the then Warsaw Pact allied nations.
- Killed & terrorized the citizens of South Korea (from 1953 to present day).
The last idiot (Joseph T. White) to defect in 1982 didn't fare too well. There are conflicting stories surrounding his death (he reportedly drowned in a river near a village located near the Russian border, prior to which he had previously suffered a epileptic seizure that had left him paralyzed?!?). The fool also caused his then girlfriend, a citizen of South Korea, to go to prison because of her association to him. Worst of all, he gave the known enemy defense material
Yes, all of these defectors share a number of things in common. One key thing is that they forgot their oaths of allegiance to the Constitution, something republicans are good at. No sympathy for the scum.