Editorial

Demand justice in Anocha case

Few Thais were ever so terribly abused as Anocha Panjoy. It is even more heart-breaking that the fate of the Chiang Mai woman still is not known, almost 30 years after she was kidnapped. Her abductors were agents working for the North Korean government. The Pyongyang regime not only stonewalls requests for information, but abuses Ms Anocha's family and the Thai government for asking. Thanks to the persistence of the Panjoy family and similar victims' families in Japan, there is strong pressure on North Korea to do the only acceptable and civilised thing, and tell the full story of the abductions.

In 1978, Ms Anocha was an immigrant worker in Macao. One August morning of that year, she disappeared. Her family was distraught, as authorities in Bangkok, Macao and elsewhere made routine inquiries, but turned up no information. Record keeping in those days was primitive compared with today, which is why authorities in Singapore, Malaysia, China, Japan and South Korea failed to see a pattern of missing young women in the late 1970s. Indeed, only in the past two years has information emerged on the probable, horrifying fate of Ms Anocha and all the other young women who suddenly disappeared.

The main break in the case came with the decision by US Army defector Charles Jenkins to leave North Korea. Former Sgt Jenkins brought out a story that a group of young Asian women had been kidnapped to North Korea and forced to work for the Pyongyang intelligence services. Mr Jenkins himself married a Japanese victim of one of the most horrifying cases of human trafficking ever made public. He had at least one photograph of Ms Anocha. He believes she was forced to ''marry'' another American, but probably has died since then. If alive, Ms Anocha would celebrate only her 52nd birthday this year. Either she has suffered a death sentence or a life of incarceration.

This is a serious international incident for a number of reasons. The serious breach of international law and human rights are bad enough. North Korea used and abused the female abductees to teach professional intelligence agents how to act like people from other countries. North Koreans then assumed false identities to travel and to conduct terrorist activities. In 1987, a man and a woman pretending to be non-Korean Asian tourists planted a bomb that blew up a South Korean airliner off the coast of Thailand, killing all 115 innocent people aboard.

Japan is still largely alone among countries in relentlessly pursuing the cases. Since Mr Jenkins' revelations, Thai authorities have picked up the trail of Ms Anocha again. Pyongyang has merely sneered at their formal inquiries, despite the fact Thailand has sponsored North Korean diplomatic relations with the rest of Southeast Asia. Pyongyang once claimed it had no information about Ms Anocha or other Southeast Asian abductees. This is simply not credible.

Ms Anocha's family has never given up their pursuit for the truth about the young victim. They have allied with a victims' support group in Japan known starkly as the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea. This group has won strong backing from both the Japanese public and government, which in effect told North Korea it must come clean about the abductions before Japan can provide meaningful aid or normalise diplomatic relations. North Korea, in its typical blustering way, has reluctantly given up some details of those abductees who survived, but now has cut the information flow.

The Japanese families' group is to hold a meeting in Thailand in six months, unless North Korea has decided to come clean. The meeting will put pressure on both Pyongyang and Thai authorities. The government owes Thai citizens _ Ms Anocha's family in particular _ a hard stance in this case.

The story of Ms Anocha's abduction, and the part North Korea played, must be provided in full before Thai-North Korean relations can be expanded in any manner.

Bangkok Post

Monday April 09, 2007