Destiny : the secret operations of the Yodogō exiles

The Resource Destiny : the secret operations of the Yodogō exiles
Label
Destiny : the secret operations of the Yodogō exiles
Title remainder
the secret operations of the Yodogō exiles
Statement of responsibility
by Kōji Takazawa ; edited by Patricia G. Steinhoff with the translation assistance of Lina J. Terrell, Ryoko Yamamoto, Kazumi Higashikubo, Shinji Kojima, Eiko Saeki, Kazutoh Ishida, and Midori Ishida
Creator
Contributor
Author
Editor
Translator
Subject
Language
  • eng
  • jpn
  • eng
Summary
"In 1970, nine members of a Japanese New Left group called the Red Army Faction hijacked a domestic airliner to North Korea with dreams of acquiring the military training to bring about a revolution in Japan. The North Korean government accepted the hijackers-who became known in the media as the YodogM group, based on the name of the hijacked plane-and two years later they announced their conversion to juche, North Korea's new political ideology. Little was heard from the exiles until 1988, when a member of YodogM was unexpectedly arrested in Japan, and communications with the group opened up in the context of his trial. As a former Red Army Faction member, journalist KMji Takazawa made several trips to North Korea, re-established his ties to the group's leader Takamaro Tamiya, and helped to publish the group's writings in Japan. After Kim Il Sung revealed that YodogM members had Japanese wives, Takazawa published a book of interviews with the women, but in the process became suspicious about the romantic stories they told. He also wondered about the members who were missing, and learned more details in long, private conversations with Tamiya. After Tamiya's sudden death in 1995, Takazawa launched his own investigation of what the group had actually been doing for two decades, even traveling to Europe to follow traces there. An example of superb investigative journalism, Destiny: The Secret Operations of the YodogM Exiles offers KMji Takazawa's powerful story of how he exposed the YodogM group's involvement in the kidnapping and luring of several young Japanese to North Korea, as well as the truth behind their Japanese wives' presence in the country. Takazawa's careful research was validated in 2002, when the North Korean government publicly acknowledged it had kidnapped thirteen Japanese citizens during the 1970s and 1980s, including three people whom Takazawa had connected to the YodogM hijackers. Embedded in his pursuit toward what truly happened to the YodogM members is Takazawa's personal reflection of the 1970s, a decade when radical student activism swept Japan, and what it meant to those whose lives were forever changed" --
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Assigning source
From Amazon
Cataloging source
HU/DLC
Dewey number
322.4/20952
Illustrations
  • illustrations
  • maps
Index
index present
Language note
Translated from the Japanese
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
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