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(News Focus) Pro-Pyongyang group in Japan faces financial crisis
By Sohn Suk-joo
SEOUL, June 19 (Yonhap) -- A pro-North Korean organization based in Japan teeters on the verge of bankruptcy after a Japanese court on Monday sanctioned the seizure of the premises of its headquarters due to its failure to repay its debts.
The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, better known as Chongryon, was founded in 1955 and has since acted as the representative organization of North Korea in Japan. The two nations have no diplomatic relations.
The group panicked at the court ruling, as the premises were the most likely candidate for North Korea's embassy in Japan when the two sides agree to normalize diplomatic ties. The talks have bogged down because of their dispute over the past and abduction issues.
North Korea and Japan have never established diplomatic relations since the North was founded in 1948. The major hurdle to their normalization negotiations was how much and in what terms Japan should pay for its colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945.
Japan's Resolution and Collection Corp. (RCC) is to start procedures to confiscate the organization's building and compound. RCC claims that the debt was part of nonperforming loans extended by 16 now-defunct credit unions associated with the group.
The RCC, which took over the nonperforming loans from the credit unions, claimed that Chongryon must pay 62.7 billion yen (US$508 million) since the money was purportedly handed over to Chongryon under an arrangement with the credit associations.
The court ruling comes as the embattled Chongryon has yet to ride out the shock after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il confessed in late 2002 that the communist country abducted 13 Japanese people to train spies in Japanese culture and language in the 1970s and 1980s.
"At that time, all Japanese Koreans were shocked. Chongryon has yet to find its way out because of fears and too much of a burden," an official of the organization said, asking to remain anonymous.
Kim's admission triggered a chain reaction of defections from the group. Now it claims about 80,000 members, although critics say about 30,000 are actively engaged in group activities. The membership pales in comparison with 420,000 in the 1970s.
The legal case also illustrated the decline of Chongryon's political power in Japan.
In connection with the lawsuit, the group employed well-connected lawyers, including the chief of Japan's association of lawyers.
In an effort to prevent the premises from being seized, Chongryon tried in vain to sell the head office for 3.5 billion yen ($28.4 million) to an investment advisory company headed by Shigetake Ogata, a former chief of the Public Security Intelligence Agency.
But the court said the deal should be declared null and void because the ownership changed hands without an actual financial transaction.
ssj@yna.co.kr
(END)
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