The Forsaken People

Soviet officials describe it as a summertime wonderland of "heavenly fishing and coolness." To many of its 600,000 inhabitants, the island of Sakhalin, off the coast of Siberia, is better known for its frozen winters, when the temperature frequently drops to -- 22DEG F. For almost 7,000 Koreans, Sakhalin is something even worse: it is a kind of prison.

Perhaps the last refugees of World War II, the Koreans have been trying for 30 years to leave Sakhalin. "If I can't get back home soon," says one of them despairingly, "I will commit suicide."

Japan controlled the southern half of Sakhalin from 1905, when it took it as a trophy of its victory in the Russo-Japanese War, until 1945. During World War II the Koreans were installed in labor camps on the island to replace Japanese men conscripted into the imperial forces. When Russia took back the island at the end of the war--even though the Soviet Union had joined the battle against Japan only a week before the surrender --the Koreans were stranded. The half a million Japanese on the island were eventually repatriated, but the Korean refugees had no one to speak for them.

The U.S.S.R. did not recognize South Korea, and many of the workers did not want to return to Communist North Korea. The Russians, in addition, found it useful to keep the Koreans working, and they became what the Japanese call kimin (forsaken people).

About 2,000 Koreans have, in fact, got out of Sakhalin, and perhaps another 36,000 seem content to stay there. Because he was married to a Japanese woman, Park No Hak, 62, was able to leave the island in 1958, and he has made it his life's goal to bring the others out as well. "How could I forget Sakhalin?" he asks. "So many of my countrymen were languishing there, just as they are right now." Park believes since Japan forced the Koreans to go to Sakhalin in the first place, it is up to Tokyo to see that they get home.

"Zensho Shimasu." Park has formally petitioned the Japanese government 23 times to talk to the Soviets about the Koreans in Sakhalin. And 23 times Tokyo has responded "Zensho shimasu," or "We will act with prudence," a polite phrase the bureaucracy uses to brush off cranks and oddballs. Undaunted, Park has written endless letters to the stranded Koreans, using their replies to build an impressive dossier showing the indifference of governments.

Park's singleminded crusade has struck a chord of sympathy in both Japan and South Korea. About 500,000 South Koreans have formed an organization to campaign for the repatriation of their countrymen; Seoul now beams a radio program to the Sakhalinese Koreans with messages and greetings from relatives and friends at home. In Japan a similar association was formed by suburban Tokyo Housewife Rei Mihara.

Her explanation: "I was ashamed of myself in knowing that my government could have been so heartless."

More important, 18 Japanese lawyers have taken up the case. They have sued their own government to accept its long-term responsibility. They have in effect asked that Tokyo not only approach Moscow through diplomatic channels, but also pay for transporting the refugees back to South Korea. The case goes to trial next month in Tokyo, and the lawyers hope that they may finally goad the government into taking action. "Only when our government accepts the responsibility of shipping these people back home can it once again begin talking about human rights," says Hiroshi Izumi, one of the 18 representing the Korean refugees.

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