Japan's garbage Lil' Kim's treasure

[Mike Oxlong]

Houston Chronicle
March 12, 2005, 6:09PM

North Koreans could be cut off from Japan's garbage
A trade in junk is imperiled by the issue of abductees
By BRUCE WALLACE
Los Angeles Times

SAKAIMINATO, JAPAN - It's the last chance for these old bikes. Bent and abandoned by their owners, they are being piled aboard boats in this western Japanese port, a tangle of spokes and handlebars rescued from the scrap heap.

Their unlikely saviors are North Koreans. For the last 20 years, fishing boats from the secretive communist country have made the overnight run across the sea separating the two countries, chugging into Sakaiminato and a few other Japanese ports to swap cargos of crab and clams for anything that might have value back home.

These days, that means even Japanese garbage. Broken refrigerators and old kerosene stoves. Blackened bananas. Busted cassette players.

It is a scratchy trade from the Japanese perspective, though all that shellfish coming into Japan and all those tired goods going to North Korea add up to $160 million a year, according to official figures. But now Tokyo is trying to choke off the flow as punishment for what it says is North Korea's implausible explanation of what happened to at least eight Japanese citizens kidnapped by Pyongyang's agents in the 1970s and '80s.

The issue of the abductees is an emotional one in Japan, with polls showing as much as three-quarters of the public in favor of using economic sanctions to force North Korea to reveal the fate of the victims. (North Korea says they are dead, but Japan lists them as missing.) The United States and other countries are urging Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to avoid antagonizing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il as they try to persuade him to give up his nuclear weapons program.

Koizumi has tried to ease the domestic pressure for action against North Korea by backing new regulations that will curtail boat traffic between the countries. Last week, Japan began requiring all boats weighing more than 100 tons to carry expensive insurance against oil spills and other environmental damage.

The regulations do not single out North Korea by name, but they affect many of the North Korean fishing vessels that dock in Japan, of which less than 3 percent have carried insurance. Japanese lawmakers have made it clear that the new requirements are aimed at cutting off the flow of used consumer goods to North Korea.

The North Koreans are aware that the measure targets them. Last week, the government issued a statement warning of "counteraction" if Japan went ahead with any tough steps to restrict their trade.

Caught in the middle are Japanese ports such as Sakaiminato in Tottori prefecture. Tottori's politicians and businessmen have worked to cultivate links with North Korea, which is a short journey across the water but a long slog when it comes to building trust, given Pyongyang's suspicion of outsiders.

Hardest hit will be the crab canning industry, which employs about 2,000 people and relies on North Korea for half the crabs it processes.

Yoshihiro Katayama, Tottori's governor, has built a career trying to open communication and trade with North Korea. He is lobbying Tokyo for compensation for local businesses hurt by the new rules.