Charles Robert Jenkins

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Charles Robert Jenkins, 2007

Charles Robert Jenkins (* 18th February 1940 in Rich Square , North Carolina ; † 11. December 2017 in Sado , Japan ) was a former soldier of the United States . He lived in North Korea from 1965 to 2004 after deserting his unit and crossing the Korean demilitarized zone .

Military career and desertion

Jenkins joined the United States National Guard in 1955 . He was well below the required minimum age. In 1958 he switched to the regular armed forces in the army . There he served from 1960 to 1961 in the 1st Cavalry Division in South Korea . He was then posted to Europe for three years , where he was stationed in Butzbach , Germany, before being transferred back to South Korea in 1964.

In South Korea, Jenkins was assigned to the night patrol. Because he was afraid of being assigned to the troops fighting in Vietnam , he began to drink . After drinking ten beers one night, he and his men went on patrols along the demilitarized zone. In the early morning of January 5, 1965, he told his people that he wanted to investigate the cause of a noise. Then he crossed the border to North Korea and surrendered to the local armed forces in the hope of being extradited to the USA via the Soviet Union . Shortly afterwards, however, the North Korean propaganda declared that a US sergeant had defected. His alleged statements, formulated in stilted English, were published in newspapers and on the radio . According to the U.S. Forces , Jenkins wrote four original lost letters confirming his intention to defeat. However, throughout his stay in North Korea, his relatives believed that he had been abducted.

Stay in North Korea

For many years, no non-North Korean information was available on Jenkins. Jenkins said that he regretted his act almost immediately and had to pay for the act for 40 years. According to his own statement, he and three other US soldiers - James Joseph Dresnok , Larry Abshier and Jerry Wayne Perrish - were placed under house arrest in one-room houses without running water until 1972 . There they had to learn the Juche philosophy from Kim Il-sung , whereby they were forced through regular beatings to memorize large passages of the book in Korean . Jenkins managed to escape to the Soviet embassy in Pyongyang once in 1966 . However, his request for asylum was denied. After all, he was separated from his fellow prisoners and began at the Kim Il-sung University , English teaching. His heavy North Carolina accent, however, interfered with the government's concern to teach their spies good enough English so that they could go about their work in South Korea without any problems. After this inadequacy was noticed in the espionage operation, Jenkins was released from this activity.

Jenkins was introduced to the 21-year-old Japanese nurse Hitomi Soga in 1980 , who, along with her mother , had been kidnapped from Japan by North Korean agents . North Korea used such kidnapped people to train secret agents to work in Japan in the Japanese language and culture. Soga's mother has not been heard from since she was abducted, and Soga was made Jenkins' partner. Such arranged marriages were not uncommon in North Korea. North Korea brought Asians together with Europeans and Americans to produce ethnically mixed children who, in North Korean terms, were better suited to be spies. Because there are many people of multi-ethnic origin in South Korea, it was easy for such spies to pose as South Koreans. In North Korea, however, there are hardly any children from mixed marriages . Jenkins and Soga fell in love and were married 38 days later. The relationship resulted in two children: Roberta Mika Jenkins, born 1983, and Brinda Carol Jenkins, born 1985, also called Belinda by the English press. The other US deserters also married women abducted abroad over the years, Dresnok probably the Romanian Doina Bumbea .

The North Korean propaganda film series Nameless Heroes was the first evidence in 1982 that Jenkins was still alive. However, the US government did not make this fact known until 1996.

return

It was not until 2002 that Jenkins drew international attention again when North Korean leader Kim Jong-il officially confirmed the kidnapping of Japanese by North Korea. In order to ease the political situation in both states, all surviving abductees were allowed to travel back to Japan without their relatives, including Jenkins' wife. Initially, the length of stay in Japan was limited to one week. The Japanese government persuaded the visitors not to return to North Korea, while the government negotiated with their families in North Korea to come to Japan as well. Many families accepted the offer from the Japanese government. However, Jenkins refused, fearing that the North Korean leadership would test him for his loyalty . After receiving protection from the Japanese government, Jenkins traveled to Japan via Indonesia , where he received medical treatment, and arrived there on July 18, 2004. Japan officially applied for a pardon , but the US refused. To ease his conscience, Jenkins reported back in military form to the military police at the Japanese US base Camp Zama on September 11th .

On November 3, Jenkins pleaded guilty to desertion and enemy-favoring charges, but denied making treasonous or seditious statements. This objection was upheld and the relevant points deleted from the indictment. He was sentenced to 30 days' detention and a dishonorable release . He was given six days of detention for good conduct and was released on November 27, 2004.

Jenkins moved with his family to Sado Island in Japan, Soga's homeland. On June 14, 2005, he and his family traveled to the United States to visit his 91-year-old mother in North Carolina.

memoirs

Jenkins published a book in Japanese in October 2005 with the title 告白 ("Kokuhaku"; Eng .: "Telling the Truth"). In this book he reports on his experiences in North Korea. A translation into Korean was published in June 2006. In spring 2008, The Reluctant Communist was published in English . Jenkins wrote the book with Jim Frederick , the Time correspondent in Tokyo at the time .

literature

Web links

Commons : Charles Robert Jenkins  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Charles Jenkins: Lived 40 years in North Korea: US deserter Charles Jenkins dies at the age of 77 . Focus Online , December 12, 2017, accessed December 13, 2017.
  2. ↑ Jenkins / Frederick: The Reluctant Communist , p. 15.
  3. ↑ Jenkins / Frederick: The Reluctant Communist , p. 19.
  4. ↑ Jenkins / Frederick: The Reluctant Communist , p. 67.
personal data
SURNAME Jenkins, Charles Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American soldier
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Rich Square , North Carolina
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 2017
Place of death Sado , Japan