< Koryo Saram in Sakhalin Russia.> Koreans left high and dry By Andrei Lankov /Asia Times In August 1945, Japan was defeated and Southern Sakhalin overnight became Soviet territory. Soon after the takeover, it became clear that the entire Japanese population - numbering some 380,000 - was to be expelled from the island by its new owners. At first, Koreans believed that they would also go home. Indeed, many of them assumed that the new Soviet administration would send Koreans first, since they were victims of Japanese imperialism, presumably eligible for preferential treatment. After fall of Japan, in 1946, a number of Korean families moved to Korsakov and other port cities of the islands southern coast. There were persistent rumors that ships would soon arrive to take them home, so they wanted to be first to board these ships. The ships never came. The Soviet policy in Sakhalin soon became clear: all Japanese were required to leave the island, but no Koreans were allowed to go. Currently available documents do not explain why this decision was made in 1945. However, by 1947, as the political division in Korea deepened, it became politically impossible for Moscow to send the Sakhalin Koreans back to their native villages in South Korea: a large-scale population transfer to the territories under control of a militantly anti-communist Seoul government would damage the international reputation of socialism. Hence, Koreans could only watch on as their Japanese neighbors went to repatriation camps and then boarded ships to Japan. Some Koreans tried to pass themselves off as Japanese, but the officials were good at distinguishing a Japanese from a Korean. The instructions made clear: no ethnic Koreans should be allowed to board the departing ships. In dealing with mixed families, the Soviets allowed Japanese spouses to leave, but without their Korean family members. At the same time, the Japanese spouses of ethnic Koreans were among the few Japanese who were allowed to stay in Sakhalin if they wished to. In 1952, the Japanese government formally deprived all ethnic Koreans of their Japanese citizenship - even though for all practical purposes both Soviet and Japanese governments since 1945 had treated Sakhalin Koreans as if they were not Japanese citizens. A vast majority of the Sakhalin Koreans found themselves in an unusual legal limbo; they had no citizenship whatsoever.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 17:49:10 +0000
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