U.S. deserter receives 30-day sentence

CAMP ZAMA, Japan – Charles Robert Jenkins, the former U.S. soldier who deserted to North Korea, was given a 30-day jail sentence Wednesday by a military judge after testifying about four decades of harrowing conditions in the communist regime that were widely conceded to be worse than a prison term.

The 64-year-old Jenkins, who burst into tears frequently during his court-martial at this U.S. military camp near Tokyo, said he was kept in conditions of near-starvation and that the North Koreans removed the U.S. Army tattoo from his forearm with scissors – and without anesthesia.

Jenkins and three other former soldiers lived in a one-room house without electricity or water. They spent their time memorizing – and reciting in Korean – the propaganda of North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung. They were watched constantly by minders and were sometimes forced to beat one another.

“North Korea is led by a man who is evil; evil to his bones,” said Jenkins through his court-appointed attorney, James Culp, of the current leader Kim Jong Il. And he struck a patriotic tone in an appeal for leniency, declaring: “I still love the United States.”

After the hearing, Jenkins was whisked to a pretrial detention center at Yokosuka naval base, south of Tokyo, where he will serve his brief prison term.

“It’s not Club Med, but it’s not a hard labor camp either,” said Capt. King Dietrich, the base commander. “He’ll probably be eating better” than in North Korea.

Many in the Pentagon had wished for Jenkins to receive a harsher sentence, but Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s government pushed for leniency so that Jenkins could be reunited with his wife, Hitomi Soga, who had been abducted to North Korea in 1978 and was released two years ago.

In a deal reached in advance of Wednesday’s court-martial, Jenkins agreed to plead guilty to charges of desertion and aiding the enemy in return for only a token appearance in a prison. The military judge, Col. Denise Vowell, who was flown to Japan from Arlington, Va., agreed after hearing the evidence that Jenkins was entitled to clemency.

Under military procedure, it is possible that Jenkins will be released before he serves out his full 30 days. At the end of the term, he will be dishonorably discharged and lose all possibility of receiving military benefits.

Dressed in his U.S. military uniform, Jenkins spent the day in a wood-paneled courtroom, at times testifying in a deep North Carolina drawl, and at other times, having his attorney read a statement.

Offering his first explanation of his desertion on Jan. 5, 1965, Jenkins said he had been depressed and fearful about his service at the demilitarized zone and about the prospect of going to Vietnam. Drinking heavily at the time, he mistakenly believed if he escaped to North Korea, he would be able to find his way back home to North Carolina.

His testimony was as revealing about life in North Korea as it was about himself and some of it was surprisingly comical, especially when it came to the antics of the four American deserters living in North Korea.

In 1966, Jenkins said that the four evaded their minders and went to the Soviet Embassy in Pyongyang, the capital, to request political asylum. They were admitted by the North Korean guards who thought they were Russian, but then promptly kicked out when they were discovered to be Americans.

“I don’t know why they didn’t shoot us. … We longed to leave that place so much that every day we began to take chances. We hoped that we would get caught and that would be the end,” Jenkins said.

On another occasion, Jenkins and the others discovered a stash of tape recorders and microphones in their house that their North Korean minder was using to record their conversations.

One of the group, Jerry Parish, buried the equipment outside the house, telling the minder that he would return it only if he were allowed to go to Pyongyang to buy a bottle of wine. Fearful of getting in trouble himself, the North Korean relented.

The Americans were held virtually incommunicado, unable to write to their families, listen to anything other than official North Korean radio – although Jenkins secretly tuned to BBC and Voice of America. Life improved for Jenkins in 1980 when he was moved to his own home in Pyongyang and introduced to Soga, a Japanese national, who 38 days later would become his wife.