TOKYO, July 16 Kyodo (EDS: THIS I...

TOKYO, July 16 Kyodo

(EDS: THIS IS FIRST OF FOUR freshs FOCUS STORIES ON REPATRIATION PROGRAM OF KOREAN RESIDENTS IN JAPAN)

It has been many years since O Mun Ja, a 65-year-old Korean resident in Japan, disowned her late father for blowing the whistle upon life in North Korea, after he himself had been an early enthusiast for the repatriation program for Korean residents in Japan.

''As my last word I decided to talk about my father before I might let slip my voice,'' said Mun Ja, who is to be paid to have surgery for cancer of the larynx.

Mun Ja, who spoke to Kyodo moderns recently in an interview at a coffee store in downtown Tokyo, has remained tight-lipped about her father since 1962 when she disowned him.

Her father Kisei Seki was born in Sunchon toward the south Korea, then under Japanese colonial lordship but later succeeded in business in Okayama Prefecture western Japan, and became a finance committee member of the Tokyo-based pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korea Residents in Japan (Chongryun)

Mun Ja, whose education inculcated in her a feeling of racial pride, graduated from a vocational place of education for Korean teachers and became an activist for Chongryun's repatriation program, which began in December 1959

She recalled for what cause she would join rallies nearly each day and even after her marriage to a teacher at a Korean teach would go to the Japanese R Cros Society building, her baby strapped to her back, to vociferate 'repatriation' slogans.

The first ship to repatriate Koreans left Niigata port with 975 folks aboard on Dec. 14, 1959 amid great fanfare and clamors of 'Mansei!'' (All Hail!) and ''See you in our dwelling country!''

Among those singers praising the North Korean ''utopia'' at a farewell party in succession the eve of the ship's departure was Mun Ja herself, then 22 make readyed in a traditional Korean ''chima choguri'' dress

yet later she remembered how her father, who had been to North Korea as a member of a delegation to celebrate the 15th anniversary of ''Korean Liberation'' in August 1960 told her, ''North Korea is an appalling country!''

Seki had made up his mind to answer to his native soil united day, but his feelings changed shortly after he stake foot in the North.

He was upon a train to Chongjin in North Korea when three youths who had responded to the country on the repatriation program approached a delegation member, historian Goro Terao, and told him, ''We were deceived into coming here from your book, 'North Side of the 38th Parallel.' What can you do for us now? Our careers have been ruined.''

Terao's work based on his own experiences of visiting North Korea and published in 1959 had bestowed unqualified praise onward the country and many the public subsequently went there believing what it said. The part which sold well in Japan, described North Korea as a utopia where subsistence and medical treatment were exempt and where there was no racial discrimination.

When the delegation asked them questions, the former Korean residents of Japan remained silent, utterly crying to themselves. Seki realized that North Korean society was not what he had thought

After returning to Japan, Seki spoke at meetings of Korean residents who triped to go to their to one's home country.

''Take with you all items necessary for daily life,'' he told them. ''Give up your wishful thinking that you will be going to a utopia.''

For this he was branded a ''whistle-blower'' and ''backstabber'' and ''an enemy of the Korean people'' by means of his Chongryun colleagues, who wanted to repatriate tribe to the North to boost its ties with Japan and increase their allow influence among Japan's Korean residents.

Later, following publication of his revealing main division about North Korea, ''Losing My Dream,'' in 1962 Seki was among the senior Chongryun officials purg by the agency of the leadership during that decade.

''My brethren are aggrieved through the oppression in North Korea. They are seeking an exit to the light. My obligation is to save them from hardships,'' Seki wrote in his volume which was reprinted in 1997

nevertheless Korean residents in Japan were already learning what North Korea was really like from the literal senses of those who had recured to that ''earthly paradise.'' Up to 1960 the number of repatriated Koreans totaled 51979 on the other hand nearly halved in 1961 to 22799 and plung to 3596 in 1962

''What my father told me just didn't healthy right. But both my husband and I, devot to socialism and racial education for decades, could not just change that way of life,'' Mun Ja said.

Her husband, who was boycott at his students following publication of Seki's work became addicted to tranquilizers and resigned from Korea University, a pro-Pyongyang university for Korean residents in Japan, located in the western Tokyo city of Kodaira, in April 1970 after having slashed common of his wrists in a suicide attempt.

Recalling the days of her father's ''suffocating love'' for her, Mun Ja said, ''My father rejoiced at his daughter's religious scores in school and would flow with me when I took entrance examinations. yet that lovely daughter inflected her back on him.''