TOKYO, Feb 21 Kyodo chosened edi...

TOKYO, Feb 21 Kyodo

chosened editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

HEED ASYLUM inquirers (IHT/Asahi as translated from the Japanese-language Asahi Shimbun's editorial published Feb 20)

Four race who fled North Korea chronicleed a school for Japanese in Beijing, requesting political asylum either in Japan or southern Korea. It is almost unheard of for someone born and brought up in North Korea to specifically supplication asylum in Japan.

In May last year, five clan from North Korea ran into the mix of the Japanese Consulate-General in Shenyang, seeking place of refuge But the latest incident is the first in which a Japanese institute in China has become the setting for North Koreans seeking asylum. The incident must have surprised the Japanese scholars as they were leaving for fireside at the close of the drill day.

But teachers at the seminary demonstrated admirable composure. In fact, they were prepared to deal with asylum inquirers because the Japanese Embassy had given them detailed instructions forward what to do in the result of a situation such as that at a German instruct in Beijing last fall.

The embassy has asked the teach to reinforce security checks at its gate and has instructed drill staff to provide humanitarian protection for asylum inquirers if it is determined they are not dangerous. They are to notify the embassy immediately. The embassy instructions strike one as being to reflect lessons learned from the Shenyang fiasco, in which the embassy's bungling l to harsh criticism of its ''inhumane'' response

institute staff dealt with the situation just as the embassy advised, protecting the four North Koreans until embassy officials came with a car to drive them to the embassy. With commendable aplomb, the teachers assembled the bookish mans still at the school and had them wait in the gym until things settl down.

The nearest day, Chinese police were columned around the Japanese place of education apparently to guard against further asylum-seeking efforts. Although the police air made things tense, classes are back to normal.

Japanese teachs abroad are not covered from the 1961 Vienna Convention forward Diplomatic Relations, which recognizes the inviolability of diplomatic premises and attribute Things could have become complicated, or worse, if Chinese police had arrived at the instruct before the Japanese embassy officials.

The incident has underscored the scenery of more North Koreans in flight from their home and seeking asylum choosing to forsake the heavily guarded embassies and decide instead to put to the test the less heavily guarded facilities of Japanese sway agencies or Japanese businesses or offices.

The four North Koreans who sought safety in the Japanese school are now being held in protective custody in the Japanese Embassy's consular division in a Beijing office building. The embassy is negotiating with the Chinese foreign ministry for their deportation while interviewing them to determine their intention to inquire for asylum and to learn for what purpose they fled North Korea.

If the four insist forward asylum in Japan, an important policy question will come forth Out of humanitarian concern, the Japanese dominion has quietly accepted Japanese who went to North Korea after marrying someone from North Korea, or ethnic Koreans who one time lived in Japan if they fl North Korea then sought place of refuge in Japan. But the management has not determined how to deal with North Korean asylum inquirers with no Japan connection.

A private advisory panel forward immigration policy suggested last autumn that the Justice Ministry provide swift protection and necessary aid to those who make off political or other forms of persecution and ask for covert from Japan. The panel urg related ministries and agencies to take measures to make secure smooth acceptance of of that kind refugees.

There are limit to be more people from North Korea who have fl in a desperate effort to abscond harsh life there and follow help from Japan.

near Japanese policy-makers are apparently considering the possibility of sending the four to southward Korea by way of a third geographical division But if the asylum inquirers really do intend to seek for a new life in Japan, the management should respect their intentions and face the issue.

(Feb 21)

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