Mr. Savoie is a Japanese citizen, and therefor technically not an American citizen. He swore under oath that he would give up any other citizenship upon becoming Japanese. Why would he ask the US government for help? Why is this issue not brought up?
It looks like he wants everything to his convenience. His kids and new wife, and help from America when he needs it.

The G7 is mentioned. Take a look and you will see that Japan is the only Asian country in this group. It is not fair to ask them to share the same family values as western states, or to adapt to the western states in this issue. We also need to respect other country's values and why they do not want to sign the Hague convention.

And anyways, the Savoie case imho does not qualify to be an example case why Japan should sign the convention. Savoie himself did too much scheming and lying beforehand to make this a clear case of child abduction.

This is the first article I've read by Mr. Rogin and I hope it does not typify his work. A very little research on who he is shows him to be a well connected Washington correspondent, one might even say an insider who gets information by not rocking the boat and going to press with propaganda rather than news. Prior to this research I had the expectation that such is what I would find, though I try not to let my prejudices predetermine my results and hope that my bias here, as the parent of an abducted child, has not led me astray but rather has informed my understanding of this situation. In reading this article several things struck me as wrong and several as absurd. The intro says:

"...the U.S. government has been quietly working on a parental-custody case that has become an irritant in the budding relationship between the new Japanese and American administrations.."

Quietly working seems an apt enough way to describe it. So quietly one might think they are doing nothing. Calling the case an irritant to diplomatic relations is, however, particularly salient. State views all international child abductions as diplomatic irritants rather than human or children's rights issues.

Several other interesting snippets which I'll address all at once are:

"State Department officials have been intimately involved in the Savoie case, even before Savoie traveled to Japan.."

"three State Department officials detailed the extensive set of interactions between the U.S. government and Savoie and the ongoing efforts to advocate for him and the dozens of other Americans fighting custody battles in Japan."

"State Department officials advised Savoie that because a U.S. court had awarded him sole custody on Aug. 17, he could apply for new passports for the children if he could get them to the Fukuoka consulate."

"U.S. consular officials met with Savoie the next day, gave him legal advice... State Department officials have brought up the Savoie case "at the highest levels" of their interactions with Japanese officials.. but to no avail."

Quotes such as these paint a very unrealistic and false picture of how much US diplomats, particularly in the State Dept, are willing to do on behalf of the parents of children abducted to foreign countries. It is their own written policy to "not give legal advice", "aid in 're-abductions'" or "take sides in 'custody disputes.'" All of these policies demonstrate the absurdity of the statement that they are "advocating" on behalf of this father or the children. The very unfortunate reality is that State Dept. officials do next to nothing in these cases and their very existence generally does more harm than good as it creates the unrealistic expectation that there is an organisation that is supporting parents of internationally abducted children -- Just like this article. In closing there is a conflicting account of how Mr. Savoie came to be arrested that's been posted by US Commander Toland the father of yet another kidnapped American child:

"A first-hand witness to Chris Savoie's arrest told me personally that Chris had worked out the details in advance with the Embassy in Tokyo, and that Chris had called 30 minutes ahead of time to the Consulate in Fukuoka, and they assured him that they would let him in as soon as he arrived. However, when he arrived at the consulate with his children, they blocked his entrance, and left him standing out on the steps of the consulate for 10 full minutes until the Japanese police arrived and dragged him away. Now he is in Japanese jail, where he is being housed with violent criminals and subjected to what the Bush administration used to call "enhanced interrogation techniques" and what our current adminstration called "torture".

The witness told me that he took photos but they were taken away by the Japanese police. By the way, this all transpired on the steps of the US Consulate, which are monitored 24/7 by video, but we haven't seen that video either. Secretary Clinton has been silent through all of this. The State Department has not even condemned Chris' arrest and demanded his release. All they have said is that they visited him in Jail.

I have been assured by State that they would do the same to me, and leave hang me out to dry like they hung Chris out to dry, so my options are few, but whatever I do here will be reasoned and approved by my legal consul. However, with our own State Department opting to protect Japan's ability to sell Sony TVs and Toyota Camry's at the expense of American Citizen rights, I think this problem may never be solved."

As an intelligent parent that has dedicated the last 16 months of his life to recovering a son from Mexico, studying cases like these and working with the State Dept, it is Commander Toland's version that rings true to me, not that of the Washington insider.

In the Hatoyama interview you link to, it states:

"JTH: Are there any reforms to the criminal justice code planned?
YH: We support the video and audio recording of all police interrogations to assure that confessions are not gained through force or intimidation. In this is the predisposition of evidence over confession in criminal proceedings."

In all the press coverage of the Savoie case, I haven't seen any concerns raised about Japan's Daiyo-Kangoku system, which allows the police to hold a suspect for up to 23 days without filing charges.

The U.S. has lost a lot of credibility on the issue of confessions and interrogation, but I still hope the State Department is doing what it can on this issue.

I hope that the U.S. authorities can also look at the circumstances by which the divorce was started in Tennessee only two days after the children arrived there, after living all or most of their lives in Japan.

This case is very different from other cases. The Japanese mother has been treated unfairly, and not judged as an individual human being, because of the fears of the father arising from legal and cultural differences that are not her responsibility. It is not at all clear she was fairly advised of what to expect in Tennessee.

I'm not saying the Tennessee court treated her unfairly. The problem was that she faced questioning and restrictions based on what other Japanese women had done, and based on differences in Japanese law and culture that were not in her power to change.

The father chose to marry into Japanese law and culture, and it appears to have treated him well. It's not clear the mother really freely chose to divorce into Tennessee law and culture, and understood what that would mean. That's why she was treated unfairly.

Visitation by fathers is not impossible in Japan, and a lot can be done by private agreement. These agreements are just hard to enforce. He didn't want that, which is understandable, but did it really justify the use of Tennessee courts in this case?

I don't think that even now we have reason to believe that the mother was not being truthful when she said in March: "I have never thought about taking [the] children away from their father, never." It was always assumed that she would, which is why she had to divorce in Tennessee in the first place.

I hope that the father can be shown leniency without sending a message that self-help by foreign fathers is acceptable. I also hope the mother can be shown leniency, in light of the circumstances, without sending a message that Japanese mothers can ignore foreign custody orders.
If this case is being discussed at the highest levels, there should be a way to do that.

The kids will benefit from their mother being able to travel to the United States with the children and their father being able to travel to Japan to see the children when they are there.

It seems that Japan is set to make real progress on this issue under the Hatoyama government. If that change happens, these children will suffer for the rest of their lives because their parents divorced a few years too soon. I hope there is a way for our two countries to resolve this problem not just for children of future divorces, but for these children.

Screaming "abduction," especially in this case, and vilifying Japan and this mother won't help.

I may seem naive, but what was naive, and dangerous for the children, was assuming that force of law could be gained by moving a Japanese divorce to Tennessee. This caused the very harm the Hague Convention is designed to prevent.

The case is extensively discussed in English language blogs related to Japan. Surprisingly, the majority is pretty hostile to the father. This is despite the fact that within these circles, the legal difficulty in child custody case was well known and, previously, there was overwhelming consensus that Japan should sign up to the Hague Convention.

This guy damped his Japanese wife to rekindle his relationship with his high school sweetheart in America. He lured his wife and children to America so that he could use American court system to force them to stay. The wife and kids never lived in America before.

The Japanese public opinion I can gather from 2Chan is pretty hostile, not just against father who acted fairly dishonorably, but American media, who they think is giving biased coverage in favour of this American. If anything, this incident will turn Japanese public against the Hague Convention. The real losers in this case are Western fathers with legitimate grievance, who have lost their Western born and bred children to Japanese mothers. The unfairness of the original custody ruling is quit obvious to anyone who care to look bit deeper.

What people didn't realise previously was that the purpose of the Hague convention is not to enforce "fair" custody ruling. Rather, the purpose of the treaty is to enforce the original custody irrespective of the merit or fairness.

I should also think that there are reasons most Asian countries including Japan hasn't signed up to the Hague Convention. The initial divorce proceeding is likely to happen in the developed countries because that is where foreign nationals migrate into. Therefore, there are significant advantage for the developed countries to sign up to the Hague Convention, whose practical effect is to cause their jurisdiction to prevail over the jurisdiction of the less developed countries. In case of Japan, Japan is a developed countries but most common paring is Japanese woman and Western man, many of whom migrate to the West.

The plight of Mr. Savoie hit home like the cross-hairs in a sniper's scope. Some years back I recovered my seven-year-old son with the help of a specialist whose name was discreetly handed to me by a U. S. official intimately connected to my case. Even though Mexico was a new signatory to the Hague Convention Treaty, enforcement of the treaty by Mexico was an entirely separate issue. I had been a student of International Relations at the University of the Americas in Mexico when I met my son's mother. (My older brother Tom Fenton was a foreign correspondent with the AP as bureau chief in South America and Western Europe).

Wife and I married and relocated to California. Ten years later found us drifting apart though we unselfishly shared custody of our son. What transpired later was eerily similar to the Goldman case involving Brazil. My wife left with my son for a two-week routine holiday visit and declared that she would stay and raise our son in Mexico.

With my background in I. R. and U.S. Foreign Policy I should have been skeptical, yet I sunk all of my faith into a diplomatic solution. It was simply preposterous that our State Dept. with the cooperation of Mexico City was going remedy the issue of my son that many considered a family law matter with international implications.

Although of Anglo descent I speak fluent Spanish and have an intimate connection and understanding of Mexican culture. When the caseworkers at the State Dept. learned that I was fluent in Spanish, they gave me the direct line to the Mexican Central Authority in Mexico City. I developed a close connection with them and even traveled to Mexico City and put my face in front of the Mexican Central Authority Director and several of this staff members to personalize my efforts to recover my son. Our Mexican counterparts took a more personal interest in my case but the pick-up orders for my son were constantly frustrated by my wife's father who would come to the door where I believed my son to be, claiming not to know the whereabouts of my wife and son.

After nearly a year-and-a-half of custody of nothing more than a court order, a meticulous but rather risky recovery plan was engineered with the help of a reliable expert who had been recommended by the afore-mentioned official. A close contact had given me a location on my son. We were now going to rely on the ineffectiveness of the Hague Treaty to give a false sense of confidence to my wife and her father that I would be waiting for a Hague resolution. The risk now would be that because another pick-up attempt for my son was imminent, my wife's father would send my son to Mexico City to be hidden from authorities.

With a nervous american pilot, his plane, and a few hand-picked operatives, having dawned a disguise and lifting my son off a school van I was able to convince my son that I was his father and had come to take him home as he had pleaded when I last had contact with him. He no longer spoke English, a painful reminder of how critical time in an abduction will become. When he realized who I was and listened to my apology for taking so long to find him, he offered his complete determination to get us past the soldiers at the small airfield where the pilot and his plane waited for us.

While fuel calculations had determined just enough reserve to fly us under a decoy flight plan in a northern heading to Brownsville,TX, we flew three hundred miles with radio silence and the transponder turned off eliminating our radar signature. I was detained in Brownsville and separated from my son and interrogated by the FBI. The rescue had turned into an international incident and launched a two-nation manhunt.

Mexico City claimed we had fire automatic weapons at the school van, that I had high-jacked the airplane and that my son was Mexican born (all pure fiction). To make matters worse the FBI told me that they were sending my son back to Mexico with a Mexican consulate official now on scene--without even verifying my story. When I was finally able to persuade the FBI to make some calls to authorities in California I was released, but not before the Mexico City had already retained an attorney and convinced the DA in Brownsville to file kidnapping charges against me. The FBI told me that I better get on the next flight with my son out of Brownsville.

The Mexicans didn't let up. They had me served with a summons to appear in Federal Court in Mexico City. When I of course didn't comply they tried to have me prosecuted by the same office that had handled my case in California. Needless to say that the efforts by Mexico City were fruitless. My wife stayed in Mexico a fugitive and we were divorced in her absentia. She went on to try to sue the Mexican Central Authority while I resumed fatherhood as a single, yet proud parent.

I have heard arguments that Mr.Savoie's legal position with respect to his custody is invalid due to the fact that he had adopted Japanese citizenship. It should be pointed out that our courts make custody decisions based on place of "habitual residence." The children should be returned to their respective homes and then arguments heard regarding any motions for custody. Though, understandably the Japanese will have their own protocol with respect to the children's future.

I feel for Mr. Savoie and understand his motives. At what point do we as a mother or a father simply walk away from parenthood without putting up a fight. Where is the quality of life in anyone's future if the innocent entities that you are responsible for creating, nurturing and offering a future to only become fragmented memories at the hand of a purely self-interested parent.
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I have read that the American Embassy told Mr. Savoie to bring the children to the Embassy compound where he would find sanctuary and help getting his children back to the states. I find it difficult to comprehend that he would have been instructed to do so by any high-level authority from the Embassy. Coming details may disprove that claim. Our foreign service does not condone parental recoveries in any manner. Mr. Savoie was most likely acting (understandably) out of desperation with no other recourse. An emergency meeting was called after my recovery and the State Department publicly denounced my actions yet declared my case as a "resolved" Hague case.

Note of interest: A film producer signed me for a film option that generated two treatments, but I declined when the producer insisted on changing my character to a mother. A Texas paper later asked to use my journal for a three part series that compelled the editor to insist that I put the story into book format. In the development of the manuscript I casually mentioned the project to a client of mine who I knew was an airline pilot. He had been an F-4 pilot in Vietnam and knew the Cherokee Six aircraft that we used in the rescue of my son out of Veracruz, Mexico. He became fascinated with the story so I turned over a couple of aviation related chapters for technical contribution and he provided an overwhelming amount of aircraft specifications and first hand navigation data surrounding our escape flight. That was in March of 2008. Nine months later that pilot landed a lifeless A321 commercial jet on the Hudson River in New York saving 155 souls. His name is "Sully" Sullenberger.

Steve Fenton
Danville, CA
sfenton2008@aol.com