Old soldiers meet tragic fate
Brian Lee - Joonjang KR
For Seoul, it's a sensitive issue. For families of former South Korean prisoners of war in North Korea who managed only in recent years to flee the Stalinist state and return home, it's a very special kind of separated family issue: Most of the long-time involuntary residents of North Korea had to leave wives and children behind in the north when they finally fled
south. 'It kills me when I think about them. I am free, but I know they might be suffering because of what I did,' said Kim Ki-jong, 71, who came to the South via China last March. Mr. Kim said he left behind his wife, three sons and two daughters. His wife and his youngest son might have made it to China, but their lives, if they are indeed there, are no more secure than they were in the North. China often repatriates escaped North Koreans to their homeland.
'Last year in December we received a call from a broker in China asking us to send some money. After consultations with government officials here we elected not to,' said Mr. Kim.
Mr. Kim was a member of the Capital Division, in charge of the defense of Seoul, when he was taken prisoner by Chinese troops in June 1952. After his capture, he was sent to South Hamgyeong province in North Korea until his escape. He says his primary job was as a coal miner, but he also did many other types of manual labor.
'We were drummed up for many other things such as road work and building construction work in the province. I was not allowed to move anywhere else. The mine was my home,' Mr. Kim said. 'I met my wife there. She told me her family had been purged because her father, who worked for the government, had criticized the Workers Party.'
He says his hope lies in a few words from a Defense Ministry official. 'He told me not to worry. He promised me that the government would try to bring back my family. Every day, I wait for that call.'
After the landmark 2000 inter-Korean summit, there have been 10 separated family reunions, but only 11 of the former South Korean prisoners of war have been allowed to meet their families, and the authorities in the North did not acknowledge their status as former prisoners. North Korea has been denying for half a century, since the armistice of July 1953, that it holds
any South Korean prisoners of war. It claims that all former South Korean soldiers in the North are there of their own free will. The Ministry of National Defense estimates that 538 POWs are still alive in North Korea. It has not make public a list of those people, but it has notified their family members here in the South, ministry officials say.
The treatment of those former POWs by Seoul has improved since 1999, when direct compensation and other financial support were increased. But before that law was passed, critics say, the former prisoners were given short shrift. Yang Sun-yong, for example, came to the South in December 1997. He received 64 million won ($61,000), a sum criticized as paltry for 44 years of forced labor in a hostile country. But now most former prisoners receive at least 120 million won, a 66-square-meter apartment and a pension. The compensation can be as much as 370 million won.
But because the North continues to stonewall on providing information about the prisoners of war still there and because Seoul's main priority is to re-start the stalled six-way talks to strip North Korea of its nuclear weapons program, the South Korean government is trying hard to keep the issue of escaped POWs' families in the North quiet. Colonel Moon Seong-woon
of the Defense Ministry said, 'We can't comment on the issue, but the government is collecting all the necessary information on them and we are trying to help them at this very moment.' He said security concerns and the safety of family members still in the North or China were also factors. Colonel Kim stressed that once these prisoners or family members make it to China, Seoul will act vigorously but discreetly.
The Defense Ministry has published a study that dealt with South Korean prisoners of war in North Korea. The ministry said in that paper that it was working on a solution.
'Raising the issue of these prisoners of war through international organizations will expose the inhuman measures taken by North Korea and put pressure on it to return the prisoners,' the report says, although no such efforts have yet been made.
Inside the military, some officers argue that the government needs to take a much stronger stance. 'I'm a soldier, and I think it's a shame our government does not pursue this issue more actively. What sort of message are we giving to our soldiers? For years we have tried methods that don't work for the sake of inter-Korean relations. How can we look into the eyes of these soldiers and tell them that we did everything possible to get them and their families back?' one military official said, asking that his name not be used.
An officer at the Defense Security Command said that there were times when the government did try a more active role in bringing back prisoners of war from the North. 'Until the early 1990s there was some involvement by the government. But then with new policies towards the North, that changed,' that officer said.
Civic organizations argue that the quiet approach employed by the government is not enough, and many of the aging former prisoners here will never see their families again.
'We are sending food and fertilizer to the North, but at this very moment somebody is suffering in a labor camp or in a mine. The government is ignoring those people and it's just very frustrating,' said Do Hui-yun, president of the Citizens Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees. 'Time is not on our side. We have to make this issue official and accelerate the process of returning these people home,' he added.
Nevertheless, defense officials argue that under the current circumstances they are doing the best they can. 'When you have someone who is denying the very existence of prisoners of war it's hard to tackle the problem,' said a ministry officer.
According to the ministry, 41 former South Korean soldiers, mostly in their 70s, have managed to return home since the return of First Lieutenant Cho Chang-ho in 1994. Since then, 10 relatives of these old soldiers have been reunited with their husbands and fathers in the South. But five of the 41 escapees have already died. 'I don't have much time left on my clock. I just
want to see them. That's all,' said Lee Sun-ok, 75, who has been living in the South since June. Mr. Lee, who worked at a mine since his capture in 1953, three days before the war ended, says he has a dozen relatives still in the North.