South Korean returns after 30 years of captivity in North
By BO-MI LIM - AP
SEOUL, South Korea - South Korean Ko Myung-sup was detained by the North after straying too close to the border and he spent the next 30 years doing forced labor on a chicken farm with so few birds that the workers had to eat tree bark.
But his return last month to his home and family in the South came at a high price: he had to bid farewell to his wife and children left behind. "Happiness was short-lived. Thinking about my beloved wife and kids I left
behind in the North, I am only sad with more despair," Ko, 62, said in his heavy North Korean accent at a seminar Friday hosted by the main opposition Grand National Party.
A key goal of the party is to this year push for bills aimed at accounting for South Korean detainees in the communist North and improving the welfare of their families in the South, said Rep. Kim Moon-soo, who organized the meeting.
The South Korean government estimates that more than 80,000 of its citizens were taken to the North against their will during the 1950-53 Korean War, and of nearly 4,000 more detained by the North since, 485 are still there.
However, the neighbors have made strides toward reconciliation since a historic summit between their leaders in 2000, and Seoul has largely kept quiet on the issue of abductees to avoid upsetting Pyongyang. Last month, the Red Cross societies of the Koreas failed to agree on the issues of prisoners of war and Southern abductees still alive in the North. Pyongyang denies holding any POWs and says civilians defected voluntarily. On Friday, Grand National Party Chairwoman Park Geun-hye called for the government to demand that the North return South Korean detainees. "We have provided much humanitarian assistance to North Korea," Park said. "We are entitled to make such a request to the North on humanitarian grounds."
Ko was one of 33 fishermen detained by North Korean soldiers in 1975 while catching squid near the sea border with the North. In March he escaped to China with the help of South Korean activists, and was finally reunited with his 84-year-old mother and younger brother and sister last month. In North Korea, Ko was forced to learn communist ideology and work at a chicken farm where only 100 birds were bred due to lack of feed. There was
never enough food, and many people at the farm survived on plant roots and tree bark, he said breathing heavily - a side effect of his malnutrition. Despite the extreme hardship and social discrimination against people from the South, it wasn't easy for Ko to flee the North, where he fell in love, got married and had two children. He said he first hoped just to meet his South Korean relatives in China to get some help and then return to the North.
"Who would understand the pain of another separation from family?" he asked. It took months for the activists and Ko's South Korean family to convince him to return - and the promised wealth and happiness in the South still
seemed difficult to achieve once he arrived. There is no social mechanism to specifically assist South Koreans who return after being detained in the North, and Ko is only eligible for one-time compensation of 10 million won (US$9,900; euro7,600) - the same amount that is given to North Korean defectors.
"I am not a defector. I am a citizen of South Korea who would have had the right to make a living under government protection and who had diligently carried out my duty the country asked of me," said Ko, who before his
capture served as a South Korean soldier in the Vietnam War. "I am in dire need of institutional help to live the rest of my life with hope."
Ko, who casts a feeble figure after his years of hardship, said he just wants to get past his grim memories in the North and get on with his new life.
"If only I could erase all of my memories of having to spend my whole youth in a prison without bars," he said.