[USFK Forums] Abductees to N.K. unhappy back home

[C. Y. Lee]

[Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Thursday, October 20, 2005] The Korea Herald's article published in morning is uploaded:

Abductees to N.K. unhappy back home

Thursday, October 20, 2005

After being abducted by North Korean agents in 1967 while fishing in the Yellow Sea, Jin Jung-pals abiding hope during his 34 years in the North was that he would eventually learn the fate of his family in the South.

Jin, now 65, hadnt planned to escape from the Stalinist state, but was gradually convinced he could have a better life in the South with the family from which he had been forcibly separated.

He returned to the South on Oct. 30, 2001 and now lives in Busan. His new hope is to see his wife, two sons and two daughters whom he left behind in the North.

During the last four years, his dream of finding happiness in the South has started to fade because of the South Korean governments indifference towards him and hundreds of its citizens abducted by the North. Jin is one of four abductees by North Korea who returned to their home nation independently.


A total of 485 South Korean citizens, most of them fishermen, captured by the North since the 1950-53 Korean War are believed to be alive, but the government has made little effort to bring any of these people back and neglected the four who have returned.

I might as well just starve to death in North Korea, Jin told The Korea Herald. There is no better life here.

Jin said he was delighted to be reunited and live with his two sisters, wife and three sons who waited 34 years for him in the South, but miserable when he thinks of the wife and four children he had to abandon in the North.

Expressing his frustration and suffering about living on the divided peninsula, Jin said he honestly regrets coming back home.

I know they (his family in North Korea) are starving right now, Jin said. And there is nothing I can do about it.

Even when referring to the Norths food crisis, Jin said life in the South isnt so lovely either.

Its not like I can get a job here at my age or receive government subsidies to support the family I abandoned for over 30 years, Jin said. I disappeared when my sons were very young. I dont make money. I couldnt and cant be a normal father to them.

Lee Jae-geun, 67, another South Korean fisherman who escaped from North Korea with his wife and son after three decades of detention in North Korea, said that Pyongyang encouraged and arranged marriages for South Koreans in order to get them to settle down in the North and stop them wanting to return home.

For the 30 years I lived in North Korea, I only thought about coming back home, said Lee, who now lives in Seoul. I didnt think I deserved to die there. So I refused to get married many times until I met my wife, whose father was from the South.

Lee said his wife was very supportive of his desire to repatriate and they decided to escape from the North together. Lee and his family fled to China in 1998 when Pyongyang could no longer maintain five or six inspectors assigned to watch Lee due to food shortages.

Lee and his family stayed in China for two years before they flew into Seoul in July 2000.

However, the hardship keeps putting Lee into difficult positions.

Sitting in his office in Seoul at the NGO that helps North Korean defectors, Lee appeared strained by the threatening phone calls and e-mails he receives, apparently from North Korean spies.

They deliver messages like we are watching you or we are right next to you. Lee said. Then they say things like if youre not careful about what you say, things will get ugly.

Lee said he couldnt eat well recently because he is afraid of attacks from the North.

You never know if theyre going to show up to put a knife in me, for example, he said. But I want to believe that wont happen due to the recent warmed relations between South and North Korea.

Choi Sung-yong, Seouls top activist who has helped to bring four abductees back from North Korea, is also allegedly being targeted by North Korean agents for his outspoken views.

Choi, whose father was kidnapped to North Korea aboard a fishing boat in 1967, has sought the return of compatriots abducted by Pyongyang.

Choi has urged his government to put more effort into bringing back abductees and prisoners of war. He was disappointed earlier this month over his governments repatriation of the body of an ex-North Korean spy, Chung Soon-taek, a day after his death.

In September 2000, Seoul sent back 63 former North Korean spies who wanted to go home following an agreement between the leaders of the two Koreas during their first summit earlier that year.

Chung died of cancer at the age of 84, and his body was then handed over at Pyongyangs request.

Of course, Chungs body shouldve been sent to the North. I have nothing against that, Choi said. But why cant our government bring back its own people?

Chung was one of 29 former North Korean spies living in the South who served a long prison term.

Two of the four South Korean fishermen who returned to the South talked to The Korea Herald on condition of anonymity due to their concerns about the safety of their families in the North.

Both said it did not make any sense that the government is reviewing the possibility of repatriating the remaining North Koreans, which the Ministry of Unification announced earlier this month.

I dont understand why theyre reviewing this, said one who was a lathe operator in the North. Why are we the only ones to be humanitarian to the North? It should be a two-way repatriation.
Jin said he realized things are so different from what he had expected to find before coming to the South that he even thought, I would rather go back to the North.

Each of the four had been detained in the North for over 30 years, and the lathe operator asked for the South Korean government to help them to not regret their return.

Sometimes I get mad just thinking about how different my life couldve been if Kim Il-sung (the Norths founder) had not kidnapped me, Lee muttered. He ruined my life. He was a bad person.
(aibang@heraldm.com)

By Annie I. Bang



2005.10.20