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Pro-North Korean Ex-Prisoners Assume Role Playing for Unification
By Cho Sang-hee
Staff Reporter
Korea Times
2000/07/03Come September, they are going to return to their hometown, by birth or ideological formation in the North. Each a would-be hero upon their homecoming, they are arguably the happiest in the wake of the successful inter-Korean summit.
These men are pro-North Korean ex-prisoners who refused to convert to the Republic in the South even though they had to endure some 30-year-long life in the cell.
They number 88 in total, regardless of their willingness to go to the North. The counting has been compared by the authorities such as the Justice Ministry and the Unification Ministry. The number reached 102 before the recent death of around 10 persons (as most of them are aged, over 70) , according to a group of ex-prisoners of the political conviction.
Of them, 59 expressed their desire to be repatriated by the Red Cross-designed accord.
``I wonder whether the word `happy' is a proper one for us, but we are elated, feeling proud and joyful that we shall be able to go to the North at last,'' said Yang Jong-ho, one of the three who met at an exclusive interview with The Korea Times Sunday.
Yang, 70, will return to Chongjin, northeastern North Korea, where his wife lives. ``I understand she is okay after being treated nicely as one of those left out from prison walls in the South,'' said Yang who spent the most of approximately 30 years in Taejon Prison, on charge of espionage.
Yang was born in South Korea in a town of Yangsan, Kyonsang-namdo. He was grown in Kyoto when his family moved to Japan, but attended the school of technology in Pusan. Thus, the first child of the Yang, he has here three sisters and two brothers, one presently in New York.
Upon breaking out of the Korean War, Yang soon got into the North and got himself enlisted in the People's Army. He trained in telecommunications at Pyongyang's Kimchaek University engineering school prior to being sent to the South for the clandestine mission in 1969.
``I was attempting to be in contact with college students and learned citizens to spread the pro-unification message,'' said Yang, who then settled in Pusan and opened a dry goods' store in a guise.``It was not an easy job to do such work amid the web of the National Security Law,'' he said, revealing that he was arrested a few months later.
``Call me a `kongjakwon' working on the clandestine operation for the cause of the unification,'' Yang stressed, adding that he did not yield to the espionage charge due forth from the Korean Central Intelligence Agency.``I declared myself as not a spy during the interrogation.''
``The foremost goal of the works required by the mother land (North Korea) at the time was national unification and self-commitment as a free man now is helping the nation be one,'' said the ex-prisoner who admires Nelson Mandela.---
``I hold Mandela in great esteem as one who liberated his fellow black people from Apartheid and took the presidency, while also uniting the nation,'' spoke Yang of the Nobel Peace prize-winner.
As for my personal feelings over the experience as a ``prisoner of conscience,' Yang declined to elaborate at the moment. `` It would take time to tell all the things that I experienced here as describing it is not simply a matter f a word or two.''
He tells of persecutions or manhandling in the prison as rather short interspersed instances. However, ``Ten Men Ten Colors'' is the axiom this self-declared Socialist often cites in the interview the reporter had now and before. ``I found some prison wardens dealing with me and fellow prisoners in very humane way,'' he disclosed.
Earlier, he was asked of a North Korean deserter's recent allegation that North Korea had been persecuting families left by those who fled to the South. At that time, he strongly recommended the allegation be checked by enough persons, saying ``You would hear 10 variants from 10 different persons.''
Such a position of Yang's regarding the question of whether the northern families amongst those separated are being persecuted or not, is one shared too by his roommates.
Yang lives with Pak Wan-gyu, 72 from Pyongyang, and Chang Byong-rak, 67, from Kosong, and two others at a private house rented by the ex-prisoners at Karyon-dong, northwestern Seoul. They were jail buddies who shared the same cell and they all have wives residing in the North.
Pak reminded of late North Korean president Kim Il-sung's statement on radio that ``No left-over members of the families who fled to the South should be persecuted as long as they follow the party policy in the Democratic People's Republic.''
``It's the same in Korea for the families of those who went over to the North, who though not persecuted, would face some difficulties seeking jobs at a government office or schools,'' Pak noted.
The three in unison claimed that ``it will be an individual mistake'' by the persons in charge if any persecution cases against the leftover members of the families of the separated are found.
Misinformation about North Korea and facts about the development of the Korean War appeared to be the subject of keen interest of these pro-Pyongyang ex-inmates.
Chang said that his sister almost came aboard the South-bound ship carrying North Korean refugees in Wonsan Harbor, in fear of imminent use of the atomic bomb by the United States and the Chinese soldiers' rape of womenfolk.
``But it did not happen though it worked to the effect of making many people desert the North,'' said Chang. ``They did not leave their home simply because of the persecution or hardship in the Communist regime,'' the ex-North Korean Navy sailor noted. The man from Wonsan lately served at the Changjon Naval Base near Mt. Kumgang.
He also noted that the ordinary usage of the word to identify the ex-prisoners should be corrected from ``mijonhyang-janggisu'' to ``pijonhyang-janggisu.'' The difference between ``mi(?)'' and ``pi(?)'' is great, according to him, as the former means a prisoner who has yet to be converted whereas the latter refers to a prisoner who has not converted.
As far as the South-North developments in relations are concerned, the three were informationwise. Expressing gratitude for the allowance of reading newspap rs in prison from the mid-1980s with the inception of the Roh Tae-woo government, the even managed to read The Korea Times, though they were ``not good in English.''
Demanding the newspapers, they said the prisoners went on hunger strikes of se eral days, with the longest spanning 21 days by one jailbird.
Yang used to read Sekasi, a magazine published by the liberal Japanese publishing Iwanami Bungo.
From their recent reading of south Korean press, they sense the prompt developments of inter-Korean relations, including the summit meeting of President Kim Dae-jung and their leader Kim Jong-il. Yang said,``I did not expect the summit to be held so early.''
They lauded president Kim, though much of the laudatory was toward the Defense Committee Chairman Kim.
As for the remaining members of the ex-prisoners who preferred not opting for the North, they said, ``There should be good misunderstanding for their remaining here to further their job of working for the unification here in the South.''
The ex-prisoners are coinhabiting several different places across the nation. The oldest is Yu Han-ok, 90, from Pyongyang. There are some who have no kindred in the North but still want to go there. Among them, two who already converted to the South disavow their position, wishing to return to the North this time. One of the others, Ahn Hak-sok, 71, even married here after the release, with some 30 year younger lady.
``We assume ourselves to be workers for furthering the unification movement even after the return and would have some nice things to say about South Korea in that course,'' they said. Yang mused: ``We the prisoners have already done the job toward the movement because non-coverted ex-prisoners were agents that prompted the North-South dialogue as a main point on the agenda.''
``I'll miss the people who haven taken care of us,'' said Yang,`` since this is another separation.''
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