Abducted South Korean Reunited with Wife
UPDATE: One Free Korea has great posting that provides further background information concerning the South Korean governmental policy of total indifference to the kidnapping and forced inprisonment of their own citizens in North Korea. I have to agree with OFK that this man married very well that his wife after 31 years never forgot about him and did all she did to bring him home while her own government just wished he didn’t exist.
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When I read stories like this it just makes me wonder how many more South Korean citizens are stuck inside of North Korea just waiting for their chance to get out while their own government ignores them:
A crewmember of the squid trawler Cheonwangho abducted by North Korea while fishing in the East Sea in August 1975 has escaped the communist state after 31 years. Choi Wook-il (67) is waiting for help from Seoul while hiding at an undisclosed location in China, but the government here is dragging its feet. Choi told the Chosun Ilbo he left Kimchaek City in North Hamgyeong Province on Dec. 22, arrived at Hyesan on Dec. 24 and crossed the Yalu River the next day. On the arduous trip, he sustained a cut to his forehead after a car accident on the way to Yanbian in China. He was finally reunited with his wife Yang Jeong-ja (66) there.
Read the whole thing because it is just amazing that this guy’s wife he hadn’t seen in 31 years did more to free him from going back to North Korea and it’s gulags than the South Korean government. It is situations like this that I wish the US government could do more to help these people who were abducted. It could be through funding more NGOs to help North Korean defectors escape North Korea through China possibly. This would be a way of shaming the South Korean government into taking actions to protect their own citizens.Â
If President Roh is so determined to have a 2nd Inter-Korean summit the first item on the agenda should be the demand that all South Korean citizens abducted by North Korea be returned to South Korea. It would be a disgrace for the South Korean president to be toasting Kim Jong-il during Inter-Korean summit while his own citizens are trapped in slavery in North Korea.
I'm so glad that these 2 courageous people have been reunited!!
[…] Updates: A great post with a picture that nearly had me in tears at GI Korea, and another picture here. […]
I pray the publicity shames the South Korean government into helping this man return home to his family.
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