Tag: family reunions

The North and South Korean governments are trying to use this week’s inter-Korean family reunions to create a strong emotional response both domestically and internationally to justify future economic cooperation.  However, sanctions continue to be in place against North Korea over their nuclear program which prevents the South Korean government from giving the Kim regime the payday the Kim regime has long wanted.  However, if the ROK government pushes the Trump administration on this issue President Trump should hold a press conference with Mr. Hwang In-cheol and other abductees and ask when their family reunions are going to happen?:

As a lucky few Korean families meet decades after being divided by war, Hwang In-cheol looks on lamenting the absence of his father, whose plane was hijacked by the North.

Hwang was only two when his father Won left for a business trip in 1969, never to return. Now 50, he has spent his life missing a man he only knows from pictures.

Scores of elderly North and South Koreans who were separated by the 1950-53 conflict met for the first time in decades Monday, hugging each other tearfully.

But none of them was among the thousands of South Koreans Seoul says were kidnapped by the North after the war.

“The sight of the families reuniting looks very nice but these one-time reunions are not a solution to the problem,” Hwang said.

“I hope that day for me comes soon. I’m hoping that my father will be alive until then.”  [Japan Times via a reader tip]

You can read more at the link, but Mr. Hwang’s father was abducted as part of the hijacking of Korean Air YS-11 back in 1969.  You can read about the hijacking at the below link:

https://www.rokdrop.net/2015/08/dmz-flashpoints-the-1969-hijacking-of-korean-airlines-ys-11/

It's remarkable how far down you have to read in some news articles to see that these “reunions” are closely monitored & brief visits, terminated by the abductee’s return to captivity & isolation. What a heartbreaking “reunion” that must be. https://t.co/WgCK1McSnQ

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) August 21, 2018

South Korean participants arrive at an immigration office on the east coast to cross into North Korea for a reunion event for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War at the Mount Kumgang resort on the North’s east coast on Aug. 20, 2018. The family reunion event, the first of its kind in nearly three years, will be held there till Aug. 26. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

Here is an update on the Inter-Korean family reunions that the North Koreans are currently holding at the Kumgang Resort on the country’s east coast:

The first session of reunions will be followed by a dinner to be hosted by the North Korean side later in the day.

Some of them appeared to be a little uncomfortable at first, apparently reflecting the decades without contact, but the awkwardness soon melted away and they engaged in conversation, asking each other about how they have lived.

On the second day, the families will be granted more time to meet, helping them become closer. They will see each other again Tuesday morning and have lunch together in their hotel rooms, the first time the separated families will have had such a private meeting since the start of the reunion event.

They will have six meetings totaling 11 hours by Wednesday, according to the unification ministry, which handles inter-Korean affair.

In subsequent reunions planned to take place from Friday to Sunday, 83 North Koreans will also meet their relatives found to be alive in the South. More than 300 South Koreans will travel to the venue later this week for the event.

The two rounds of family reunions are a follow-up on an agreement the leaders of South and North Korea reached in April to address humanitarian issues arising from nearly seven decades of division caused by the Korean War.

The event came amid a thaw in relations between the two Koreas after a yearslong hiatus and tensions heightened by the North’s continued pursuit of nuclear and missile programs.  [Yonhap]

You can read much more at the link, but I have to wonder how much money was transferred to host this event?  Family reunions has long been used by the Kim regime as a bargaining chip to get what they want from the ROK and a cottage industry to make money.  We know that South Korea had to renovate the Kumgang Resort for the North Koreans.  How much did that cost?

It didn’t take long for the North Koreans to use the proposed family unions as leverage against the South Korean government:

North Korea’s state-run media released a string of articles on Friday that criticized the South Korean government, hinting that planned reunions for families split between the two nations could be canceled. An editorial in the official state newspaper of the North Korean ruling party, Rodong Sinmun, argued that South Korea had been exaggerating its role in denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington. South Korea’s role in the talks does “not even amount to that of an assistant,” the editorial stated. The same article described comments made by South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Singapore last week as “presumptuous” and “flippant.”  [Washington Post]

You can read more at the link, but it appears the North Koreans are trying to put the ROK government back in its place as being subservient to the Kim regime with the denuclearization talks solely between the US and North Korea.

Here is the main reason they are threatening the cancelation of the family reunions:

In another attack against the Moon administration, Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean propaganda website, urged it to repatriate a dozen North Korean restaurant workers who came to the South in 2016.

The 12 had worked at a North Korean restaurant in China. Pyongyang claims they were abducted by South Korean authorities. The South has said the workers defected of their own free will.

Uriminzokkiri said there could be an “obstacle” in the planned reunion of families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War next month if the workers are not returned.

It lashed out at Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon by name, accusing him of “siding with” the former government which it said plotted the workers’ defection. [Reuters]

I think even for a left wing administration like President Moon’s, this will be politically very difficult to do.  Could you imagine the backlash of forcibly removing these defectors from South Korea and handing them over to the Kim regime?

It looks like this is turning into yet another event where the North Koreans milk money out of the South Koreans:

North Korean facilities to host the planned August reunions of separated families during the 1950-1953 Korean War are in need of major repairs, a South Korean inspection team said upon returning home on Friday after a three-day visit there.

The 20-strong inspection team involving South Korean government officials and civilian workers crossed the eastern border on Wednesday afternoon to visit Mount Kumgang on the North’s east coast, the venue for the reunions slated for Aug. 20-26.

“South and North technicians did the inspection together, which went smoothly with active support from North Korean officials,” said team leader Kim Byung-dae, a senior official in charge of humanitarian cooperation at the Unification Ministry.

“It’s been quite a while since the last reunion happened in October 2015 there. So there are many places that need fixing,” Kim said, adding the government will do its best to make sure the reunion runs smoothly and to minimize any inconvenience for senior family members.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I wonder what the bill for these “major repairs” is going to be?

The North Koreans like to use these family reunions to appeal to the emotions of South Koreans which then makes them useful bargaining chips by threatening to cancel them if they don’t get what they want from the ROK government:

South Korea began a process Monday to select those who will meet their long-separated family members in North Korea in late August.

The two Koreas agreed to hold their first family reunion event in nearly three years at the North’s Mount Kumgang resort from Aug. 20-26, a follow-up to the April 27 summit deal.

It would enable 100 South Korean people, mostly elderly ones, to get together with their families across the border, decades after being separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but these reunions have also in the past been a cottage industry for the regime to make money by holding them at the Kumgang Resort on the east coast of North Korea.  I suspect the regime also is using the reunions to promote the resort in its efforts to get sanctions dropped and tourism reopened to Gumgang resort and other nearby facilities.

(LEAD) Koreas to hold flurry of talks over sports, family reunions, railway connections https://t.co/mWk9UeMQ99

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) June 17, 2018

Another setback for President Moon’s Sunshine 2.0:

North Korea rejected South Korean lawmakers’ call to hold a reunion of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, saying Wednesday there can “never be any kind of humanitarian cooperation” between the two countries unless 13 North Koreans “detained” in the South are returned.

They include a group of 12 workers from a restaurant in China run by the North Korean government, whom Seoul says defected voluntarily. Pyongyang claims they were kidnapped by South Korea’s spy agency.

The North also wants a 13th citizen, Kim Ryon-hui, a vocal Kim Jung-un endorser here who wishes to go back home. She left her home in Pyongyang to seek advanced medical treatment in China for a liver illness. She asserts to have been deceived by a Chinese broker in 2011, who told her she could make a fortune in the South and then return to China or North Korea.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Officials at the Korean National Red Cross in Seoul check a database on inter-Korean families separated during the 1950-53 Korean War on June 5, 2017, when the speaker and ruling and opposition floor leaders agreed to seek their reunion on the Aug. 15 Independence Day. (Yonhap)