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omonatheydid83,000 abductees a dark legacy of Korean War.
On a sidewalk in central Seoul recently, Lee Mi-il and several other older South Koreans took turns at a microphone, calling out what seemed like an endless list of names. They began in the morning and continued through the night, announcing one name after another — 83,000 in all — their voices ringing out and melting into the cacophony of the city's busiest district.
A few young pedestrians paused at this unusual demonstration. But most paid little attention.
The scene could have been a metaphor for Lee's struggle of more than a decade.
Since 2000, Lee has campaigned to generate more interest in the fate of tens of thousands of South Koreans believed to have been forcibly taken to North Korea during the Korean War six decades ago.
She has been demanding that the government negotiate for the return of those who may still be alive and the remains of those who are not.
Government officials have never made that issue a priority when they sat down with their North Korean counterparts, treating her campaign as a distraction from what they consider a more important task: persuading the North to abandon its nuclear weapons.
But Lee, 62, is not giving up, and recently she has scored some victories against what she calls “a gigantic darkness and forgetfulness.”
“We shout our fathers' names because our society no longer remembers them,” she said during an interview in her office, where one wall is covered with the photographs of people believed to have been abducted during the war, including her own father.
During the 1950-53 war, North Korea abducted tens of thousands of South Korean civilians, mainly civil servants, educators, writers, judges, Christian pastors and business people. Nearly all were men.
According to family accounts and the government, the North Koreans often seemed to have a clear idea of which people they wanted to move to the North, apparently to bolster their own professional ranks for reconstruction after the war or, in other cases, to neutralize enemies, like members of anti-Communist, right-wing groups.
When Lee's father, a factory owner in Seoul, was taken away, she was 18 months old.
Lee was running a nursery in Seoul in 2000 when she decided to break her long silence.
That year, President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea and Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, held the first summit meeting between the two Koreas. When their governments later arranged reunions of families separated by the war, abductees were once again excluded.
In the years that followed, South Korea provided billions of dollars in aid, hoping that would encourage more humanitarian gestures by the North. But the government in the North has not released any information about the missing South Koreans or allowed communication between relatives, insisting that any intellectuals from the South who ended up in the North did so voluntarily. It calls Lee's campaign “a grave political provocation.”
“They never admit kidnapping because that would be admitting a crime,” Lee said. “They just hope we'll all be dead soon and this will all be forgotten.”
In 2000, she shut down her nursery and established the Korean War Abductees' Family Union, bringing together 700 families.
In 2002, her group found a 1952 government document listing 83,000 South Koreans as kidnapped, a preliminary wartime compilation that officials had previously denied existed. It was gathering dust, uncataloged, in a government library.
Lee has also taken her campaign to the United States, where some Korean families immigrated. They are appealing for a resolution by Congress calling for the return of their relatives from North Korea.
“Although we are grateful to the Americans for defending our nation during the war, we are disappointed with their failure to free those kidnapped people during the armistice talks,” Lee said.
Source: mysanantonio
On a sidewalk in central Seoul recently, Lee Mi-il and several other older South Koreans took turns at a microphone, calling out what seemed like an endless list of names. They began in the morning and continued through the night, announcing one name after another — 83,000 in all — their voices ringing out and melting into the cacophony of the city's busiest district.
A few young pedestrians paused at this unusual demonstration. But most paid little attention.
The scene could have been a metaphor for Lee's struggle of more than a decade.
Since 2000, Lee has campaigned to generate more interest in the fate of tens of thousands of South Koreans believed to have been forcibly taken to North Korea during the Korean War six decades ago.
She has been demanding that the government negotiate for the return of those who may still be alive and the remains of those who are not.
Government officials have never made that issue a priority when they sat down with their North Korean counterparts, treating her campaign as a distraction from what they consider a more important task: persuading the North to abandon its nuclear weapons.
But Lee, 62, is not giving up, and recently she has scored some victories against what she calls “a gigantic darkness and forgetfulness.”
“We shout our fathers' names because our society no longer remembers them,” she said during an interview in her office, where one wall is covered with the photographs of people believed to have been abducted during the war, including her own father.
During the 1950-53 war, North Korea abducted tens of thousands of South Korean civilians, mainly civil servants, educators, writers, judges, Christian pastors and business people. Nearly all were men.
According to family accounts and the government, the North Koreans often seemed to have a clear idea of which people they wanted to move to the North, apparently to bolster their own professional ranks for reconstruction after the war or, in other cases, to neutralize enemies, like members of anti-Communist, right-wing groups.
When Lee's father, a factory owner in Seoul, was taken away, she was 18 months old.
Lee was running a nursery in Seoul in 2000 when she decided to break her long silence.
That year, President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea and Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, held the first summit meeting between the two Koreas. When their governments later arranged reunions of families separated by the war, abductees were once again excluded.
In the years that followed, South Korea provided billions of dollars in aid, hoping that would encourage more humanitarian gestures by the North. But the government in the North has not released any information about the missing South Koreans or allowed communication between relatives, insisting that any intellectuals from the South who ended up in the North did so voluntarily. It calls Lee's campaign “a grave political provocation.”
“They never admit kidnapping because that would be admitting a crime,” Lee said. “They just hope we'll all be dead soon and this will all be forgotten.”
In 2000, she shut down her nursery and established the Korean War Abductees' Family Union, bringing together 700 families.
In 2002, her group found a 1952 government document listing 83,000 South Koreans as kidnapped, a preliminary wartime compilation that officials had previously denied existed. It was gathering dust, uncataloged, in a government library.
Lee has also taken her campaign to the United States, where some Korean families immigrated. They are appealing for a resolution by Congress calling for the return of their relatives from North Korea.
“Although we are grateful to the Americans for defending our nation during the war, we are disappointed with their failure to free those kidnapped people during the armistice talks,” Lee said.
Source: mysanantonio
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