The JoongAng Ilbo reports that it has been belatedly learned that nine family members of three South Korean POWs who managed to escape from the North to China failed in their attempt to reach the South after Chinese security forces arrested them and repatriated them to the Workers Paradise late last year.
What makes this story particularly painful was that they were arrested at a homestay arranged by an official from the South Korean consulate in Shenyang.
The family members had fled the North to China in July-August. All were North Korean citizens—of the three POWs that headed the families, two were already dead and one had managed to defect last year and was residing in South Korea.
They made their way to Shenyang, where they hid for about 20-50 days before going to the South Korean consulate in Shenyang with the help of friends and relatives in South Korea. They met with two consulate staff who told them to stay at a certain Chinese homestay facility, and they bid goodbye to their relatives from South Korea, telling them they’d see them in Seoul.
The next day, however, Chinese police raided the place where they were staying, arresting all nine. The owner of the establishment had apparently tipped off the cops. After undergoing investigation by Chinese authorities in Shenyang and Dandong, they were shipped back to North Korea in October.
The family members in South Korea, needless to say, are furious, slamming the consulate for not allowing the defectors to stay at the consulate compound. This is not the first time the Shenyang consulate has come under fire—recently, two employees were reprimanded for essentially brushing off a South Korean abductee who’d called the consulate looking for help following his escape, and the Foreign Ministry has apparently given the consulate a warning.
The Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, expressed regret that they could not bring the defectors back to South Korea, and promised to protect POWs and their families with the cooperation of local governments and law enforcement. The ministry explained, however, that in the case of family members of POWs and abductees, it would be difficult to allow them into diplomatic compounds since they were, under Chinese law, treated as illegal aliens.
Marmot’s Note: I think Slim put it perfectly:
The Foreign Ministry that has time to send diplomats to meddle in the affairs of a Boston school district over a book few of them have read but can’t find the time to help an escaped North Korean kidnap victim get home from Shenyang is the same outfit that gave us the new UN Secretary General. Scary shit.
UPDATE: Yonhap talked with the owner of the homestay facility, and it’s not pretty. According to the owner—who might be just covering his ass—the consulate employee dropped the defectors off at his place, paid the 41,000 won rate and left, saying he would be back the next day to pick them up. But he never turned up. Four days later, the police called and four officers showed up asking questions. The next day, they came back with two vehicles and arrested the nine defectors.
According to the owner, the first day the police showed up, he called the consulate employee who had dropped them off, but he told him not to worry. The next time he called, the employee wouldn’t answer. On the day the defectors were arrested, he called the employee again to ask who would be taking care of the unpaid bill. The employee wouldn’t speak with him; instead, he spoke a couple of times with a female consulate employee, but he got no real response.
About this, the employee who placed the defectors in the homestay facility, a Mr. Kim, said all he did was do as he was instructed by his superiors, and that he didn’t know how the police found out about the lodging where the defectors were placed.
34 Comments
Here are some suggestions for the Foreign Ministry;
1. Hire competent people, not someone who is just good at memorizing a few
items for the Foreign Service Exams.
2. This is related to the first suggestion. Use hiring methods(ie reviewing
resumes, interviews, etc), other than the Foreign Service Exams. The FSEs
are not doing a good job of filtering out bad candidates and is instilling a
sense of elitism among the diplomatic corps, which is leading to, among
other things, the brushing off of the above mentioned abductee.
3. Fire diplomats(and take away their pensions too) if they are incompetent
and/or not doing their jobs.
Obviously, the South Korean government doesn’t give a shit about North Korean refugees. They are an inconvenience at best.
for some reason, it is clear that the Roh administration’s Korean consulates in China don’t feel a pressing need to save the North Korean defectors.
In fact, they’re being very nonchalant about it.
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They’re taking it like, oh, fill out these papers first. Come by the embassy in broad day light when Chinese soldiers or police have a chance to arrest you.
You can’t sleep or stay the embassy.
Why should you come to South Korea? All we know for sure is that you speak Korean and that’s about it.
Do you have any immediate relatives in South Korea? Well, I suppose that helps your immigration case, but wait more. But not in the embassy or consulate building.
Don’t call this phone line. Call another line, which might expose you to Chinese police.
Tell us where you’re hiding/staying. There is no guarantee though, that Chinese police may kind of find out.
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This is no doubt a direct reflection of who sits inside the Blue House. This will not take place with Lee Myung Bak as South Korean President. Noh Moo Hyun can hardly defend himself from the charge that he’s a commy.
I’m assuming the Korean embassy/consulate workers aren’t being paid to work on cases of accepting North Korean defectors. Kind of like a bank employee who finds it to be very out of his way to teach a bank customer how to pay the electricity bill, because the bank employee isn’t paid by the electric company. Why aren’t the embassy workers aren’t taking this Korean human rights issue as a priority? Noh Moo Hyun.
So much for brotherhood.
If they are South Koreans, “repatriate” and “defector” are the wrong words here–sloppiness on the part of the JoongAng Ilbo.
This is an issue of human rights and national sovereignity (what right does China have to return kidnapped people from another country to their captors?) that Ban Ki-moon should be addressing at the UN, although I expect not a word of condemnation from him.
This is not a problem of competency, but rather the problem of the government’s unwillingness to do anything that might even remotely piss off Kim Jong-Il.
As much as I hate GNP, I think that letting the lefties govern this country for another five years will be simply disastrous. I don’t care if it’s Lee Myung-Bak, Park Geun-Hye or even Son Hak-Gyu, as long as it means there will be no commie in the Blue House.
Nah, just drive that diplomat to somewhere rural in China, take his passport and wallet, and then see if he gets back to South Korea–or is deported to the North.
South Korean attitudes toward North Koreans are no different than they are toward their own. Kiss ass, bribe, and suck up to those with money and power, and piss on those that don’t. Which means that when the great reunification comes, 99.98% of North Koreans can look forward to being treated like ass on a stick by their new brothers and sisters.
The particularly egregious aspect of this is that Norks are considered South Korean citizens by the ROK Constitution. Not a shining moment for MOFE.
D’OH! That should read: “Not a shining moment for MOFAT.”
Hatch wrote:
Great idea!
If demographic trends south of the DMZ continue as they have for the past 15 years or so I reckon the northern females will fare a bit better than their northern brothers. But if marrying laborers/farmers & first/only sons and selling tail in room salons fall within your definition of those who receive ass-on-a-stick treatment…nevermind
I say it was the South Korean embassy who tipped off the Chinese.
Very sad.
Yes, Possibly as it couldn’t be easy for Chinese police to pin pointed the homestay facility. As usual, the Foreign Ministry is put all blames on the consulate employee. And also saying that they do not have enough staffs to handle these types of incidents happen. They had a same excuse for 2004 Tsunami, 2005 Hurricane Katrina, and so on. But there are more than enough Korean embassy or consulate staffs when there is a SK law maker, politician and even a local gov. head or law maker visits to the nation. That upset me more.
Chinese inn owner interviewed.
당시 영사관 직원은 “하루만 재워 달라. 내일 오전 10시께 데리러 오겠다”며 숙박비 350위안(약4만1천원)을 내고 떠난 뒤 다시 나타나지 않았다고 그는 말했다.
그는 “사흘째 되는 날 갑자기 공안국에서 전화를 걸어 주소를 물어보더니 잠시 뒤 경찰 2명이 찾아와 투숙 경위를 꼬치꼬치 캐묻고 떠났으며 다음날 차량 2대를 가지고 찾아와 이들을 모두 연행해갔다”고 밝혔다.
그 는 “경찰이 찾아온 첫 날 탈북자를 데려온 직원에게 전화를 걸었더니 ’걱정말라’고 했고 다음에 다시 전화를 했을 때는 전화를 받지 않았다”며 “탈북자들이 공안에 연행된 4일째에도 숙박비 정산 문제 때문에 다시 전화를 걸었지만 그 남자 직원은 전화를 받지 않았고 영사관 여직원과 간신히 통화가 이뤄졌지만 별다른 대꾸도 없었다”고 설명했다.
/ So, the Korean embassy worker had a chance. A sure chance, A CLEAR chance to rescue them. But, he did nothing. NOTHING. Mind you, the elder man is a former South Korean soldier who was captured as a prisoner in the Korean War. Let’s see 1953 to 2006, and screwed over by the South Korean embassy…Messy.
이에 대해 당시 탈북자를 민박집에 투숙시켰던 영사관 직원 김씨는 “나는 위에서 지시한 대로만 했을 뿐”이라며 “공안이 어떻게 민박집을 알고 찾아갔는지는 모른다”고 해명했다.
/ I don’t know what law Mr. Kim broke, maybe none, but this is despicable negligence. He should be tried and punished. Along with whomever’s orders he was following. Send them to Juche World.
actually, I think it might be fair trade with North Korea. Trade Mr. Kim, and other embassy workers to North Korea for the POW soldier’s families. After all, the embassy workers thought it wasn’t so bad that these people were going back to Juche World. Let them experience it themselves.
oops, didn’t read the update. So, it seems pretty true that the chosun re-publishes a lot of yonhap stories.
I hope this is a case of the consulate being so incompetent that it appears malicious.
I hope this also creates some media attention regarding China’s continued repatriation of DPRK citizens. Under DPRK law, leaving the country without state permission is treated as an act of treason and, as we all know, severely punished.
This brotherhood notion, in practice at least, is a pile of horseshit. Tragic. I really hope for more international coverage on this issue. Shame might have some effect. Guilt won’t.
What is with Koreans that they can mass huge protests against FTA negotiations with the U.S., yet nary a peep against China when it sends Koreans back to the North to such a bleak fate?
Is it because you are scared of the Chinese? Is it because they are your “big brother”, while the U.S. is just an upstart? Is it because they look like you and we don’t?
Same thoughts as dogbertt… this I cannot seriously understand. Korea wants to stand independent yet, gives in to China (there’s been more than one incident regarding this in recent news). Well, I guess the thousands of years of seeing China as big brother is a hard habit to break. - of course speak to Koreans and they deny this, at least the less open-minded ones, which are few… (shrug)…
Globalvillageidiot spake thusly:
I’m not so sure. While this is yet another example of learning something from tragedy, the fact that incidents like this are getting so much attention over and over is going to have an effect, not only internationally, but also in Korea. It is being published in Korean news sources, and despite what many seem to think here at times, I do know Koreans who do care for other humans too. Look at the photo on the front page of today’s JoongAng Daily
On a certain level, I think Koreans care about this. However, I doubt that enough people care enough about it that it is a hot topic around the photocopier at work.
I don’t get the impression that a lot of people are writing their politicians or otherwise getting involved, outside of those people who had their father or brother disappear with their fishing boat in the East Sea. Human rights is a worthwhile cause, but when ruling politicians - supposedly human rights champions themselves at one point - sweep the issue under the rug, what do you expect?
I still have trouble believing that this government does nothing while the occasional kidnapped South Korean is paraded out for a “reunion” at Guemgangsan! They’ve been written off. Disgraceful.
As has been pointed out, the plight of defectors isn’t nearly as provocative or appealing to most as the latest - or not-so-recent - perceived American or Japanese injustice. Why rescue a few fellow Koreans - technically citizens of South Korea - when there’s a textbook to protest about?
Go to the Yonhap English site. Go past the main page and click on national news. No mention whatsoever of these defectors in China. However, you will find a story telling of South Korea thwarting Japanese efforts to discuss their abducted citizens…
In Korea the guys who organise and participate huge protests are generally commies or quasi-commies like those in the current government. That’s why they’re soft with the Chinese and the North Koreans.
Maybe the way to stir the pot is to have American and Japanese activists “abduct” these POWs, abductees and refugees from the streets of Shenyang. Then we’d see righteous umbrage.
I read this in today’s Korea Herald and literally almost spit my coffee:
“Because the government’s position regarding North Korean defectors is so complicated, it is true that the officials in charge of the affairs lack motivation or education,” a government official said on condition of anonymity.
They “lack motivation or education”?! WTF!?
Then again, perhaps in their defense, the Roh government’s position on N Korea is riddled with so many contradictions that they no doubt are getting many conflicting instructions from Seoul on how to handle defectors.
But that’s an excuse to be stressed about how to handle a given refugee case. That’s not an excuse to send people back to NK where the horrors of the gulag await them.
Well, I do not know, but such ugly events with defectors happen way too often to be seen as merely results of incompetence. It is unlikely that there is any formal instruction to reject the NK defectors and/or deny them assistance, but I am pretty sure that SK embassies have received some hints from above. Some diplomats chose to ignore hints, but it is clear that Seoul does not want more defections (a mistaken policy, actually, even if judged from purely pragmatical point of veiw), so embassy people prefer not to be too active. I do not think that there is a paper trail to prove that this is a sort of deliberate policy. But such events are unliklely to be coincidences: too many ungly incidents happenned to aspiring defectors, and too frequently. And, needless to say, SK society does not care much (some people care, but not society at large).
Why aren’t netizens posting pictures and ruining the lives of these diplomats who are so uncaring and callous to their so called brothers and sisters from the North? After all, they’ll destroy the life of a woman for acting in porn, yet they don’t treat someone the same way for sending fellow Koreans to their deaths!! Something is out of wack there! It’s no secret that Northerners who settle in the South are treated as inferiors by their South Korean brothers and sisters.
As others have pointed out, what a pile of horsesh*t. Under ROK law, they are ROK citizens. South Korean missions in China should allow refugees to stay on their compounds and negotiate with China, insisting that as ROK citizens, if they are illegal aliens in China and should be deported, then they must be deported to South Korea. End of story.
Beware of the Chinese…former American diplomat.
Everything he says is true.
Where’s Pawi at a time like this? I was thinking that you guys are wrong, that people here do care. Yet there is a notable absence of outrage. Where are all the Korean honks?
Are you so embarrassed that you’re hoping if you ignore it long enough it will all just go away?
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[...] [Update: See also.] [...]
[...] This is the worst feeling for an North Korean human rights activist. I just read this article today (and read about it on The Marmot last night) only to find out that this happened in October and that the refugees may have been returned to North Korea. Worse, it turns out the Korean consulate did a poor job protecting these refugees. There a few lessons to be learned [...]