Forgetting Someone?

The Korean War Abductees Research Institute (KWARI) will hold a press conference next  Thursday, July 26, 2007, at  2 p.m. in the Zenger Room of the National Press Club in Washington.  The subject will be  whether the return of abducted South Koreas should be a prerequisite to a North-South peace treaty.  It’s  a question you can hardly believe anyone would have to ask — isn’t the first prerequisite to peace  that  each nation ends its continuing  offenses against the other nation’s people?  Or so you would think. 

Lee Mi-Il —  a tiny, frail, and dignified  woman whose father was abducted during the Korean War —  is the President of  KWARI.  Lee  has dedicated much of her life to getting her father back.  I’ve heard her speak before, and she’s a very compelling witness.  You can read the full press release here.

In case you were wondering, the man at right isn’t Lee’s father.  His name is Kim Yong Nam, and he was kidnapped off a beach near his home as a boy in 1978.  He was recently granted a brief and tortuous  “reunion” with his family, on condition that he make up some kakamamie story that the North Koreans “rescued” him.  Here, you see him at the moment he was pried away from  his brief, tightly supervised  visit with a  family he hadn’t seen in decades.  It’s things like this that leave me unimpressed with so-called “family reuinions” between North and South as a means of engagement.  Anything arranged with the North Korean regime will be too controlled and scripted to be worth the ransom the regime will demand.  The answer is to demand that North Korea let these people go.

That segues us to  a string of messages I’ve exchanged with Sam Kim, President of the Korean Church Coalition.  Sam forwards YouTube videos  of the Let My People Go events (here, then click “more from this user”).   He claims 200-400 attended the various events, and the rally on Capitol Hill looks to have  had a strong turnout.  I couldn’t guess at a specific number, the crowd looks like at least 200 people.  One thing they did right was to design a good banner, order plenty of them, and ask the demonstrators to hold them up.  It makes the crowd look bigger, it has more visual impact, and it lets any passing driver get the point  in just a quick glance. 

See also:  

*   Things Fall Apart.  A seven-story building has collapsed in Hyesan, killing 20, mostly kids and old people.