|
|
Change Your Life! |
Koreas prepare for 1st family reunions since 1985 |
|||
|
News
|
||||
August 15, 2000
SEOUL (AP) - Frail husbands will meet their wives for the first time in more than 50 years. Sons and daughters will greet parents they have not seen in more than a generation. Separated in their childhood, now elderly brothers and sisters will embrace again. In a day that promises tears of joy and anguish for Koreans on both sides of a sealed border, a tiny fraction of the victims of a Cold War-era conflict that separated millions of people will reunite temporarily with loved ones this week. One hundred people from North Korea will fly Tuesday to South Korea and an equal number of Southerners will then board the same plane for family reunions in the North, the most emotionally charged dividend of a historic summit in June between leaders of the two countries. "I can't describe how I feel," 87-year-old Choi Soon-nam, a South Korean who will meet her 60-year-old son in the communist North, said Monday. "I have so much to say to him. But when I actually see him, I may not be able to say anything." The four-day event is as much political as humanitarian, a goodwill gesture between two nations that have taken bigger steps toward reconciliation in the last two months than at any time since the 1950-53 Korean War. There will be euphoria when the 100 visitors from North Korea greet Southern relatives for the first time amid the glare of television lights in a Seoul convention center. There will also be reminders of the pain and permanent loss of separation. A 99-year-old South Korean is unlikely to recognize her son from North Korea because she is mentally ill. A 61-year-old man was so excited to hear his older brother would visit the South that he suffered apoplexy and was hospitalized. Kim Jang-soo, a 68-year-old former North Korean soldier who was captured in the Korean War and later settled in the South, will meet his two sisters when he travels to the North's capital of Pyongyang. "When I get there, I want to find out when my mother passed away. I told my mother I would return in three years. And it became 50 years," said Kim, whose gifts for his family in the North include rings, watches, socks, underwear and medicine. Family reunions are a pressing issue in the South, as many aging family members have only a few years left to see relatives in the North. Many have died without making contact. Seoul and Pyongyang organized family reunions in 1985, but political acrimony undercut efforts to organize another round. Ties remain so delicate that family members who will travel north are under strict instructions to avoid talking politics with their hosts. "Please be careful in what you say and how you behave," Yang Young-shik, vice minister of Seoul's Unification Ministry, told family members at a briefing at a five-star hotel Monday. Staff at the hotel, which will house the North Korean group, have removed imported Western goods such as liquor and replaced them with traditional Korean drinks to avoid unsettling their guests. At a banquet Monday at the presidential Blue House, President Kim Dae-jung told the family members - some carrying canes or stooped with age - that reconciliation and eventual reunification would be a lengthy process. But he said the reunions this week would not be an isolated event. "We will have more visits, open a permanent reunion office, exchange letters and visit our hometowns," Kim said. "Whether you settle in the North or South, you must be reunited with your family." The government gave dlrs 500 to each family member to buy gifts for relatives in the impoverished North, Kim announced. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il said last week that there will be more reunions in September and October, according to visiting South Korean media executives. Despite the speed of the rapprochement underway between the Koreas, uneasiness lingers in the South about the political capital that the North is apparently trying to gain from the event. While South Korea chose its 100 finalists for the reunions through a computer lottery, the North Korean list includes a renowned poet, painter, film maker, scientist and many other celebrated people. All the Northern visitors are South Korean natives who defected to the North. South Korean critics said loyalty to the communist system appeared to be the most important criterion for getting on the North's list. The Seoul government has also faced domestic criticism for agreeing to unconditionally repatriate dozens of loyalist communist spies who have served long prison terms in the South. It did not demand that Pyongyang reciprocate by returning hundreds of South Korean POWs from the Korean War who are believed still held in the North. In another conciliatory gesture Monday, the two Koreas reopened border liaison offices in the border village of Panmunjom. Also, South Korean President Kim said work would begin next month on reconnecting a severed railroad between the two countries. |
