The North Korean authorities today requested interviews with two fishermen who expressed the desire to stay in South Korea following their rescue from a drifting vessel in the vicinity of Ulleung Island on May 31st.
A third man was repatriated yesterday morning in accordance with his wishes. The transfer took place at the truce village of Panmunjom.
According to the Ministry of Unification, the interview request, which was issued in the name of the Central Committee of the Chosun Red Cross, said of the two men, “If their will to defect is real then [the South Korean authorities] must allow us to meet them directly and confirm it.” It added that the interviews should take place at Panmunjom.
Moreover, it insisted that if South Korea were to reject the request then that would provide proof that the two men are being kept in the South against their wishes, and that this would then be dealt with “sternly.”
However, South Korea rejected the request, with a Ministry of Unification official pointing out, “The fishermen sought a kind of asylum. It’s not appropriate in terms of human rights protection to send them to the North or bring them to Panmunjon.”
In the event that the request had been honored, North Korea would have been able to use the families of the two men as pawns to pressure them into changing the decision to defect. The predictable rejection, meanwhile, allows Pyongyang to build up the pretext for future provocative acts.
Commenting on the case, Yoo Dong Ryeol of the Seoul-based Korean Institute of Liberal Democracy explained, “North Korea knew in advance that the South Korean government would not allow this. Thus, their strategy was to demand a personal audience for the purposes of declaring [the men] ‘kidnapped’ and also limited local provocations.”
“Hereafter, North Korea will claim that ‘South Chosun is a human rights-violating, kidnap-sponsoring state,’” he went on, before affirming, “It also lends weight to the possibility of an attack of some kind on South Korea.”
The two men are currently under investigation by the South Korean government. Upon completion of the investigation and assuming no irregularities are discovered, they will be transferred to Hanawon, South Korea’s resettlement education facility.
