The latest round of separated family reunions ended earlier today
with a “farewell reunion,” after which participants returned to their
respective countries. Participants from
the North are set to return home via Pyongyang, where Party and security officials
will question them over the course of approximately two weeks.
During this time,
the North Korean reunion participants are given tours of Pyongyang, which offers the chance to judge whether they have become
ideologically suspect, and moreover what items they have returned with from the reunions. Participants
must report any cash or products they may have received. Officials from the Party United
Front Department take responsibility for a specific number of individuals during this time. These officials change as the schedule changes, and all must later write up
ideological appraisals for assessment by the Party.
Therefore, reunion participants must ensure they take a
correct stance at all times. One defector told Daily NK, “Every time the person doing the observation changes, they’ll subtly demand to see the items you have
one by one, and when they say that what you have is nice it becomes impossible
to avoid saying they can have it. By the time the reunion participants get
home, they don’t have half the items that were given to them.”
Items received from South Korean family undergo in-depth inspection. In this process, money, valuables and clothes received from the
South are all checked. The same defector added, “They say that clothing must
all go through an inspection, and that all the Korean words on medicines
must be blacked out.”
“During evening self-criticism sessions, reunion
participants can be rebuked if they failed to adequately propagandize the
system, but more so if they have not brought back enough stuff,” the defector added. Approximately $100 received is normally surrendered to the United
Front Department in the form of “loyalty funds,” while returnees must also pay for their lodgings in Pyongyang.
Lee Myung Sook, who defected from South Pyongan Province
three years ago, told Daily NK, “An elderly neighbor came back from Mt. Gumgang. He
came to me as soon as he got back because he’d borrowed money from me
to prepare for it. Anyway,
they told him to give them $100 of the money he received from his family.”
Reunion participants say it feels natural to pay the
authorities in this way, because no secret is made of the fact
that this will be required during education sessions before the reunions begin.
After participants return home from Pyongyang, they must give further payments to those gatekeepers who helped them gain
access to the reunion event in the first place: State Security Department officials, the Peoples’
Security Ministry, and Party cadres. “My neighbor said he needed money to buy
recommendation letters from State Security, Peoples’ Security and the Party, “
Lee explained. “So I lent him $3000. At the time it was a huge amount of money,
but even that wasn’t enough so he had to borrow $1200 more from someone
else.
“This is by no means true in every case, but there are a few
reunion participants who end up with nothing other than debt.”
Lee said, “The neighbor paid out all the money he had
received, but was left with a gold watch and a gold ring. However, the watch went
to the provincial Party and the ring to his municipal Party, so eventually he had no money
left to pay his debts. It got so bad that after just six months he’d contacted
his South Korean family again via China. They couldn’t believe he was asking
for money again after such a brief time; they’d given him enough to live on for a long time.”
However, people still want to get access to the reunion events for
many reasons; familial affection, of course, but also the benefits that accrue alongside the costs. Choi Dong Chul, who defected from North Hamkyung Province, said,
“I’ve seen people who’ve stayed in contact with family after secretly
exchanging contact details during a reunion. No matter how much the North Korean
authorities try to stop it, they can’t completely prevent people from contacting one another.”
