[imText1]– With the background of these materials, what kind of an analysis can be made?
From the statistics, 88.2% were kidnapped within the three-month period directly after the war and it was evidential that they were abducted according to a prior plan. Further, youth and middle-age class from age 16 to 35 were 84.6%; 98.1% were male. For females, the fact that women with occupations like nursing were abducted shows that North Korea selected people whose positions they coveted. The 80.3% abduction figure near homes shows that the kidnappings were systematically carried out.
– What is the importance of resolution of wartime abductees?
Even though the abductions occurred in 1950, it can be considered as an ongoing terror because the existence of the abducted families is still not known.
“Resolution of wartime abductions a stepping stone for North-South reconciliations”
A citizen, in order to receive protection from a country, has fulfill the responsibilities of paying taxes, performing military service, and obeying stringent laws of the country and failure to fulfill is punishable. On the other hand, however, the government has the responsibility to protect citizens, who carried out their duties to their prior country before being abducted, with utmost priority. Even if significant time passes, the government has to carry out this responsibility until the end. Further, wartime abductees were those that contributed to each pivotal area of establishing South Korea, so there is the responsibility to bring them back into the focus of history.
Most of all, in the situation where even their existence is denied, the wartime abductees and their families’ human rights and honor must be restored. They have been refused help despite the harm that the families had to endure and outwardly rejected as a hindrance to reconciliation with North Korea. Our government, if it is to sincerely reconcile with the criminals who inflicted the terror of kidnapping on our families, can only resolve this problem with a genuine approach to peace and reconciliation. The resolution of wartime abductee problem must be the stepping stone to North-South reconciliation.
– How can pre-war abductions be tried under international law?
At the time of the Korean War, the large-scale crime of abductions by the North Korean army can be included in the category of forced disappearances by international law. The planned crime of abducting some 80,000 civilians can be stipulated as crimes against humanity according to international human rights law. Additionally, according to international laws of extradition which must be kept during war, abducting civilians is prohibited and is considered as a war crime. Finally, the prevention of forced disappearances has continuously received huge support from international society, making these acts a violation of international intermediary laws.
”Statute of Limitations Cannot be Applied to Wartime Abductees”
Even if treaties and intermediary laws that prohibited forced disappearances at the time of the Korean war did not exist, unresolved occurrences of forced disappearances is considered crimes that continue into the present according to international law, so being tried under the law is feasible. According to the “Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitation to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity,” which North Korea entered in 1968, the statute of limitations cannot be applied.
– What kind of actions have families of abductees taken?
The Korean War Abductees’ Family Union, formed in 1951, leaned over backwards to develop domestic activity until 1960s, but ceased its activity due to national disinterest and the application of guilt-by-association system by North Korea. Before becoming defunct, the Family Union attempted to create a list of names and send an investigation team to Pyongyang to find the abducted families in October 1950 as well as submit a petitioning letter to the National Assembly. They also invited the UN armistice talks UN several times to request cooperation and thousands of families organized a rally at Deuksu Palace, Seoul in 1953.
The Family Union organized in 2000 have been unfolding a variety of activities such as confirmation of life and death of the abductees, investigation of their whereabouts, the one million petition movement for repatriation, walking the paths of abductees, and urging the demonstration of the existence of abductees.
Many related evidentiary materials such as the Korean War Abductee List created by the Korean government in 1952 and the Fourth Wartime Abductees’ List were found. For this research project, the “Korea Wartime Abductees’ Document Committee” was opened under the auspice of the Family Union on June 25, 2005.
”At North Korea negotiations, the resolution of the abductee issue has to be demonstrated as the central topic.”
Moreover, the project to record the eyewitnesses of the abductions testimonies is continuing. The first volume of Korean War Abductee Historical Records Compilation was published, which contributes to clearly examining the real state of affairs of the wartime abductions.
– Plans to resolve the wartime abductee issue?
First, a detection of news and exchange of correspondence to protect abductees must take place. The government must demonstrate the abduction problem as the first item of resolution, before economic support, at the time of negotiations with North Korea.
Abduction-related document collections must be stored and preserved to demonstrate truth and records of eyewitness and post-abduction defector accounts must be compiled. Special laws should be established for the rehabilitation of human rights and honor. The responsibility of protecting a country’s citizens needs to be fulfilled and a commemorative memorial or fund should be established to preserve records so that wartime abductees can be brought where they belong—back to the history of South Korea.
