MEDIA ADVISORY == April 29, 2002
Below is a story from today's New York Times about the reunions in North Korea
that just began. Note especially the final two paragraphs. Tomorrow (Tuesday)
Calvin College will host Helie Lee, a Korean American author who wrote a book
about a Korean reunion she led, a permanent reunion in which she smuggled nine
members of her extended family out of Korea, including an uncle that her family
had not seen for 50 years. Ms. Lee will arrive in Grand Rapids this evening and
be available for interviews tomorrow (Tuesday). For more on that talk see
www.calvin.edu/news
Phil de Haan, media relations
Calvin College
616-957-6475
NEW YORK TIMES
SEOUL, South Korea, April 28 ~~ North Korea today welcomed a group of visitors
from South Korea whose families were divided by the Korean War, but it also
called for the resignation of South Korea's foreign minister.
The scene at the reunion, at the North Korean resort of Mount Kumkang, as well
as the denunciation of Foreign Minister Choi Sung Hong, indicated the fragility
of efforts at North-South reconciliation after a break of more than a year in
significant dialogue.
The family visits, the first since February 2001, were the result of efforts to
renew dialogue that began with a visit to North Korea early this month by Lim
Dong Won, the official responsible for carrying out the reconciliation policies
of South Korea's president, Kim Dae Jung. Although the two Koreas had held three
family reunions since 2000, North Korea suspended such contacts after President
Bush expressed "skepticism" about the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, a year
ago.
No sooner had the 99 South Korean visitors moved beyond the initial hugs than
their North Korean relatives burst into praise for Kim Jong Il. It was all
carried live by South Korea's four television networks.
"Our Great Leader Kim Jong Il allowed us to study, and we are doing very well,"
said Lee Kwang Chul, 61, as he met the older sister who fled with her in-laws
during the Korean War. "We just have to reunite soon so that we can meet
freely."
The attack on Mr. Choi, however, again raised doubts about the stalled
reconciliation process that received another blow when Mr. Bush, in January,
included the North in his description of an "axis of evil," along with Iran and
Iraq.
The Korea Central News Agency in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, said Mr.
Choi "should be dislodged and eliminated" for remarking in an interview with The
Washington Post this month that the "stern attitude" of the United States might
have helped persuade the North to want to resume dialogue with Washington.
Mr. Choi visited Washington after Mr. Lim had flown to North Korea for a
five-hour meeting with Kim Jong Il in which Mr. Kim assured him of the North's
desire to resume steps toward rapprochement.
In a hint of the domestic suffering and discontent that has been causing the
North to soften its outlook, two North Korean defectors arrived in Seoul from
Singapore today after having entered the American Embassy in Beijing. A third
arrived this evening from Manila after having defected to the Germany Embassy in
Beijing by leaping over the wall.
The North Koreans at Mount Kumkang today, though, were clearly on their best
behavior. But there were glimmers of personal suffering.
Chung Gui Up, 76, persisted in asking Lim Han Un, 74, whom she had married more
than 50 years ago, what he had been doing since he was last seen in the southern
region of South Korea during the Korean War. She wanted to know if he had a
girlfriend while they were married, whom he had married in the North and how
many children he had.
"I had no girlfriend," Mr. Lim assured her, with a faint smile.
Han Shin Ho, 81, from South Korea, meeting her daughter, Kim Kyung Ae, 55,
talked about how they were separated. Ms. Han had taken her daughter, then 3
years old, to a relative and then fled to the south after the war began.
"All these years I thought that my parents had died," said Ms. Kim.
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