South Koreans ask China not to send
North Korean family back to the North
By Jim Lea, Osan bureau chief
South Korea officials are asking China not to send a North Korean family — now
staying at the United Nations office in Beijing — back to the North.
The request came from leaders of South Korea’s ruling Millennium Democratic Party
and major opposition Grand National party to the Chinese Ambassador to Seoul.
Party spokesmen said the South Korean officials expressed concern that the defectors
would be persecuted if they were returned to the North.
Seven members of a North Korean family showed up at the Beijing U.N. High Commissioner
office earlier this week and asked for asylum. They said they had been hiding in China for
some time and were afraid they would be persecuted by the North Korean regime for
uncomplimentary paintings by the family’s 17-year-old boy.
China is bound by a treaty with Pyongyang to return any North Koreans caught in its
territory. South Korea says all North Koreans hiding in China should be considered
refugees and be allowed to settle in the country of their choice. The seven people in the
U.N. office in Beijing have asked to go to South Korea.
Beijing press reports said Chinese and U.N. officials are discussing the possibility of
the family being deported to a third country and going from there to South Korea. The
reports said Beijing is concerned that sending the defectors back to the North could have
adverse impact on its bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics.
"Sending them to a third country would be the best option," Foreign Affairs
and Trade Ministry in Seoul said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
There is precedent for that. When Hwang Jang Yop, the highest-ranking North Korean
official ever to defect to the South, defected in 1997, China deported him to the
Philippines. He and an aide remained there under Philippine government protection for 30
days, then came to Seoul.
The Unification Ministry in Seoul said Thursday there has been a dramatic increase this
year in the number of North Korean defectors. More than 300 defectors arrived here in
2000, a ministry spokesman said. From Jan. 1 to June 15, 218 have arrived.
He said the reason for the increase appears to be that defectors are finding different
routes to reach the South besides through China. A number of those who have arrived this
year have come through Mongolia, the spokesman said.
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