North Korea Secret Victims
18 mins 12 secs - October 2003
00:00
Simkin: Four hours from the South Korean coast lies a remote and rugged outpost.
00:16
It is a place of great beauty and immense danger.
Fishermen everywhere face the forces of nature, but here, they must also confront a darker force, something more frightening and more unpredictable the North Korean navy.
LEE JAE JUN: Over ten soldiers, armed with guns, climbed onto our fishing boat. They fired a bullet into the air and ordered us to put our hands up and get off the boat.
00:35
Lee Jae Jun When we got on board the North Korean ship they rounded us up and locked us in a metal cage.
01:01
Simkin: For decades, North Korean agents have been creeping into the South to conduct a secret and sinister kidnapping campaign. Hundreds of people have been seized and spirited away.
01:12
CHOI WOO-YOUNG: Why arent you catching the spies?
01:25
Simkin: The families of those who have been abducted are frustrated and furious. Not just with a North Korean regime that refuses to acknowledge or stop the kidnappings, but also with a South Korean government that incredibly refuses to do anything about it.
CHOI WOO-YOUNG: It is so difficult to rescue my father. When I think of the way my father must be suffering inside North Korea
01:47
Choi while I am living in such a free country I am determined to continue for as long as I remain my fathers daughter.
Music 02:12
Baengnyeongdo Island Simkin: In the 1960s, the fishermen from Baengnyeongdo Island started to disappear.
02:20
At first, locals thought the men had been lost at sea, but then some of the missing made it back to port, with terrifying tales of how the catchers themselves had been caught.
02:28
FISHERMAN: They had dropped their fishnets and were sleeping when the North Koreans suddenly attacked. Their anchor rope was cut and their boat dragged towards the North. The North Koreans were pointing guns at them and people were being shot dead on one side of the boat. On the other side fishermen were taking their own lives by jumping in the water.
03:03
Simkin: Since then, dozens of fishermen have been taken from the waters around the island. Byeon Young-Hyuns father was one of them.
BYEON YOUNG HYUN: I was 11 years old and my father was 38.
Byeon Young-Hyun I had a brother and three sisters. We depended on fishing for our living. After we lost our father, we couldnt earn a living and could only have one small meal some barley each day.
03:33
Simkin: Byeon still lives on Baengnyeongdo Island, praying that one day his father will come home. It seems a forlorn hope. He doesnt even know if his dad is still alive.
03:52
The idea that North Korea is seizing ordinary fishermen seems unbelievable and many people here simply dont want to believe it. Theyd prefer to think the fishermen went North voluntarily, because theyre communist sympathisers. The families left behind have been treated with derision and suspicion, investigated by the government and discriminated against by the local community.
BYEON YOUNG-HYUN: During that time, the government, the Counter Intelligence Corps, and the police watched us intensely because they were keen to know if there was any secret communication between us and those who were taken to the North So they watched us very closely... We were not even able to travel freely.
04:56
Simkin: While the families face hardships in the South, those who have been abducted must endure much worse in the starving, Stalinist North.
05:02
The more fortunate kidnap victims are brought here, to Pyongyang, where theyre used to train spies in South Korean customs. Others are brainwashed into becoming spies themselves.
In 1970, Lee Jae Jun was desperately poor. His wife had just died, leaving him with a three-month-old son. Fishing was the only work Lee could get, so he left the boy with foster parents.
05:24
LEE JAE JUN: I had no choice but to give him up. I had no money to buy milk. The lady next door told me that at this rate, both my son and I would die and that I should give him up.
05:40
Lee Jae Jun: She said that Id definitely be able to find my flesh and blood later. So I gave him to a Mr Kim, who was living in Seoul.
Simkin: Abducted at gunpoint, Lee found himself in the communist North, a world obsessed with spectacle and spying. His short-term job had turned into a three decade long nightmare.
06:16
Lee was sent to spy school forced to endure gruelling tests of endurance and attempts at brainwashing.
06:29
LEE JAE JUN: These people are preparing to unify the Korean peninsular by force and in order to do that, they need South Koreans. So they kidnap South Koreans, pick who they think will be useful, train them as spies and brainwash them to assassinate people. This is the way people are trained to become spies.
06:46
Simkin: After three years of training, Lee was deemed to be ideologically impure. He was banished to the parched countryside, the place where millions of people have starved to death over the last decade.
07:15
LEE JAE JUN: You might think Im lying but people were so hungry they would catch little children and bath them, and boil them to eat.
07:30
There were times when a lot of people gathered at a place near my house and I was curious because I didnt know why.
07:41
Lee Jae Jun We went into the kitchen and opened the lid on an enormous pot -- and inside were three little heads being boiled.
Simkin: Eventually, Lee escaped into China, and then returned to South Korea the first kidnap victim to make it back alive. In the thirty years hed been away, the family caring for his son had died, their house now an apartment block. There was no trace of the boy. Lee still walks the streets of Seoul, trying to find a son hes hardly known
08:03
LEE JAE JUN: When I die and meet my dead wife, I will be ashamed. That is my greatest regret. My biggest wish is to see my sons face just one time.
08:33
Simkin: Pyongyang began its abduction campaign more than fifty years ago, during the Korean War.
08:50
The conflict left millions dead, and a peninsular divided.
During the fighting, the North seized at least 7,000 people by some estimates, as many as 80,000.
09:03
In the decades since, its expanded the scope of its campaign, kidnapping at least 13 Japanese men and women, and 500 South Koreans.
BOLGER: Obviously its criminal, its unconscionable to a person like myself in the United States or a person from Australia, or Europe or Japan or the Republic of Korea, we don't live like that. We live under the rule of law.
09:25
Soldiers at DMZ Simkin: The demilitarised zone that divides the peninsular is lined with one million troops, vast mine fields, and hundreds of kilometres of razor wire. Its the most heavily fortified border on earth, but its not as impenetrable as it seems.
BOLGER: They have come over land, they have tunnels dug through solid rock,
09:48
Bolger many of which we have not yet found, we know they're there because of defectors statements, but we continue to search for them but we haven't found all of them. The people emerge from under that highly fortified demilitarised zone south end and they come and take action here in the south.
10:14
Father, please come back!
10:31
Simkin: The families left behind want their loved ones sent home, or at least to be told whether theyre dead or alive.
10:34
Man at rally: We demand that Kim Jong Il admit to the terrorist act of kidnapping the South Koreans after the Korean War, and apologise immediately!
10:43
Apologise! Apologise! Apologise!
Simkin: Today, theyve gathered outside Seouls reunification Ministry to present a petition. Youd expect the South Korean government would be desperate to take up their cause, but it refuses to accept the petition and treats the families as if theyre the criminals.
10:59
Woman at rally Woman at Rally: Were in South Korea! My baby is watching! Why cant my baby see his grandfather and great grandfather again?
11:19
Simkin: Quite simply, South Korea doesnt want to upset the North.
11:28
This meeting, in Pyongyang, was the crowning achievement of President Kim Dae Jungs Sunshine Policy of engagement with the North. The policy stresses conciliation, not confrontation. Billions of dollars of aid have been sent to Pyongyang in the hope of bringing the two countries closer together.
11:34
The current government continues the policy and refuses even to raise the abductions issue with the North Korean regime. The Japanese government has taken an entirely different approach. Last year, it demanded its abductees be returned and this was the result.
11:53
The five surviving kidnap victims were allowed to return home for the first time in a quarter of a century. Japans joy was South Koreas despair.
12:18
CHOI WOO-YOUNG: I was shocked to see Kim Jong Il admitting to and apologising for the Japanese kidnappings. What it shows is that for North Korea it does not matter if the victim country is Japan or South Korea. What matters is the stance taken by the victim countrys government.
12:32
CHANTING: Return them! Return them! Return them!
12:55
Simkin: Inspired by Tokyos example, the forgotten families in South Korea are stepping up the pressure on their government.
13:01
CHANTING: The President the government should give the abductees issue top priority.
Simkin: Theyre led by this woman -- Choi Woo-Young. In 1987, her father was kidnapped near Baengyeongdo Island. All shes heard since is that hes been condemned to a North Korean concentration camp.
CHOI: The thought that my father was being treated worse than an animal and living in hellish conditions made me feel so guilty that I was living in such comfort here.
13:40
Simkin: Worried he would come back as a spy, the South Korean government put his family under surveillance. Choi Woo-Young was not allowed to tell anyone the circumstances of her fathers disappearance.
13:57
CHOI: We couldnt even discuss my fathers abduction within our family -- that was the hardest part.
14:08
Simkin: Today, the families are holding their first big rally, trying to win public support.
14:32
SINGING: Comrade dear leader, lets finish him off. Hes the enemy of our people Kim Jong Il. People of the world lets get together and put Kim Jong Il down.
14:38
Simkin: Theyve enlisted the help of the Japanese abductees and their families, hoping to learn from their success.
14:52
This is a very personal campaign, but it has serious implications for regional security. The families want Seoul to take a much harder line with Pyongyang. 14:58
Man at rally MAN: The government is shining the shoes of Kim Jong-Il. What Sunshine policy? Its a Shoeshine policy!
15:16
Simkin: They believe the Sunshine Policy is appeasement, and think their interests and their loved ones lives have been sacrificed for political gain.
CHOI: We, the families of the abductees, thought that the Sunshine Policy was meant to benefit the ordinary people -- but as time has passed we have realised that the only thing that has benefited from Kim Dae Jungs Sunshine Policy is the North Koreans regime the government of Kim Jong-Il.
15:49
Simkin: Its an issue that has divided the country. There are many people here who want Sunshine Policy abandoned, particularly the older generation, those who remember the carnage of the Korean war.
16:10
CHANTING: Lets overthrow the Kim Jong-Il regime and save our North Korean brothers! Lets save them! Lets save them! Lets save them!
16:23
Simkin: Many young Koreans see things differently. The Sunshine Policy might not have changed the North, but it has transformed these peoples opinions of Pyongyang. Some of them are ambivalent about their missing countrymen -- many support the governments softly-softly approach.
16:48
Young Woman: I think we should be friendly towards North Korea so they will like us. I have a good feeling towards the Sunshine Policy it is necessary.
17:05
Young Man: I have never thought of North Koreans as enemies. Even though they attack us from time to time, they are our blood brothers.
17:18
Simkin: Every year, South Koreans pause to remember those who died when the North invaded.
But there is no recognition or ceremonies for the kidnap victims and their families.
With the world focussed on Pyongyangs nuclear weapons program, human rights are off the agenda and politics means theyre likely to stay there. The South Korean government remains indifferent families remain divided. Communities wonder who will be taken next -- and Pyongyang continues to get away with murder.
Music 18:09
Credits: KOREA ABDUCTEES Reporter: Mark SimkinCamera: Geoffrey Lye / Jun MatsuzonoSound: Jun MatsuzonoEditor Stuart MillerProducer: Ian Altschwager
Foreign Correspondents Mark Simkin investigates the abduction of hundreds of South Koreans, whove been spirited away to the communist North. He reports on a sinister practice that receives little international attention - a crime that South Korea actively covers up.
For decades the North Korean navy has been seizing fisherman in seas near its demarcation line with the South. The victims are taken to the capital Pyongyang, where theyre used to tutor spies in South Korean customs. Sometimes the abductees themselves are purified and returned as intelligence agents.
Simkin speaks to the families left behind, citizens who come under the suspicion of neighbours and the Seoul government.
Many find unbelievable the idea that North Korea is seizing ordinary fisherman he said.
Most people would prefer to think theyre communist sympathisers and go to the North voluntarily.
Simkin meets Lee Jae Jun, the first kidnap victim to make it back to the South alive. Before escaping he was deemed to be ideologically impure and was banished to the countryside, where he witnessed the horrors of famine. Now back in Seoul, Lee walks the streets trying to find the son hes lost contact with.
My biggest wish is to see my sons face just one time he said.
The South Korean government refuses to deal with the matter. Its Sunshine policy steers away from confrontation with the North.
Now, families of kidnap victims have an ally in a group of Japanese people.
In a much-celebrated event, North Korea returned five Japanese kidnap victims and even apologised for the abductions.
But in Seoul, the government has no interest in raising the kidnappings with Pyongyang.
The Sunshine policy was supposed to help ordinary South Koreans said one family member.
But the only benefit has been to the regime in the North.
Music 00:00
Rugged outpost Simkin: Four hours from the South Korean coast lies a remote and rugged outpost. 00:16
It is a place of great beauty and immense danger.
Fishermen Fishermen everywhere face the forces of nature, but here, they must also confront a darker force, something more frightening and more unpredictable the North Korean navy.LEE JAE JUN: Over ten soldiers, armed with guns, climbed onto our fishing boat. They fired a bullet into the air and ordered us to put our hand up and get off the boat. 00:35
Lee Jae Jun When we got on board the North Korean ship they rounded us up and locked us in a metal cage. 01:01
Fishing boat Simkin: For decades, North Korean agents have been creeping into the South to conduct a secret and sinister kidnapping campaign. Hundreds of people have been seized and spirited away. 01:12
Choi at protest CHOI WOO-YOUNG: Why arent you catching the spies? 01:25
Simkin: The families of those who have been abducted are frustrated and furious. Not just with a North Korean regime that refuses to acknowledge or stop the kidnappings, but also with a South Korean government that incredibly refuses to do anything about it.
CHOI WOO-YOUNG: It is so difficult to rescue my father. When I think of the way my father must be suffering inside North Korea 01:47
Choi while I am living in such a free country I am determined to continue for as long as I remain my fathers daughter. 01:59
Music 02:12
Baengnyeongdo Island Simkin: In the 1960s, the fishermen from Baengnyeongdo Island started to disappear. 02:20
At first, locals thought the men had been lost at sea, but then some of the missing made it back to port, with terrifying tales of how the catchers themselves had been caught. 02:28
Fishing boat FISHERMAN: They had dropped their fishnets and were sleeping when the North Koreans suddenly attacked. Their anchor rope was cut and their boat dragged towards the North. The North Koreans were pointing guns at them 02:42
Fisherman and people were being shot dead on one side of the boat. On the other side fishermen were taking their own lives by jumping in the water. 03:03
Music
Byeon Young-Hyun on jetty Simkin: Since then, dozens of fishermen have been taken from the waters around the island. Byeon Young-Hyuns father was one of them.BYEON YOUNG HYUN: I was 11 years old and my father was 38. 03:19
Byeon Young-Hyun I had a brother and three sisters. We depended on fishing for our living. After we lost our father, we couldnt earn a living and could only have one small meal some barley each day. 03:33
Byeon Young-Hyun on jetty Simkin: Byeon still lives on Baengnyeongdo Island, praying that one day his father will come home. It seems a forlorn hope. He doesnt even know if his dad is still alive. 03:52
The idea that North Korea is seizing ordinary fishermen seems unbelievable and many people here simply dont want to believe it. Theyd prefer to think the fishermen went North voluntarily, because theyre communist sympathisers. The families left behind have been treated with derision and suspicion, investigated by the government and discriminated against by the local community.
Fishing fleet BYEON YOUNG-HYUN: During that time, the government, the Counter Intelligence Corps, and the police watched us to intensely 04:26
Byeon Young-Hyun because they were keen to know if there was any secret communication between us and those who were taken to the North So they watched us very closely. . We were not even able to travel freely. 04:40
Soldiers on street Music 04:56
Simkin: While the families face hardships in the South, those who have been abducted must endure much worse in the starving, Stalinist North. 05:02
The more fortunate kidnap victims are brought here, to Pyongyang, where theyre used to train spies in South Korean customs. Others are brainwashed into becoming spies themselves.
Lee Jae Jun walks alongside fence In 1970, Lee Jae Jun was desperately poor. His wife had just died, leaving him with a three-month-old son. Fishing was the only work Lee could get, so he left the boy with foster parents. 05:24
LEE JAE JUN: I had no choice but to give him up. I had no money to buy milk. The lady next door told me that at this rate, both my son and I would die and that I should give him up. 05:40
Lee Jae Jun She said that Id definitely be able to find my flesh and blood later. So I gave him to a Mr Kim, who was living in Seoul. 05:55
Rally Singing 06:06
Simkin: Abducted at gunpoint, Lee found himself in the communist North, a world obsessed with spectacle and spying. His short-term job had turned into a three decade long nightmare. 06:16
Lee was sent to spy school forced to endure gruelling tests of endurance and attempts at brainwashing. 06:29
LEE JAE JUN: These people are preparing to unify the Korean peninsular by force 06:38
Lee Jae Jun and in order to do that, they need South Koreans. So they kidnap South Koreans, pick who they think will be useful, train them as spies and brainwash them to assassinate people. This is the way people are trained to become spies. 06:46
Nth Korean countryside Simkin: After three years of training, Lee was deemed to be ideologically impure. He was banished to the parched countryside, the place where millions of people have starved to death over the last decade. 07:15
LEE JAE JUN: You might think Im lying but people were so hungry they would catch little children and bath them, and boil them to eat. 07:30
There were times when a lot of people gathered at a place near my house and I was curious because I didnt know why. 07:41
Lee Jae Jun We went into the kitchen and opened the lid on an enormous pot -- and inside were three little heads being boiled. 07:52
Seoul Simkin: Eventually, Lee escaped into China, and then returned to South Korea the first kidnap victim to make it back alive. In the thirty years hed been away, the family caring for his son had died, their house now an apartment block. There was no trace of the boy. Lee still walks the streets of Seoul, trying to find a son hes hardly known. 08:03
Lee Jae Jun LEE JAE JUN: When I die and meet my dead wife, I will be ashamed. That is my greatest regret. My biggest wish is to see my sons face just one time. 08:33
Archival Korean War Simkin: Pyongyang began its abduction campaign more than fifty years ago, during the Korean War. 08:50
The conflict left millions dead, and a peninsular divided.
During the fighting, the North seized at least 7,000 people by some estimates, as many as 80,000. 09:03
In the decades since, its expanded the scope of its campaign, kidnapping at least 13 Japanese men and women, and 500 South Koreans.
BolgerSuper: Colonel Daniel BolgerInfantry, U.S. Army BOLGER: Obviously its criminal, its unconscionable to a person like myself in the United States or a person from Australia, or Europe or Japan or the Republic of Korea, we don't live like that. We live under the rule of law. 09:25
Soldiers at DMZ Simkin: The demilitarised zone that divides the peninsular is lined with one million troops, vast mine fields, and hundreds of kilometres of razor wire. Its the most heavily fortified border on earth, but its not as impenetrable as it seems.BOLGER: They have come over land, they have tunnels dug through solid rock, 09:48
Bolger many of which we have not yet found, we know they're there because of defectors statements, but we continue to search for them but we haven't found all of them. The people emerge from under that highly fortified demilitarised zone south end and they come and take action here in the south. 10:14
Choi at rally Choi: Father, please come back! 10:31
People at rally Simkin: The families left behind want their loved ones sent home, or at least to be told whether theyre dead or alive. 10:34
Man at rally: We demand that Kim Jong Il admit to the terrorist act of kidnapping the South Koreans after the Korean War, and apologise immediately! 10:43
Apologise! Apologise! Apologise!
Simkin: Today, theyve gathered outside Seouls reunification Ministry to present a petition. Youd expect the South Korean government would be desperate to take up their cause, but it refuses to accept the petition and treats the families as if theyre the criminals. 10:59
Woman at rally Woman at Rally: Were in South Korea! My baby is watching! Why cant my baby see his grandfather and great grandfather again? 11:19
Simkin: Quite simply, South Korea doesnt want to upset the North. 11:28
Delegation arrives at Pyongyang This meeting, in Pyongyang, was the crowning achievement of President Kim Dae Jungs Sunshine Policy of engagement with the North. The policy stresses conciliation, not confrontation. Billions of dollars of aid have been sent to Pyongyang in the hope of bringing the two countries closer together. 11:34
The current government continues the policy and refuses to even raise the abductions issue with the North Korean regime. The Japanese government has taken an entirely difference approach. Last year, it demanded its abductees be returned and this was the result. 11:53
Reunion of abductees The five surviving kidnap victims were allowed to return home for the first time in a quarter of a century. Japans joy was South Koreas despair. 12:18
Choi CHOI WOO-YOUNG: I was shocked to see Kim Jong Il admitting to and apologising for the Japanese kidnappings. What it shows is that for North Korea it does not matter if the victim country is Japan or South Korea. What matters is the stance taken by the victim countrys government. 12:32
Rally CHANTING: Return them! Return them! Return them! 12:55
Simkin: Inspired by Tokyos example, the forgotten families in South Korea are stepping up the pressure on their government.
13:01
CHANTING: The President the government should give the abductees issue top priority..
Simkin: Theyre led by this woman -- Choi Woo-Young. In 1987, her father was kidnapped near Baengyeongdo Island. All shes heard since is that hes been condemned to a North Korean concentration camp.CHOI: The thought that my father was being treated worse than an animal and living in hellish conditions made me feel so guilty that I was living in such comfort here.
13:40
Simkin: Worried he would come back as a spy, the South Korean government put his family under surveillance. Choi Woo-Young was not allowed to tell anyone the circumstances of her fathers disappearance.
13:57
CHOI: We couldnt even discuss my fathers abduction within our family -- that was the hardest part.
14:08
Simkin: Today, the families are holding their first big rally, trying to win public support.
14:32
SINGING: Comrade dear leader, lets finish him off. Hes the enemy of our people Kim Jong Il. People of the world lets get together and put Kim Jong Il down.
14:38
Simkin: Theyve enlisted the help of the Japanese abductees and their families, hoping to learn from their success.
14:52
This is a very personal campaign, but it has serious implications for regional security. The families want Seoul to take a much harder line with Pyongyang.
14:58
Man at rally MAN: The government is shining the shoes of Kim Jong-Il . What Sunshine policy? Its a Shoeshine policy!
15:16
Simkin: They believe the Sunshine Policy is appeasement, and think their interests and their loved ones lives have been sacrificed for political gain.CHOI: We, the families of the abductees, thought that the Sunshine Policy was meant to benefit the ordinary people -- but as time has passed
15:25
we have realised that the only thing that has benefited from Kim Dae Jungs Sunshine Policy is the North Koreans regime the government of Kim Jong-Il.
15:49
Simkin: Its an issue that has divided the country. There are many people here who want Sunshine Policy abandoned, particularly the older generation, those who remember the carnage of the Korean war.
16:10
CHANTING: Lets overthrow the Kim Jong-Il regime and save our North Korean brothers! Lets save them! Lets save them! Lets save them!
16:23
Simkin: Many young Koreans see things differently. The Sunshine Policy might not have changed the North, but it has transformed these peoples opinions of Pyongyang. Some of them are ambivalent about their missing countrymen -- many support the governments softly-softly approach.
16:48
Young Woman: I think we should be friendly towards North Korea so they will like us. I have a good feeling towards the Sunshine Policy it is necessary.
Young Man: I have never thought of North Koreans as enemies. Even though they attack us from time to time, they are our blood brothers.
Simkin: Every year, South Koreans pause to remember those who died when the North invaded.
17:37
But there is no recognition or ceremonies for the kidnap victims and their families.
With the world focussed on Pyongyangs nuclear weapons program, human rights are off the agenda and politics means theyre likely to stay there. The South Korean government remains indifferent families remain divided. Communities wonder who will be taken next -- and Pyongyang continues to get away with murder.
Music 18:09
Credits: KOREA ABDUCTEES Reporter: Mark SimkinCamera: Geoffrey Lye / Jun MatsuzonoSound: Jun MatsuzonoEditor Stuart MillerProducer: Ian Altschwager
18 mins 12 secs - October 2003
00:00
Simkin: Four hours from the South Korean coast lies a remote and rugged outpost.
00:16
It is a place of great beauty and immense danger.
Fishermen everywhere face the forces of nature, but here, they must also confront a darker force, something more frightening and more unpredictable the North Korean navy.
LEE JAE JUN: Over ten soldiers, armed with guns, climbed onto our fishing boat. They fired a bullet into the air and ordered us to put our hands up and get off the boat.
00:35
Lee Jae Jun When we got on board the North Korean ship they rounded us up and locked us in a metal cage.
01:01
Simkin: For decades, North Korean agents have been creeping into the South to conduct a secret and sinister kidnapping campaign. Hundreds of people have been seized and spirited away.
01:12
CHOI WOO-YOUNG: Why arent you catching the spies?
01:25
Simkin: The families of those who have been abducted are frustrated and furious. Not just with a North Korean regime that refuses to acknowledge or stop the kidnappings, but also with a South Korean government that incredibly refuses to do anything about it.
CHOI WOO-YOUNG: It is so difficult to rescue my father. When I think of the way my father must be suffering inside North Korea
01:47
Choi while I am living in such a free country I am determined to continue for as long as I remain my fathers daughter.
Music 02:12
Baengnyeongdo Island Simkin: In the 1960s, the fishermen from Baengnyeongdo Island started to disappear.
02:20
At first, locals thought the men had been lost at sea, but then some of the missing made it back to port, with terrifying tales of how the catchers themselves had been caught.
02:28
FISHERMAN: They had dropped their fishnets and were sleeping when the North Koreans suddenly attacked. Their anchor rope was cut and their boat dragged towards the North. The North Koreans were pointing guns at them and people were being shot dead on one side of the boat. On the other side fishermen were taking their own lives by jumping in the water.
03:03
Simkin: Since then, dozens of fishermen have been taken from the waters around the island. Byeon Young-Hyuns father was one of them.
BYEON YOUNG HYUN: I was 11 years old and my father was 38.
Byeon Young-Hyun I had a brother and three sisters. We depended on fishing for our living. After we lost our father, we couldnt earn a living and could only have one small meal some barley each day.
03:33
Simkin: Byeon still lives on Baengnyeongdo Island, praying that one day his father will come home. It seems a forlorn hope. He doesnt even know if his dad is still alive.
03:52
The idea that North Korea is seizing ordinary fishermen seems unbelievable and many people here simply dont want to believe it. Theyd prefer to think the fishermen went North voluntarily, because theyre communist sympathisers. The families left behind have been treated with derision and suspicion, investigated by the government and discriminated against by the local community.
BYEON YOUNG-HYUN: During that time, the government, the Counter Intelligence Corps, and the police watched us intensely because they were keen to know if there was any secret communication between us and those who were taken to the North So they watched us very closely... We were not even able to travel freely.
04:56
Simkin: While the families face hardships in the South, those who have been abducted must endure much worse in the starving, Stalinist North.
05:02
The more fortunate kidnap victims are brought here, to Pyongyang, where theyre used to train spies in South Korean customs. Others are brainwashed into becoming spies themselves.
In 1970, Lee Jae Jun was desperately poor. His wife had just died, leaving him with a three-month-old son. Fishing was the only work Lee could get, so he left the boy with foster parents.
05:24
LEE JAE JUN: I had no choice but to give him up. I had no money to buy milk. The lady next door told me that at this rate, both my son and I would die and that I should give him up.
05:40
Lee Jae Jun: She said that Id definitely be able to find my flesh and blood later. So I gave him to a Mr Kim, who was living in Seoul.
Simkin: Abducted at gunpoint, Lee found himself in the communist North, a world obsessed with spectacle and spying. His short-term job had turned into a three decade long nightmare.
06:16
Lee was sent to spy school forced to endure gruelling tests of endurance and attempts at brainwashing.
06:29
LEE JAE JUN: These people are preparing to unify the Korean peninsular by force and in order to do that, they need South Koreans. So they kidnap South Koreans, pick who they think will be useful, train them as spies and brainwash them to assassinate people. This is the way people are trained to become spies.
06:46
Simkin: After three years of training, Lee was deemed to be ideologically impure. He was banished to the parched countryside, the place where millions of people have starved to death over the last decade.
07:15
LEE JAE JUN: You might think Im lying but people were so hungry they would catch little children and bath them, and boil them to eat.
07:30
There were times when a lot of people gathered at a place near my house and I was curious because I didnt know why.
07:41
Lee Jae Jun We went into the kitchen and opened the lid on an enormous pot -- and inside were three little heads being boiled.
Simkin: Eventually, Lee escaped into China, and then returned to South Korea the first kidnap victim to make it back alive. In the thirty years hed been away, the family caring for his son had died, their house now an apartment block. There was no trace of the boy. Lee still walks the streets of Seoul, trying to find a son hes hardly known
08:03
LEE JAE JUN: When I die and meet my dead wife, I will be ashamed. That is my greatest regret. My biggest wish is to see my sons face just one time.
08:33
Simkin: Pyongyang began its abduction campaign more than fifty years ago, during the Korean War.
08:50
The conflict left millions dead, and a peninsular divided.
During the fighting, the North seized at least 7,000 people by some estimates, as many as 80,000.
09:03
In the decades since, its expanded the scope of its campaign, kidnapping at least 13 Japanese men and women, and 500 South Koreans.
BOLGER: Obviously its criminal, its unconscionable to a person like myself in the United States or a person from Australia, or Europe or Japan or the Republic of Korea, we don't live like that. We live under the rule of law.
09:25
Soldiers at DMZ Simkin: The demilitarised zone that divides the peninsular is lined with one million troops, vast mine fields, and hundreds of kilometres of razor wire. Its the most heavily fortified border on earth, but its not as impenetrable as it seems.
BOLGER: They have come over land, they have tunnels dug through solid rock,
09:48
Bolger many of which we have not yet found, we know they're there because of defectors statements, but we continue to search for them but we haven't found all of them. The people emerge from under that highly fortified demilitarised zone south end and they come and take action here in the south.
10:14
Father, please come back!
10:31
Simkin: The families left behind want their loved ones sent home, or at least to be told whether theyre dead or alive.
10:34
Man at rally: We demand that Kim Jong Il admit to the terrorist act of kidnapping the South Koreans after the Korean War, and apologise immediately!
10:43
Apologise! Apologise! Apologise!
Simkin: Today, theyve gathered outside Seouls reunification Ministry to present a petition. Youd expect the South Korean government would be desperate to take up their cause, but it refuses to accept the petition and treats the families as if theyre the criminals.
10:59
Woman at rally Woman at Rally: Were in South Korea! My baby is watching! Why cant my baby see his grandfather and great grandfather again?
11:19
Simkin: Quite simply, South Korea doesnt want to upset the North.
11:28
This meeting, in Pyongyang, was the crowning achievement of President Kim Dae Jungs Sunshine Policy of engagement with the North. The policy stresses conciliation, not confrontation. Billions of dollars of aid have been sent to Pyongyang in the hope of bringing the two countries closer together.
11:34
The current government continues the policy and refuses even to raise the abductions issue with the North Korean regime. The Japanese government has taken an entirely different approach. Last year, it demanded its abductees be returned and this was the result.
11:53
The five surviving kidnap victims were allowed to return home for the first time in a quarter of a century. Japans joy was South Koreas despair.
12:18
CHOI WOO-YOUNG: I was shocked to see Kim Jong Il admitting to and apologising for the Japanese kidnappings. What it shows is that for North Korea it does not matter if the victim country is Japan or South Korea. What matters is the stance taken by the victim countrys government.
12:32
CHANTING: Return them! Return them! Return them!
12:55
Simkin: Inspired by Tokyos example, the forgotten families in South Korea are stepping up the pressure on their government.
13:01
CHANTING: The President the government should give the abductees issue top priority.
Simkin: Theyre led by this woman -- Choi Woo-Young. In 1987, her father was kidnapped near Baengyeongdo Island. All shes heard since is that hes been condemned to a North Korean concentration camp.
CHOI: The thought that my father was being treated worse than an animal and living in hellish conditions made me feel so guilty that I was living in such comfort here.
13:40
Simkin: Worried he would come back as a spy, the South Korean government put his family under surveillance. Choi Woo-Young was not allowed to tell anyone the circumstances of her fathers disappearance.
13:57
CHOI: We couldnt even discuss my fathers abduction within our family -- that was the hardest part.
14:08
Simkin: Today, the families are holding their first big rally, trying to win public support.
14:32
SINGING: Comrade dear leader, lets finish him off. Hes the enemy of our people Kim Jong Il. People of the world lets get together and put Kim Jong Il down.
14:38
Simkin: Theyve enlisted the help of the Japanese abductees and their families, hoping to learn from their success.
14:52
This is a very personal campaign, but it has serious implications for regional security. The families want Seoul to take a much harder line with Pyongyang. 14:58
Man at rally MAN: The government is shining the shoes of Kim Jong-Il. What Sunshine policy? Its a Shoeshine policy!
15:16
Simkin: They believe the Sunshine Policy is appeasement, and think their interests and their loved ones lives have been sacrificed for political gain.
CHOI: We, the families of the abductees, thought that the Sunshine Policy was meant to benefit the ordinary people -- but as time has passed we have realised that the only thing that has benefited from Kim Dae Jungs Sunshine Policy is the North Koreans regime the government of Kim Jong-Il.
15:49
Simkin: Its an issue that has divided the country. There are many people here who want Sunshine Policy abandoned, particularly the older generation, those who remember the carnage of the Korean war.
16:10
CHANTING: Lets overthrow the Kim Jong-Il regime and save our North Korean brothers! Lets save them! Lets save them! Lets save them!
16:23
Simkin: Many young Koreans see things differently. The Sunshine Policy might not have changed the North, but it has transformed these peoples opinions of Pyongyang. Some of them are ambivalent about their missing countrymen -- many support the governments softly-softly approach.
16:48
Young Woman: I think we should be friendly towards North Korea so they will like us. I have a good feeling towards the Sunshine Policy it is necessary.
17:05
Young Man: I have never thought of North Koreans as enemies. Even though they attack us from time to time, they are our blood brothers.
17:18
Simkin: Every year, South Koreans pause to remember those who died when the North invaded.
But there is no recognition or ceremonies for the kidnap victims and their families.
With the world focussed on Pyongyangs nuclear weapons program, human rights are off the agenda and politics means theyre likely to stay there. The South Korean government remains indifferent families remain divided. Communities wonder who will be taken next -- and Pyongyang continues to get away with murder.
Music 18:09
Credits: KOREA ABDUCTEES Reporter: Mark SimkinCamera: Geoffrey Lye / Jun MatsuzonoSound: Jun MatsuzonoEditor Stuart MillerProducer: Ian Altschwager
Foreign Correspondents Mark Simkin investigates the abduction of hundreds of South Koreans, whove been spirited away to the communist North. He reports on a sinister practice that receives little international attention - a crime that South Korea actively covers up.
For decades the North Korean navy has been seizing fisherman in seas near its demarcation line with the South. The victims are taken to the capital Pyongyang, where theyre used to tutor spies in South Korean customs. Sometimes the abductees themselves are purified and returned as intelligence agents.
Simkin speaks to the families left behind, citizens who come under the suspicion of neighbours and the Seoul government.
Many find unbelievable the idea that North Korea is seizing ordinary fisherman he said.
Most people would prefer to think theyre communist sympathisers and go to the North voluntarily.
Simkin meets Lee Jae Jun, the first kidnap victim to make it back to the South alive. Before escaping he was deemed to be ideologically impure and was banished to the countryside, where he witnessed the horrors of famine. Now back in Seoul, Lee walks the streets trying to find the son hes lost contact with.
My biggest wish is to see my sons face just one time he said.
The South Korean government refuses to deal with the matter. Its Sunshine policy steers away from confrontation with the North.
Now, families of kidnap victims have an ally in a group of Japanese people.
In a much-celebrated event, North Korea returned five Japanese kidnap victims and even apologised for the abductions.
But in Seoul, the government has no interest in raising the kidnappings with Pyongyang.
The Sunshine policy was supposed to help ordinary South Koreans said one family member.
But the only benefit has been to the regime in the North.
Music 00:00
Rugged outpost Simkin: Four hours from the South Korean coast lies a remote and rugged outpost. 00:16
It is a place of great beauty and immense danger.
Fishermen Fishermen everywhere face the forces of nature, but here, they must also confront a darker force, something more frightening and more unpredictable the North Korean navy.LEE JAE JUN: Over ten soldiers, armed with guns, climbed onto our fishing boat. They fired a bullet into the air and ordered us to put our hand up and get off the boat. 00:35
Lee Jae Jun When we got on board the North Korean ship they rounded us up and locked us in a metal cage. 01:01
Fishing boat Simkin: For decades, North Korean agents have been creeping into the South to conduct a secret and sinister kidnapping campaign. Hundreds of people have been seized and spirited away. 01:12
Choi at protest CHOI WOO-YOUNG: Why arent you catching the spies? 01:25
Simkin: The families of those who have been abducted are frustrated and furious. Not just with a North Korean regime that refuses to acknowledge or stop the kidnappings, but also with a South Korean government that incredibly refuses to do anything about it.
CHOI WOO-YOUNG: It is so difficult to rescue my father. When I think of the way my father must be suffering inside North Korea 01:47
Choi while I am living in such a free country I am determined to continue for as long as I remain my fathers daughter. 01:59
Music 02:12
Baengnyeongdo Island Simkin: In the 1960s, the fishermen from Baengnyeongdo Island started to disappear. 02:20
At first, locals thought the men had been lost at sea, but then some of the missing made it back to port, with terrifying tales of how the catchers themselves had been caught. 02:28
Fishing boat FISHERMAN: They had dropped their fishnets and were sleeping when the North Koreans suddenly attacked. Their anchor rope was cut and their boat dragged towards the North. The North Koreans were pointing guns at them 02:42
Fisherman and people were being shot dead on one side of the boat. On the other side fishermen were taking their own lives by jumping in the water. 03:03
Music
Byeon Young-Hyun on jetty Simkin: Since then, dozens of fishermen have been taken from the waters around the island. Byeon Young-Hyuns father was one of them.BYEON YOUNG HYUN: I was 11 years old and my father was 38. 03:19
Byeon Young-Hyun I had a brother and three sisters. We depended on fishing for our living. After we lost our father, we couldnt earn a living and could only have one small meal some barley each day. 03:33
Byeon Young-Hyun on jetty Simkin: Byeon still lives on Baengnyeongdo Island, praying that one day his father will come home. It seems a forlorn hope. He doesnt even know if his dad is still alive. 03:52
The idea that North Korea is seizing ordinary fishermen seems unbelievable and many people here simply dont want to believe it. Theyd prefer to think the fishermen went North voluntarily, because theyre communist sympathisers. The families left behind have been treated with derision and suspicion, investigated by the government and discriminated against by the local community.
Fishing fleet BYEON YOUNG-HYUN: During that time, the government, the Counter Intelligence Corps, and the police watched us to intensely 04:26
Byeon Young-Hyun because they were keen to know if there was any secret communication between us and those who were taken to the North So they watched us very closely. . We were not even able to travel freely. 04:40
Soldiers on street Music 04:56
Simkin: While the families face hardships in the South, those who have been abducted must endure much worse in the starving, Stalinist North. 05:02
The more fortunate kidnap victims are brought here, to Pyongyang, where theyre used to train spies in South Korean customs. Others are brainwashed into becoming spies themselves.
Lee Jae Jun walks alongside fence In 1970, Lee Jae Jun was desperately poor. His wife had just died, leaving him with a three-month-old son. Fishing was the only work Lee could get, so he left the boy with foster parents. 05:24
LEE JAE JUN: I had no choice but to give him up. I had no money to buy milk. The lady next door told me that at this rate, both my son and I would die and that I should give him up. 05:40
Lee Jae Jun She said that Id definitely be able to find my flesh and blood later. So I gave him to a Mr Kim, who was living in Seoul. 05:55
Rally Singing 06:06
Simkin: Abducted at gunpoint, Lee found himself in the communist North, a world obsessed with spectacle and spying. His short-term job had turned into a three decade long nightmare. 06:16
Lee was sent to spy school forced to endure gruelling tests of endurance and attempts at brainwashing. 06:29
LEE JAE JUN: These people are preparing to unify the Korean peninsular by force 06:38
Lee Jae Jun and in order to do that, they need South Koreans. So they kidnap South Koreans, pick who they think will be useful, train them as spies and brainwash them to assassinate people. This is the way people are trained to become spies. 06:46
Nth Korean countryside Simkin: After three years of training, Lee was deemed to be ideologically impure. He was banished to the parched countryside, the place where millions of people have starved to death over the last decade. 07:15
LEE JAE JUN: You might think Im lying but people were so hungry they would catch little children and bath them, and boil them to eat. 07:30
There were times when a lot of people gathered at a place near my house and I was curious because I didnt know why. 07:41
Lee Jae Jun We went into the kitchen and opened the lid on an enormous pot -- and inside were three little heads being boiled. 07:52
Seoul Simkin: Eventually, Lee escaped into China, and then returned to South Korea the first kidnap victim to make it back alive. In the thirty years hed been away, the family caring for his son had died, their house now an apartment block. There was no trace of the boy. Lee still walks the streets of Seoul, trying to find a son hes hardly known. 08:03
Lee Jae Jun LEE JAE JUN: When I die and meet my dead wife, I will be ashamed. That is my greatest regret. My biggest wish is to see my sons face just one time. 08:33
Archival Korean War Simkin: Pyongyang began its abduction campaign more than fifty years ago, during the Korean War. 08:50
The conflict left millions dead, and a peninsular divided.
During the fighting, the North seized at least 7,000 people by some estimates, as many as 80,000. 09:03
In the decades since, its expanded the scope of its campaign, kidnapping at least 13 Japanese men and women, and 500 South Koreans.
BolgerSuper: Colonel Daniel BolgerInfantry, U.S. Army BOLGER: Obviously its criminal, its unconscionable to a person like myself in the United States or a person from Australia, or Europe or Japan or the Republic of Korea, we don't live like that. We live under the rule of law. 09:25
Soldiers at DMZ Simkin: The demilitarised zone that divides the peninsular is lined with one million troops, vast mine fields, and hundreds of kilometres of razor wire. Its the most heavily fortified border on earth, but its not as impenetrable as it seems.BOLGER: They have come over land, they have tunnels dug through solid rock, 09:48
Bolger many of which we have not yet found, we know they're there because of defectors statements, but we continue to search for them but we haven't found all of them. The people emerge from under that highly fortified demilitarised zone south end and they come and take action here in the south. 10:14
Choi at rally Choi: Father, please come back! 10:31
People at rally Simkin: The families left behind want their loved ones sent home, or at least to be told whether theyre dead or alive. 10:34
Man at rally: We demand that Kim Jong Il admit to the terrorist act of kidnapping the South Koreans after the Korean War, and apologise immediately! 10:43
Apologise! Apologise! Apologise!
Simkin: Today, theyve gathered outside Seouls reunification Ministry to present a petition. Youd expect the South Korean government would be desperate to take up their cause, but it refuses to accept the petition and treats the families as if theyre the criminals. 10:59
Woman at rally Woman at Rally: Were in South Korea! My baby is watching! Why cant my baby see his grandfather and great grandfather again? 11:19
Simkin: Quite simply, South Korea doesnt want to upset the North. 11:28
Delegation arrives at Pyongyang This meeting, in Pyongyang, was the crowning achievement of President Kim Dae Jungs Sunshine Policy of engagement with the North. The policy stresses conciliation, not confrontation. Billions of dollars of aid have been sent to Pyongyang in the hope of bringing the two countries closer together. 11:34
The current government continues the policy and refuses to even raise the abductions issue with the North Korean regime. The Japanese government has taken an entirely difference approach. Last year, it demanded its abductees be returned and this was the result. 11:53
Reunion of abductees The five surviving kidnap victims were allowed to return home for the first time in a quarter of a century. Japans joy was South Koreas despair. 12:18
Choi CHOI WOO-YOUNG: I was shocked to see Kim Jong Il admitting to and apologising for the Japanese kidnappings. What it shows is that for North Korea it does not matter if the victim country is Japan or South Korea. What matters is the stance taken by the victim countrys government. 12:32
Rally CHANTING: Return them! Return them! Return them! 12:55
Simkin: Inspired by Tokyos example, the forgotten families in South Korea are stepping up the pressure on their government.
13:01
CHANTING: The President the government should give the abductees issue top priority..
Simkin: Theyre led by this woman -- Choi Woo-Young. In 1987, her father was kidnapped near Baengyeongdo Island. All shes heard since is that hes been condemned to a North Korean concentration camp.CHOI: The thought that my father was being treated worse than an animal and living in hellish conditions made me feel so guilty that I was living in such comfort here.
13:40
Simkin: Worried he would come back as a spy, the South Korean government put his family under surveillance. Choi Woo-Young was not allowed to tell anyone the circumstances of her fathers disappearance.
13:57
CHOI: We couldnt even discuss my fathers abduction within our family -- that was the hardest part.
14:08
Simkin: Today, the families are holding their first big rally, trying to win public support.
14:32
SINGING: Comrade dear leader, lets finish him off. Hes the enemy of our people Kim Jong Il. People of the world lets get together and put Kim Jong Il down.
14:38
Simkin: Theyve enlisted the help of the Japanese abductees and their families, hoping to learn from their success.
14:52
This is a very personal campaign, but it has serious implications for regional security. The families want Seoul to take a much harder line with Pyongyang.
14:58
Man at rally MAN: The government is shining the shoes of Kim Jong-Il . What Sunshine policy? Its a Shoeshine policy!
15:16
Simkin: They believe the Sunshine Policy is appeasement, and think their interests and their loved ones lives have been sacrificed for political gain.CHOI: We, the families of the abductees, thought that the Sunshine Policy was meant to benefit the ordinary people -- but as time has passed
15:25
we have realised that the only thing that has benefited from Kim Dae Jungs Sunshine Policy is the North Koreans regime the government of Kim Jong-Il.
15:49
Simkin: Its an issue that has divided the country. There are many people here who want Sunshine Policy abandoned, particularly the older generation, those who remember the carnage of the Korean war.
16:10
CHANTING: Lets overthrow the Kim Jong-Il regime and save our North Korean brothers! Lets save them! Lets save them! Lets save them!
16:23
Simkin: Many young Koreans see things differently. The Sunshine Policy might not have changed the North, but it has transformed these peoples opinions of Pyongyang. Some of them are ambivalent about their missing countrymen -- many support the governments softly-softly approach.
16:48
Young Woman: I think we should be friendly towards North Korea so they will like us. I have a good feeling towards the Sunshine Policy it is necessary.
Young Man: I have never thought of North Koreans as enemies. Even though they attack us from time to time, they are our blood brothers.
Simkin: Every year, South Koreans pause to remember those who died when the North invaded.
17:37
But there is no recognition or ceremonies for the kidnap victims and their families.
With the world focussed on Pyongyangs nuclear weapons program, human rights are off the agenda and politics means theyre likely to stay there. The South Korean government remains indifferent families remain divided. Communities wonder who will be taken next -- and Pyongyang continues to get away with murder.
Music 18:09
Credits: KOREA ABDUCTEES Reporter: Mark SimkinCamera: Geoffrey Lye / Jun MatsuzonoSound: Jun MatsuzonoEditor Stuart MillerProducer: Ian Altschwager