The daughter of a South Korean POW, held in North Korea for 50 years in violation of the armistice for 50 years, has escaped into the South Korean Embassy in Beijing.
Jang Young-ok (29), who is a daughter of Korean POW Jang Pan-seon (74) and was detained by a broker organization for North Korean defectors in China, and her son Kang Chang-hyeok (2), successfully entered the Korean Embassy in Beijing on July 2.
Thus the six Jang family members, who were recorded as the first Korean POW family to defect North Korea, can now safely enter South Korea.
Choi Seong-ryong (53), who is the representative of the “gathering of families with abductees to North Korea,” said yesterday, “In the negotiations we had with the North Korea defection brokers, who were sheltering Young-ok and her son, on June 30, they accepted our mediation plan and turned the two over to the Korean Embassy in Beijing.
The articles sheds some light on the morally ambiguous role of “defection brokers,” who helped the family in its successful escape, as well.
If you haven’t already read my account of two of these POWs’ visit to Washington, it’s here. It doesn’t appear that we’re talking about the same individuals.
[...] According to the Donga Ilbo (also in Korean), there were no actual South Korean POW’s among the group. Two of the POW’s were deceased, and one was living in the South. The usual pattern has been for escaped POW’s to get out first, and then hire defection brokers to retrieve their family members from the North. One POW who managed to escape recently, Chang Moo Hwan, had agonized about the fate of his North Korean family. His case was another that provoked public anger when the South Korean Consulate initially refused to help him. I’ve also previously blogged about a Capitol Hill event where the speakers were two escaped POW’s. More accounts from escaped POW’s here and here. [...]