Men hardened to spy in North find it hard

During the Cold War period, South Korea trained paramilitary agents for missions of infiltration and destruction in North Korea. Some of these trainees were sent on missions from which few returned; others were sent home after training. But the survivors are not fading away.

On Sept. 29, the same day that North and South Korean athletes marched hand in hand at the opening of the Busan Asian Games, a group of former covert operators took to the streets in a bloody confrontation with Seoul police. They demanded monetary compensation and recognition of their role in a decades-long state policy. They say they were lied to, brutalized and then abandoned by their government.

There are no official data on the scale of the operations, but a Millennium Democratic Party lawmaker, Kim Seong-ho, has what may be semiofficial information. Between 1951 and 1972, he reports, 7,726 men crossed the border on secret missions. Nearly 5,300 of them did not make it back; 300 are confirmed dead in North Korean territory, 130 are known to have been arrested and 4,849 are missing. About 200 made it back badly injured, and 2,244 returned sound and settled back into civilian life.

Why 1972? That was the year Seoul and Pyeongyang issued a joint declaration disavowing the use of force -- hence the official end of paramilitary missions. Mr. Kim told the JoongAng Daily that the number of people who took part in training and missions after 1972 is more than 2,000, although official confirmation may never be possible.

The Kim Dae-jung administration, pursuing a "sunshine policy" of engaging the North, eyes the former spies with wariness. For the Sept. 29 demonstration, the police provided a full motor escort across Seoul for six busloads of the former paramilitaries, stopping traffic at intersections along the way.

Then, said Kim Jae-sung, 39, a former secret agent who said he trained in the early 1980s, as the men stepped off the bus, the police started swinging batons and sledge hammers at their heads. Beating was nothing new to the agents -- it had been a big part of their training. But this Sunday morning, the blood flowing from their comrades' heads sparked an ensuing violent reaction that included industrial-size propane gas tanks spewing flames.

"But we paid for the thing," Mr. Kim said, insisting that the gas tanks were not part of their plan, unlike at the much bigger demonstration on March 15 in the heart of downtown. This time, the tanks were spontaneously "borrowed" from street vendors, Mr. Kim said. Twenty-two men were charged by the police among the 200 arrested that day.

Violence is natural to them, because, another former agent said, "It is what we learned to do." They say they feel that they have few alternatives to violence, after years of denial and stonewalling by defense ministry and veterans-affairs officials.

"We are not in a position to make any kind of official response at this point," said a Defense Ministry spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Kang Yong-hee. What, specifically, will change that position? "I'm not in the position to say."

The ministry spokesman, Brigadier General Hwang Eui-don, is not in the position to say anything either, nor is the Defense Intelligence Command, the main operator of the missions.

Nor is the Ministry of Veterans Affairs. "I can't say," said Chung Ha-tae, who handles registration and compensation of veterans. He had been asked how many people have been added to the list since March, when the government began accepting applications for registration of agents who had been killed or injured on missions to the North. The development should have been a breakthrough for the men who, out of patriotism or by accident, gave their youth or sanity or lives to the assignment.

The man who put the change in place was the Millennium Democrat, Kim Seong-ho. A former journalist, Mr. Kim pushed his private member's bill through the National Assembly last winter, widening the definition of veterans. The clause, "civilians who are recognized by the Defense Minister as having been in action since 1950," was added to the law, opening the way for agents who participated in missions in later decades to become eligible for veterans benefits. The importance of including civilians was an indirect admission, because nearly all the men drafted for the force were classified as civilians. About 200 men have registered, Mr. Kim said, answering the question that the veterans-affairs official would not.

But for many of the agents, and especially for the demonstrators who were on the street with steel pipes and the propane gas tanks, that is answering the wrong question. Curiously, Mr. Kim, the most active advocate for the former agents, and the agents' organization, the Seorak Club, do not see eye to eye. The Seorak Club, named for the mountain where they were trained, is the most vocal and the newest of the groups representing former secret agents.

Mr. Kim, the lawmaker, is in a popularity contest, said Koo Hong-hoi, a former agent. "He is chummy with just the old folks," he said, referring to agents who undertook their missions in the 1960s and early 1970s. Those who trained in the 1980s and 1990s went through just as traumatic and inhumane an experience as the older men, he said, and should not be discriminated against.

The Defense Ministry's answer is a "special consolation" package for agents who trained but were not dispatched to the North as operatives, and are therefore disqualified from official compensation. A ministry official said last month that payments would begin in November.

"That's what we heard," said another member of the Seorak Club. "But that's all; nothing about how much or when." But, he quickly added, any compensation eventually offered will be refused.

The package offered by the Defense Intelligence Command uses a complex arithmetic to figure the time and length of training. A person who entered a two-year program in 1980, for example, would get about 21 million won ($17,000) in a lump sum. That is just not enough, the younger agents in their 30s and early 40s say, after the government lied, then violated their human rights and ignored them.

Some observers say that compensation may be the best alternative for the government in trying to soothe the angry agents while saving face diplomatically as it continues to try to engage Pyeongyang. After all, it has never publicly admitted to having sent agents to the North after the joint declaration between Seoul and Pyeongyang in 1972.

But the agents still insist that Seoul recognize the existence of the force through 1995. Even more urgently, they need to get their 22 comrades out of jail. Just before midnight Thursday, six were released, while the others "remain in a hostage situation," said Mr. Koo.

An expert on North Korea relations, Cho Min, at the Institute for National Unification, said the visible protest was long overdue, considering Seoul's reluctance to officially recognize the operations. "There may be justification in calling these people 'national saviors' in some sense," Mr. Cho said.

Recognizing the activities of the secret agents will likely draw the government into the task of reevaluating the contribution they made, Mr. Cho said. "For one, the agents probably won't stop at getting the recognition. They'll then ask for memorial statues, medals and then more money." Money is not a trivial issue when the amount sought by the agents is 100 million won each.

Thus Seoul finds itself in an awkward situation, with a militant group of men putting on very visible demonstrations while the government is unprepared to give them what they want. "The government just doesn't have a very good explanation," Mr. Cho said, suggesting that its reluctance is not shame at having lied or having contradicted the spirit of the 1953 armistice or the 1972 Joint Declaration between Seoul and Pyeongyang. He thinks it is rooted in the pro-democracy background of President Kim.

As for the former agents, they realize that the violent demonstrations are backfiring. "We'll be trying legal channels now," said Park Se-keun, a former agent whose comrade was allegedly beaten to death during training for attempting to escape. The public is aware of their plight now, he said, and they understand that gas tanks will alienate public sympathy. They are content to ask for "damages" for the "lies, murders and assault," he said

The most pressing problem now, Mr. Park said, is finding a lawyer who will fight for them.

by Kim Young-sae