Professor barred for 36 years from Korea tries to return

BERLIN ― Barred from his homeland for 36 years because of his suspected association with North Korea, Song Du-yul, a Korean-German college professor, said yesterday that he would try to visit South Korea next week.
“I plan to arrive in South Korea next Monday to attend seminars and other academic events,” Mr. Song said, adding that he had not heard about any preconditions from the South Korean government regarding his trip.
The National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s spy agency, and Hwang Jang-yop, the former secretary of North Korea’s Workers’ Party who defected to the South, suspected that Mr. Song was a member of the North Korean party’s political bureau. A South Korean court, however, ruled in 2001 that the argument lacked substantial evidence.
Mr. Song said yesterday that he plans to attend a gathering of democracy advocates from abroad that is scheduled to take place from next Monday until Sept. 27. Mr. Song also said that he would lecture at Seoul National University and other schools here. He is a professor of philosophy and sociology at the University of Muenster.
The National Intelligence Service said yesterday that Mr. Song’s return to South Korea was a matter of his own free will. But it added that if he comes back, investigations of his past would be inevitable.
“There should be no legal problems associated with my planned trip to Korea,” Mr. Song said, “since the court ruled three years ago that the assertion that I was a Workers’ Party member of the North was groundless.”
Mr. Song also said he believed the Roh Moo-hyun administration held a favorable view of him, and intended to cooperate. “It is my understanding that the Blue House secretaries and the president had a discussion about my planned trip,” he said.
Mr. Song left the country to study in Germany in 1967, and the government has been demanding that he sign a letter declaring his intention to abide by South Korean laws as a precondition of his return. Mr. Song, however, has rejected that demand. “They are demanding that I repent for my entire life,” Mr. Song said. “No scholar will do such a thing. If I cannot return to Korea this time, I won’t try to come back any more.
“The South Korean government has no justification to bar me,” he added.
Mr. Song said he obtained German citizenship in 1993, and if South Korea bars his entry again, that may trigger diplomatic friction with Germany. “South Korean intelligence authorities probably are secretly wishing that I would not board the plane,” Mr. Song said.

by Ryu Kwon-ha