2019 repatriations swell into major controversy

North Korea

Published: 13 Jul. 2022, 18:14

2019 repatriations swell into major controversy

In this photo released by Seoul's Unification Ministry on Tuesday, one of two North Korean fishermen repatriated by South Korea in November 2019 is seen being half-carried by South Korean officials toward the Military Demarcation Line in the truce village of Panmunjom on the inter-Korean border. [UNIFICATION MINISTRY]

The presidential office said the repatriation of two North Korean fishermen in 2019 constituted "a crime against international law and the Constitution" — if the two men were sent back against their will.

Photos released by the Unification Ministry on Tuesday afternoon appeared to show the fishermen resisting their repatriation at the truce village of Panmunjom by dragging their feet and falling to the ground.

“These photos clearly show the two North Korean fishermen refusing to be sent back North,” presidential spokesperson Kang In-sun said at a press briefing Wednesday. “Their flailing and resisting at all costs is totally at odds with former President Moon Jae-in’s administration’s explanation that they had no intention of defecting to the South.”

The two fishermen crossed the inter-Korean maritime border in the East Sea on Nov. 2, 2019 and were captured by the South Korean Navy.

The pair were sent back to North Korea on Nov. 7, five days after they were captured.

At the time, the Moon administration said the pair did not want to stay in the South. The government also said they were not protected by Article 9 of the North Korean Defectors Act because they murdered 16 fellow crew members, including the captain of their fishing vessel, during their escape to South Korea.

The two fishermen did not undergo a formal criminal investigation or trial before they were returned to the North.

North Korean defectors and human rights' groups hold a press conference in the rain outside the National Assembly in southern Seoul on Wedneday in response to the release of photos showing the fishermen's repatriation. [YONHAP]

The release of the photos sparked rage from North Korean defectors’ and human rights groups in South Korea, who released a joint statement calling on former President Moon Jae-in and members of his administration to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for repatriating the fishermen to the North.

“We cannot begin to understand [the fishermen’s] pain in the moment they were handed over to the murderous North Korean regime by the very Republic of Korea they had put their faith in,” said the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR) in a Wednesday statement that was co-signed by defectors’ groups.

“We cannot imagine the horror and pain they must have felt, knowing their fate was one of flesh-tearing torture and secret execution,” the statement said.

The statement blamed the Moon administration for unquestioningly accepting Pyongyang’s claim that the fishermen killed their fellow crew members.

“The North Korean regime labelled these men as ‘murderers’ in its demands for their repatriation, and the Moon administration accordingly framed them as killers with no evidence or investigation,” the joint statement said.

NKHR called on the Yoon administration “to thoroughly investigate anyone involved in the forced repatriation of North Korean defectors,” while also demanding that “former President Moon Jae-in and his subordinates be referred to the ICC.”

The release of the photos, which seemingly contradict the Moon administration’s position that the fishermen did not want to defect to the South, marks the second major reversal by a government agency on a controversy from the recent past tied to North Korean affairs.

On June 16, the Defense Ministry and Coast Guard apologized at a joint press conference for their earlier conclusion that Lee Dae-jun, a fisheries official who was shot dead by North Korean soldiers in September 2020, intended to defect North after mysteriously disappearing while on duty in the Yellow Sea.

The two agencies admitted there was no evidence to support the Coast Guard’s earlier report that Lee intended to defect North to escape a large gambling debt.

Former high-ranking security and intelligence officials who served in the Moon administration are already in hot water about their handling of the repatriation incident and the murder of the fisheries’ official.

Prosecutors raided the National Intelligence Service (NIS) on Wednesday in response to the agency's criminal complaint to the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office on July 6 that its directors during the Moon administration committed abuses of authority by undermining investigations into both cases.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office sent a team of prosecutors and investigators to the NIS headquarters in southern Seoul to seize documents and other evidence of the agency's past handling of the two incidents.

The NIS said its own internal investigation uncovered evidence that Park Jie-won, the agency’s chief from 2020 to 2022, deleted intelligence reports on the fisheries official’s killing without authorization.

The NIS said it had reported Park to the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, alleging that he violated the National Intelligence Service Act by abusing his authority and committed damage to electronic public records.

The spy agency filed a separate criminal complaint against Suh Hoon, NIS director from 2017 to 2020, alleging that he violated the National Intelligence Service Act by prematurely terminating an inter-agency investigation into the repatriation incident and fabricating documents in relation to the case.

Another photograph released by the Unification Ministry on Tuesday shows one of the fishermen being dragged across the border into the North by North Korean soldiers. [UNIFICATION MINISTRY]

More recently, the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) alleged in a criminal complaint on Tuesday that Chung Eui-yong, former chief of the National Security Office, Suh and ten others committed abuse of authority, arbitrary detention and extradition, dereliction of duty and destruction of evidence by sending the fishermen back to the North.

In its complaint, the NKDB argued that the fishermen should have been considered South Korean citizens under the Constitution, and that they were entitled to due legal process under South Korean law, including an impartial investigation and fair trial.

“Considering Article 3 of the Constitution, which defines the territory of the Republic of Korea as the Korean Peninsula and its annexed islands, North Korean refugees come under the effective rule of our law and are regarded as Korean citizens,” said Yoon Seung-hyeon, director of the NKDB’s Human Rights Violation Support Center.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]