N. Korean Soldiers Cross Into South, Abduct 2 Farmers Kidnap Latest In Aggressive Acts By North
A dozen North Korean soldiers Friday penetrated the South Korean-controlled half of he Demilitarized Zone that separates the two countries and abducted a 66-year-old mother and her son gathering acorns near a rice field.
The North Korean troops brought the two farmers to the northern half of the DMZ and were holding them there Friday night, said Jim Coles, a spokesman for the U.N. Command that oversees the DMZ.
The incident, the first abduction of South Korean civilians at the DMZ since 1975, is the latest in a series of aggressive acts by North Korean border guards in recent months along the heavily fortified DMZ.
Although the democratic South and the Stalinist North have been showing some signs of closer economic and diplomatic relations recently, Friday’s abduction is a reminder that military tensions continue to run extremely high.
South Korea Friday demanded that the North return the two farmers immediately. A spokesman for President Kim Young Sam told the Reuters news agency that there would be “no problem” if the captives were returned quickly, but that it could develop into a more serious matter if they were not.
Top-ranking officials from the United Nations and the North Korean military met to discuss the matter Friday afternoon in a neutral meeting room at the border village of Panmunjom. Coles said the results of that meeting had not been made public but that he was hopeful that the North Koreans would release the captives “quickly,” although he did not predict when.
“It should be over quickly - but that’s a relative term,” Coles said.
The abducted farmers - identified as Hong Sung Soon and her son, Kim Young Bok, 41 - were taken prisoner as they foraged for acorns, which are used in making a Korean tea. They are residents of Taesongdong, a town in the southern half of the 2.5-mile-wide DMZ that is known as Freedom Village.
The 237 residents of Taesongdong are used to such incidents. From the time the Korean War ended in 1953 to the mid-1970s, North Korean soldiers attacked or kidnapped many village residents. One recent mayor of the village still bears a large bayonet scar on his chest from an unsuccessful North Korean kidnapping attempt.
The residents of Taesongdong are the South Koreans who live closest to North Korea. All are original residents of the area or direct descendants of those who lived here before the peninsula was divided after World War II. They tend their crops under almost constant guard by soldiers from the U.N. Command. The village has one school and one church, and the villagers live in relative comfort. Their farms are many times larger than the average farm plot in South Korea, and the average farmer here earns $82,000 a year, more than most of the country’s other farmers. This time of year, the village is full of recently harvested peppers, ginseng and rice - while a few hundred yards away in North Korea, millions are suffering from malnutrition.