hankyoreh

Lee In-mo, a North Korean who was imprisoned for a long time in the South for his beliefs before being repatriated to the communist nation through the truce village of Panmunjeom in March 1993, died on June 16.

The North Korean Workers' Party Central Committee, the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, and the cabinet jointly announced on June 17, "Comrade Lee In-mo, a former war correspondent and [long-term prisoner of conscience in the South], passed away on June 16 at age 89 from the aftereffects of the torture that he had suffered in prison in South Korea."

North Korea has decided to hold a special state "people's funeral" and has formed a funeral committee for Lee, participated in by 57 government and party officials including Kim Young-nam, the president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly. Lee's body was laid in state in the People's Palace of Culture and the funeral cortege will leave the palace the morning of June 18, to be buried in Sinmiri national cemetery.

For the last year, Lee had received medical treatment in a hospital exclusively for North Korean and pro-North Korea prisoners that had been repatriated.

Lee's life is a symbol of Korea's tragic history. He was born to a farmer's wife in the Pungsan district of South Hamgyeong Province, now part of North Korea, in October 1917; his father had died prior to his birth.

He was sent to study abroad in Japan, but dropped out of a technical high school in Tokyo. Considering that Korea was impoverished and a Japanese colony at the time, Lee received one of the best educations available.

The nation was liberated from Japanese rule in 1945 when he was working at a construction site at his hometown. After national liberation, he joined the Workers' Party.

He was captured by the South while taking part in the Korean War as a war correspondent for the North and served 34 years on charges of waging a guerrilla campaign and joining an underground party. He was not released until 1988. The South Korean authorities compelled him to recant his belief in communism and convert to South Korean ideology but he refused to do so.

After his release, he published his life story in the South with the help of a local journalist. His book draw a lot of attention, as Lee described in his book the brutal torture he and his colleagues in similar situations consistently received in prison from South Korean agents urging them to sign letters of conversion to the South Korean side.

The acclaimed 2003 film Repatriation (Songhwan) by director Kim Dong-hwan chronicled others like Lee, aligned with North Korea's ideology and imprisoned for a long time in South Korea but refusing to disavow their beliefs. The men chronicled in the film were also finally allowed to return to North Korea.

Those long-term prisoners who refused to retract their beliefs were all released from South Korean prisons by the 1990s.

With the inauguration of the Kim Young-sam administration in 1993, Seoul made a "humanitarian" decision considering the South-North relations to repatriate Lee to North Korea in a form of "long-term visit to the communist land."

Back in North Korea, Lee, reunited with his family after more than 40 years, was praised and welcomed as an "avatar of will and faith" and "a hero of unification." Then North Korean leader Kim Il-sung visited Lee in the hospital and presented him with the official certificate given to members of the Workers' Party. North Korea issued postcards and stamps in honor of Lee and he received various medals such as the "Kim Il-sung medal."

Lee is survived by his wife, a daughter, and two grandchildren in Pyongyang.

Paik Nak-chung, head of the South Korean civic delegation to a festival marking the 7th anniversary of the June 15, 2000 historic joint summit between the two Koreas, said in a statement shortly before leaving Sunan airport in Pyongyang, "We heard the news that Lee In-mo, whose wish was the nation's reunification, died today. We express our condolences to the deceased."


Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]