90-year-old former North Korean agent longs to see his love in North Korea

Posted on : 2017-07-30 08:49 KST Modified on : 2017-07-30 08:49 KST
After 56-year separation, Suh Ok-ryeol is stuck in South Korea, with no way of knowing if his wife in the North is still alive
Suh Ok-ryeol tells his life story at a tea house in Gwangju
Suh Ok-ryeol tells his life story at a tea house in Gwangju

“I would like to see my family once before I die. This time, I would really like to go,” said Suh Ok-ryeol, 90, in a calm voice during an interview with the Hankyoreh on the morning of July 22. Suh spent 29 years in prison.

Suh, who lives in a rental apartment in Gwangju, was just released from the hospital after spending two months there. Heart disease combined with the other ailments of old age to put him for a time on the threshold of life and death. His kitchen is only furnished with a small fridge, a small rice cooker and a few plates. On the table in the main room are some books and magazines, along with several medicine wrappers. His bookshelf is neatly arranged with books on economics and philosophy printed in Japanese.

Suh‘s life is like a book bound with the time he spent in North and South Korea. He was born in South Korea on Palgeum Island in Sinan County, South Jeolla Province, the eldest child of five sons and one daughter. He was studying economics at Korea University when the Korean War broke out in 1950, and he headed to north after joining the (North) Korean People’s Army (KPA). After being discharged from the military in Nov. 1953, he began working as a teacher at a middle school in Chonnae County, located in the part of Gangwon Province under North Korean control. While there, he fell in love with a female teacher, and the two got married. After graduating from Kim Il Sung University with a major in politics and economics in 1955, Suh worked at a cadre training center in Pyongyang.

It was in Aug. 1961 that Suh came to South Korea. When he was dispatched to the South, he left two children in North Korea, a five-year-old and a three-year-old. He had been sent to the South to visit his hometown and try to convince his younger siblings to defect. After a brief meeting, he was heading back to North Korea when he was arrested by the South Korean authorities. Charged with violating the National Security Law (which prohibits unauthorized contact with North Korea), the lower court sentenced him to death, but this was commuted to life in prison on appeal, and the high court’s decision stood.

As of this year, Suh has spent 56 years in South Korea. A letter that he wrote in 1998 but has not been able to send expresses his ardent feelings for his wife. “Dear, are you still alive? I wasn’t able to see you before I left because you were in the hospital at the time, and I can’t stop wondering whether you’re alive,” he wrote. “The day of our wedding remains in my thoughts even now and always brings me comfort.” Since the death of a Korean-German who informed him that his wife was alive over a decade ago, he has heard nothing about his wife‘s fate.

Suh’s studies are what helped him endure his loneliness and longing. He speaks five languages: along with Korean, he is fluent in Japanese and also knows English, Russian and Chinese. Based on what he studied in prison, after his release he wrote a book titled “The Fundamentals of Political Economics.” His “Journal Excerpts,” which record his life in South Korea in the form of a diary, runs for more than 10 volumes. The journal contains a detailed account of the day he started reading the German edition of “Das Kapital,” by Karl Marx (July 22, 1996), and the day he started studying conversational Russian (March 3, 1997). “I want to give my children a record of my life,” he said.

When 63 long-term prisoners who remained loyal to North Korea were repatriated to the North in 2000, Suh was unable to go. Standing in his way was the seal he had been basically forced to affix to a pledge of allegiance to South Korea when he was paroled in 1990. Since he had already renounced his loyalty to North Korea, he was not eligible to return. “What I wrote was not a pledge of allegiance but a promise not to get involved in political activity,” Suh says.

Gwangju Headquarters of the Committee for Implementing the June 15 Joint Statement and other groups will be holding a press conference on July 25 at the Baekje Room of the YMCA in Gwangju about the organization of a conference of representatives for the Committee for the Repatriation of Long-Term Prisoner of Conscience Suh Ok-ryeol. “This is a man who has lived a life of simplicity and loneliness, of sadness and passion, and I hope he will be able to spend his final days with his family in North Korea,” said Jung Gyeong-mi, 46, who met Suh as a reporter for a university paper in 1992 and has kept up their friendship since then.

By Jung Dae-ha, Gwangju correspondent

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