By Michael Breen
When the maverick vicar Han Sang-ryeol returned to South Korea by walking through Panmunjom last month after an unsanctioned trip North, two gentlemen in black suits were waiting.
As he stepped across the concrete strip that marks the border, they took hold of his elbows and led him away. The larger than usual number of South Korean guards, wearing helmets and dark glasses, then closed ranks behind him and adopted the familiar ``ROK-ready” taekwondo stance, staring northward at the crowd of his North Korean well-wishers.
When these scenes played on North Korean TV news that night, the imagery told a simple story: heroic South Korean defies the Lee regime to visit the North and make a gesture for unification and returns South where he will be tortured and jailed.
``South Korea once again lived up to its image of being a scary fascist state,” said one otherwise pro-South Korean Seoul resident who happened to be in Pyongyang that night and watched the news in a hotel bar. ``Compared to the guards and the officials, he looked like a harmless old man with a gray beard and a white hanbok waving a unification flag.”
There are several immediate reactions to such an observation. One is that who cares what North Korea thinks? Even if Han had been greeted by the Little Angels children’s choir, the propaganda machine in the world’s worst dictatorship would have found a way to bash the ``puppet fascists” in Seoul. Also, as harmless as he may look, Han is a traitor. Were he a North Korean dissident visiting Seoul and going through Panmunjeom the other way, he would have been executed. (As it is, he was indicted last week and faces a possible seven-year sentence).
But such points miss a broader one. That is that, whatever the old man may or may not be, his reception by South Korea damaged the country’s reputation. The guards and officials represent the state. Why did they have to look as if they were hired from central casting? Why have them overplay their roles in a way that delivered the enemy a propaganda victory?
In considering this issue, the rights and wrongs of Han's actions are a distraction. He is an individual who made a calculated act of civil disobedience and is in trouble with the law. As a South Korean national, he is required to get permission for travel to North Korea. He applied, but when he was rejected, he went anyway. Another law penalizes South Koreans who express support for the North or otherwise give succor to the enemy. This isn’t the first time this has happened. Han is a protégé of the late Moon Ik-hwan, an anti-government cleric who pulled off a similar North Korea visit 21 years ago.
That much is quite clear.
It is also clear why there was a heavy guard presence and why the men in suits were there to grab him. They were just doing their job. The failing was that nobody with the appropriate authority saw fit to use the occasion to send the message to the North that our Korea is a democracy.
For example, a southern official could have presented Han with a warrant and simply accompanied him. The two black-suits were not necessary.
Or, thinking more laterally, the message could have been better sent if there had been no reception. This is not so far-fetched. A North Korean tour group was in Panmunjeom the day before and there were no southern guards in sight. What if Han had simply wandered across and found some disinterested guards and had to ask them where he could catch the bus to Seoul? Once home, prosecutors could have sent him a summons.
That would not only demonstrate the freedom in South Korea, but it would also satisfy public opinion by deflating his grandiosity.
Michael Breen is an author, former foreign correspondent and the chairman of Insight Communications, a public relations consulting company. He can be reached at mike.breen@insightcomms.com.
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