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04-05-2010, 11:22 AM
War still raging for South Korean POWs in North
05 Apr 2010 04:52:57 GMT
Source: *******
By Jon Herskovitz and Christine Kim
SEOUL, April 5 (*******) - Somewhere in North Korea, more than 500 South Korean prisoners of war have been held for more than half a century, all but certain to spend their final days in the secretive state without a chance of ever returning home.
The 560 are all who remain alive of what Seoul estimates were about 80,000 South Korean soldiers who were left on the wrong side of a Cold War divide when a ceasefire ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
To the North, they were not prisoners, but able-bodied labourers who could help rebuild its war-ravaged economy and might be convinced through re-education that they were wayward brothers better off in the communist state.
Pyongyang has denied for decades it has been holding any South Korean POWs, saying the tens of thousands stayed on their own accord.
It has now became nearly impossible for the North to let any POWs leave because it does not want to risk being exposed in a falsehood it has maintained for decades, analysts said.
"We were discriminated against, spied on and watched. We were not allowed to move," said Yoo Chul-soo, one of the about 80 former South Korean POWs who managed to escape from the North and then was reunited with relatives in the South.
Article continued at http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/TOE63004A.htm
05 Apr 2010 04:52:57 GMT
Source: *******
By Jon Herskovitz and Christine Kim
SEOUL, April 5 (*******) - Somewhere in North Korea, more than 500 South Korean prisoners of war have been held for more than half a century, all but certain to spend their final days in the secretive state without a chance of ever returning home.
The 560 are all who remain alive of what Seoul estimates were about 80,000 South Korean soldiers who were left on the wrong side of a Cold War divide when a ceasefire ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
To the North, they were not prisoners, but able-bodied labourers who could help rebuild its war-ravaged economy and might be convinced through re-education that they were wayward brothers better off in the communist state.
Pyongyang has denied for decades it has been holding any South Korean POWs, saying the tens of thousands stayed on their own accord.
It has now became nearly impossible for the North to let any POWs leave because it does not want to risk being exposed in a falsehood it has maintained for decades, analysts said.
"We were discriminated against, spied on and watched. We were not allowed to move," said Yoo Chul-soo, one of the about 80 former South Korean POWs who managed to escape from the North and then was reunited with relatives in the South.
Article continued at http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/TOE63004A.htm