Families Cope as Wanted List Keeps Fathers, Sons Away : S. Korean Activists Lead Life on the Run

“We talked a lot about politics, about what he wanted to do for this country,” Jong Hwa Choon recalled. “I agreed with him absolutely.”

But Jong, a bright, 33-year-old woman, has not talked with her husband since May of last year.

“I try hard to remember his face,” she said, “but now, after all this time, it’s getting fuzzy.”

She and five other women and an old man sat around a table at a Roman Catholic retreat in suburban Seoul. A pudgy, year-old boy who has never seen his father crawled on the table top. These are the families of the missing, the men on the run.

On the Wanted List

Their husbands and sons are on the police wanted list, accused of subversive activities. The activities, the families say, were nothing more than protests against an authoritarian government and demands for democratic reform.

In late June, rocked by widespread, angry demonstrations against his military-dominated government, demonstrations that exposed his lack of popular support, President Chun Doo Hwan agreed to open the door to political reform. Talks were begun with the political opposition for a direct presidential election to choose his successor; some but not all political prisoners were set free, and civil rights were restored to politicians who had been deprived of them.

But the men on the run have been lost in the shuffle. The police wanted list remains in force. The public list contains about 80 names, the family members say, but they insist that there is another, secret list that contains the names of at least 700 more. And these are just students and white-collar activists, they said; even more men and women accused of illegal labor activities have gone underground.

Went Ahead With Marriage

Jong Hwa Choon, who is employed in a medical insurance office, was an army nurse in the spring of 1980 when she and her future husband, Lyo Ik Koo, decided to marry. But he was arrested that May for taking part in anti-government demonstrations put down by Chun shortly before he took power in a coup d’etat. They pursued their romance when he was released--Jong an army captain, part of the martial-law government, and Lyo a target of the authorities.

“They told me that if I married a dissident I would be kicked out of the army,” she said. “And when we went ahead with our plans they closed down the army wedding hall.”

Jong left the military--she half quit and was half sacked, she said--and married Lyo anyway.

Lyo, who is now 43, has carried out a long struggle against military-dominated rule here. He was first arrested in 1973, as a student leader, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Freed in a general amnesty a year later, he “went to the mountain,” becoming a Buddhist monk.

Targeted by Police

He eventually became chairman of the Democratic Buddhist Movement and on May 3, 1986, was in Inchon, the port of Seoul, during the most violent demonstrations against the Chun regime until those of this June and July. He was targeted by the police as a leader of the demonstrations, and he never came home.

“I don’t know where he is,” Jong said. “Occasionally I hear through third or fourth parties that he’s OK. The last time was a month ago. We never talked about the physical danger of what he was doing. It was just assumed.”

Generally, according to the relatives assembled at the Catholic retreat and others interviewed earlier, the men on the run keep their families in the dark, except for sending word that they are alive. And in long stretches without word, many relatives begin to fear the worst.

Often, the wanted men reportedly stay with friends or distant relatives. There appears to be no underground network to support them. They dare not take a job.

Leave With Little Notice

Those they left behind say they are harassed by the police. They say the police ask neighbors to spy on the family or drop by the house and ask, “How’s your husband?”

The men leave with little notice. Cho Min Shik, 63, a retired construction worker, said that his son, Cho Jae Bong, 28, who was detained for 10 months on national security charges in 1982 and 1983, dropped from sight last November.

“He called his older brother,” the thin, soft-spoken father said. “He told him, ‘I won’t be able to come home for a while.’ ” Cho has not heard from his son since. “I’m uneasy,” he admitted. “I’m afraid he might have been arrested and tortured.”

Why not go to the police and ask if they are holding his son? Cho’s only response was a cynical laugh.

Han Hung Ok’s son, Lee Woo Chai, entered Seoul National University in 1975 and graduated 10 years later. His academic career was checkered with political run-ins with the authorities. He served one year for taking part in anti-government activities in 1978, then was imprisoned for two more years in 1980 on similar charges.

Strong Commitment

The second time, he was sent to a prison in distant South Cholla province, making the permitted monthly visit by his family impossible because of the expense.

Freed, he resumed his education and graduated with a degree in Oriental studies. He had abandoned his earlier ambition to be a lawyer, his mother said, because he wanted no part of the law enforcement field.

Han, a 52-year-old housewife, said her husband lost his job under police harassment for the son’s activities.

“My husband and I had told him to quit politics and demonstrations and go back to his studies,” she said.

But the youth was committed. The year after his graduation, he took part in the May, 1986, Inchon demonstrations and then disappeared. Han heard nothing from him until early this month, when Seoul newspapers published a government announcement that members of the son’s activist group would be excluded from the partial prisoner release.

‘Police Knew the Organizers’

“He telephoned that night and said he was safe, that we should not worry about him,” Han recalled. “I told him I understood.”

Ahn Hee Dae, 36, also disappeared after the Inchon demonstrations, his wife, Suk In Hee, said. Ahn was an activist, an official with the Council for the Promotion of Democracy, a nonpartisan organization whose board includes opposition leaders Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung.

“Before the demonstrations, the police knew the major organizers,” Suk said.

Her husband, Ahn, was among them. Their son, who sat on the table before her, was born three months after Ahn went on the run.

The spouses and parents of the missing men had little success trying to bring their stories to the public’s attention. The government-controlled press was closed to them. The missing men were less of an opposition issue than the political prisoners. In an attempt to gain similar exposure, the relatives of the missing said they began to frequent political-prisoner protests last year.

Families Pessimistic

“We (the families of the missing) swapped stories and got to know each other,” said Hwang Hung Soon, whose son is on the run. “It’s consoling.”

But they were pessimistic about the government’s abandoning its wanted list and letting their husbands and sons come home. In opposition talks with the ruling party, the matter of the men on the run is still a side issue, less emotional than that involving political prisoners.

Han Woo Sup, an activist for women’s rights as her missing husband, Park Kye Dong, was an activist for democratic reform, says she shows her children family photo albums so they will remember their father.

Hwang Hung Soon says she has no need of photos. “How can I forget my husband’s face?”

And Ha Sung Ja, 44, whose 52-year-old husband was first arrested for anti-government activities in the 1960s and went on the run after last year’s Inchon demonstrations, says she tells their 17-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son, “Your father worked for democracy, for something good in South Korea.”