Once Held as Spies, N. Koreans Get Fond Farewell

Thousands of South Korean students on Saturday bid a warm farewell to 63 former North Korean spies who will return to their Communist homeland this week after serving decades in prison.

“We love you. Stay healthy till we meet again,” shouted about 3,000 students who gathered in a concert hall at a Seoul university.

The fond sentiments for the aging former prisoners--once considered among the most dangerous enemies of South Korea--testified to the spreading thaw in relations between South and North Korea.

Students decorated the concert hall with banners that read: “We will accomplish the unification task that you leave behind.”

They wished the 63 well, calling them “men of conscience and messengers of unification.”

The former spies, who will return home Saturday, served an average of 36 1/2 years in prison.

They watched as students danced and sang songs for them on stage.

“This is not a goodbye forever. We will meet again soon when our nation reunites,” said Kim Eun Whan, 71, who served 31 years in prison.

At a historic summit of leaders of the two Koreas in June, South Korea agreed to repatriate all convicted North Korean spies who wanted to go home.

The men said they are returning to the North to work for unification of the Korean peninsula that was partitioned by advancing U.S. and Soviet forces at the end of World War II.