Seoul Searching: Mercy Dash

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The 25 North Koreans who pushed past helpless guards and dashed into the Spanish embassy in Beijing on Thursday -- seeking asylum -- were the lucky ones. Beijing won't send them back across the border to North Korea with the rest of the world watching. The government will handle the case in a "humanitarian" way. That means it will make an exception to its policy of ignoring its international obligations to aid refugees and will allow the North Koreans to travel to South Korea, probably through a third country to avoid offending ally North Korea. (Late Friday, Beijing announced the group were en route to the Philippines and would later fly on to South Korea.)

That was the solution last June when another North Korean family sought refuge at the Beijing office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Once again, this will be meaningless unless the world puts pressure on Beijing to help North Koreans fleeing poverty and oppression in their homeland.

Lee Bong Chol (he is using an alias to protect family members still in North Korea) made it into the Spanish embassy, after the sprint of his life. In an interview with an international human rights volunteer at his hiding place in China earlier this year, Lee said he first defected in 1997 but was arrested with his family in March last year and was forcibly sent back to North Korea. He could have been tried for treason for trying to defect. But he and his family were released -- they were very lucky, he says. But with no food and no future in North Korea, they immediately defected again. In April 2001, he was caught again and returned to the North. Interrogated by the State Security Agency, he was repeatedly asked whether he had seen a "cross" in China. Aware that admitting contacts with Christian missionaries would make his case much more serious, Lee strenuously denied it. Later he somehow managed to escape once again to China. He made it into the Spanish embassy on Thursday with his two sisters.

But for every lucky North Korean who makes it out, there are tens of thousands more who don't. Like Park Kum-Suk (not her real name). Park, 19, is from a small town in the northeast corner of North Korea. Last year, her family was arrested at the Chinese border as they were trying to flee to North Korea via Mongolia, a popular escape route. Deported by the Chinese, they were sent to the State Security Agency, interrogated and confined to cells infested with lice and fleas. They were lucky -- the Chinese had not supplied the North Koreans with any records showing the family was trying to defect. The entire family was sent to a labor camp to weed fields of corn and beans. Food rations were small and prisoners who attempted to escape were beaten with shovels and hoes.

But last August their luck ran out when a fellow prisoner, who had somehow learned their stories, told the authorities. Under torture, her parents confessed to trying to defect to South Korea. Park was released, but only after learning her mother had been sentenced to a 15-year prison term. Her father got 10 years in a notoriously harsh prison.

Lee is trying to find her parents and somehow get the family to South Korea. She asked a South Korean who is trying to help her: "Is seeking a decent life outside North Korea a crime?" The answer, sadly, is yes.