S. Koreans in Pyongyang for Liberation Day events

PYONGYANG - A group of South Koreans joined North Koreans here to begin celebrations of the peninsula's liberation from Japanese colonial rule 56 years ago.

The 337 South Koreans, members of civic and religious groups, will stay in the North Korean capital for a week. They compose the largest South Korean delegation ever to visit the North.

Government officials in Seoul hope that the joint celebrations will help to end a months-long hiatus in official contacts between the two Korean governments.

The delegation of the Organizing Committee for 2001 Inter-Korean Joint Events includes Hwang Suk-yong, a prominent novelist, and Lim Soo-kyong, a former student activist. Both served prison terms in the South for visiting Pyongyang without government approval.

"I believe this visit will put the finishing touch on my political activities, through which I can take off my long-held burdens," Hwang said before departing from Seoul.

After making a secret visit to the communist North in 1989, an act which is banned under Seoul's National Security Law, Hwang lived in exile for five years. He was imprisoned in 1993 upon returning to Seoul and has been placed behind bars as recently as 1998.

Hwang, whose major works include a historical epic, "Chang Gil-san," expressed hope that he will once again meet with North Korean fellow writers who accompanied him during his previous stay in Pyongyang.

Lim said that student activists from the two Koreas currently need to examine the accomplishments of their past exchange programs.

"It took exactly 12 years for me to be able to visit the North again," said Lim, who traveled to Pyongyang in 1989 as a representative of South Korean university students.

Touted as the "flower of unification" at the time, Lim attended international youth festivities hosted by the Stalinist state, an activity for which she served three and a half years in prison.

The delegation, which includes 20 journalists, arrived at Pyongyang's Sunan Airport after an hourlong flight on a cross-border air route on the West Sea.

Among the original members of the delegation, however, three were prohibited from traveling to the North for their violation of the National Security Law. They include Lee Jong-rin, chairman of Beomminnyeon, a pro-Pyongyang activists' group.

The joint Liberation Day event came close to cancellation earlier this week when Seoul demanded Pyongyang abandon its plan to hold the ceremony near a political monument honoring the late North Korean President Kim Il-sung. The North later indicated that the venue for inter-Korean events would be changed.

After joining the festivities in Pyongyang, the delegation is scheduled to visit Mt. Myohyang and Mt. Baekdu from August 17 to 21.
(Korean Herald)