Needs to resolve mother’s 60-year resentment over the loss of abducted father
KWAFU president Lee Mi-il is leading the campaign on the adoption of the “resolution on the North Korean abduction”

Chosun Daily
May 5, 2010


“The Korean War came to an end when the July 27th Armistice Agreement was signed in 1953. However, it is still ongoing for the families of the Korean War abductees. Only when the resolution on the North Korean abductions passes the US Congress, and thereby contributes to alleviating the pain of the abductees and their families, will the war finally come to an end.”

In an interview with Chosun Daily on the 4th, Lee Mi-il, President of the Korean War Abductees’ Family Union, said, “The US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) will present a report on the truth about North Korea’s world-wide abductions in the US Congress in Washington, DC, on the 11th.

We will take this opportunity to make our utmost effort to move forward with the plan to pass a resolution on the North Korean abductions in the US Congress.” In other words, the campaign urging the US Congress to pass the resolution, which denounces North Korea’s abduction of civilians around the world for the past 60 years, has now begun in full force.

The plan is to enhance the publicity of the issue by passing a resolution demanding information on the whereabouts of abductees from 12 nations such as Japan and Romania, including 80,000 South Korean abductees, and their repatriation.,.

Lee Mi-il said, “At the time of the Armistice Agreement, neither the UN nor the US was able to receive an answer on the repatriation of civilians from the stubborn and brutal North Korean regime.” She added, “We look forward to the US learning from the past mistakes and delivering good news to the families of the abductees. In that way, true peace can be realized.”

Lee Seong-hwan, father of Lee Mi-il, was taken by North Korean soldiers when she was one year old. Before her father was abducted, her nanny dropped her by mistake. Lee Mi-il fell on a stone at the front door of her house and injured her spine. Tuberculosis permeated into her spine and eventually bent her back. As a result, she stopped growing when she reached a height of 135 cm.

Lee Mi-il said that her mother went through so much suffering because her baby was at the brink of death and her husband was abducted. She added, “My mother didn’t get remarried and has been missing my father ever since. Shouldn’t her dream of seeing him again come true?”

Lee Mi-il is a faithful Christian, but she cried out to God “Why didn’t you just let me die?” whenever people made fun of her by calling her “hunchback.” She always got the highest grades in her elementary school, but was rejected by a famous private school just because she was disabled.

Devastated, she focused on the issue of the wartime abductions. In 2000, she established the Korean War Abductees’ Family Union and found a list of around 80,000 abductees that the government did not know about. She also founded the Korean War Abduction Research Institute and published two Korean War Abduction Sourcebooks.

She greatly contributed to passing the “Act on Investigating Abductions by North Korea during the Korean War and Restoring Honor to the Victims” in the Korean National Assembly in March of last year. In addition to that, beginning from last year, she held an event in which participants called out the names of 80,000 abductees throughout night during North Korean Freedom Week.

Lee Mi-il visited New York and Huston in 2007 and appealed to the US government to take a proactive approach toward addressing the issue of abduction.

She said, “The Korean Americans community has the experience of passing a resolution denouncing Japan’s sex slavery in the US House of Representatives in 2007 through concerted effort.” She added, “If the government gives its support and the Korean American community takes the lead in such efforts, a resolution on the North Korean abductions can pass the US Congress without much difficulty.”