KIM YONG-GYU

Reference: 『Prescribed Human being』
Author / Compiler: Kim Yong-gyu
Publisher: Nara Design Corp.
Date of Publication: August 15, 1978


Author Profile
Jun 1949. Cheong-woon elementary school
Jun 1949. Seoul Middle school 2nd year drop out
Mar 1951. Abducted to North Korea
May 1951. North Korean Army Unit 526 Route spy
Oct 1952. Completed Kumgang Political Academy
Apr 1953. Graduated from Central Party School
Oct 1953. Kim Il-sung University, Department of Philosophy 2nd year drop out
Oct 1955. Master mechanic of Moon-cheon Machine Plant
Apr 1962. Graduated from Moon-pyeong Technical College, Department of machinery manufacturing
Apr 1966. Master Foreman of Moon-cheon Machine Plant
Jun 1967. Espionage of Liaison Department, Labor Party
Jun 1972. Graduated from Kim Il-sung military political university
Jul 1973. Member of Underground Party of Liaison Department, Labor Party
Sep 1976. Defection



Prescribed Human being(25-hour remorse- Geomundo No.04)

「Dong-A Daily News」 autobiography series 「The Secret Order from Pyongyang」 Full Edition


Separation of Remorse

March 4, 1951
Unlike the saying "After rain pours, and insects come out, even the river of Daedong will melt(Korean saying, meaning the weather getting warm as spring days were close)", that morning was anything but early-spring like, being dreary and gloomy. Moreover, since the markings on lunar calender were later than usual that year, even late snowflakes were fluttering on deserted Seoul street. It had been a while since Seoul citizens who were bitter about communistic tyranny that lasted for last three months, left for south to find a way to live. However, my father who could not leave the house because of my sick mother, decided to stay in Seoul as if he gave up on his life. We did not know the whereabouts of my brother who joined the army or my married sisters. My parents and I, just three of us were left in Seoul. We were seized with fear from the rumor that when barbarians(the Chinese reds) came down to Seoul, they would kill whatever living things they could see. We put a plank outside the door and hid in the bombproof shelter dug under the floor. Since we could not emit any smoke, we boiled our meals on charcoal fire, and could not even cough easily. After barely managing to feed ourselves on porridges day after day, we started skipping a meal every day, and at last, we fell in the situation where we had to go two days without any meal. When such thing happened, we were unable to rouse ourselves to do anything. The only option for the future left for my family seemed to be death. On that day, March 4, my father who had been sitting down without saying anything, started packing to leave the house. Then a faint voice came from my ill mother.

“Where are you going?”
“We can't just sit here and starve to death. I will try to get something to eat.”
It was a bitter answer of my father coming from his patriarchal responsibility not to let his family suffer from famine.
“I'm coming with you, dad!” said I, and I was about to stand up, when my mother stopped me.
“Where do you think you are going in this cold weather?”
However, I answered, 『Mom, I should at least go out to get a mal(Korean measurement of grains, approximately 18 liters) of rice for us to live on until my brother comes back, shouldn't I?』, and after fixing her blanket, I stood up without any further hesitation. Both my mother and my father seemed to be proud of me and did not stop me any longer. I put on my top and left the house after my father. Outside the door were the footsteps of people on the snow in the street. When we went out to the main road, we could finally see some people strolling through the street.

“Dad, where should we go?”
“Let's go to the marketplace.”
It seemed like my father had no clear destination either.
When we reached Tonginsijang-gil, there were already a few people gathering around and talking among themselves. There were children selling cigarettes, womenfolk selling bar rice cake toasted over cauldron lids. However, nowhere could we find a place selling grains . I went up to one of the kids selling cigarettes, and asked, 『Hey! Do you know where we can buy rice?』. Then the kid answered 『People say they buy it from Su-saek.』. Father and I immediately turned toward Su-saek. Apparently, Seoul turned into a phantom city with no people. Was it around the noon? It was when we passed Ahyeondong rotary and reached Gogaemaru-gil. There were North Korean army soldiers with <Officer(military police)> armbands, stopping people passing by. They put youths into a separate house nearby, and screamed out, 『You geezers, go back.』. When old folks, taken their kids all of a sudden, would not leave and start begging to them to let their children go, an inspector general with a shoulder mark of a major(lieutenant) appeared. 『There are some things to investigate, so don't worry and go back!』 At first, he tried appeasing the poor parents and when it did not seem to work, he threatened them by telling them that they were committing <reactionary crime> and started shoving them with his gunstock, firing blanks. Before we knew, the sun set, and my father and I were forced apart. I never thought this would be the last sight of my father.


Fear to death

The North Korean army soldiers crammed 30 of us in one room, and dragged others to another house. Among the 30 people in the room, there were five 16-year olds, and the others seemed to be around the age of 17~18, three of them were girls. Everyone was sitting uneasy because of awkwardness, but few people from the other corner near the door would not sit still, talking, laughing and playing with each other. They seemed to be friends dragged from one neighborhood. It was getting dark. Outside the room was a sentry strolling around. In the pitch-black darkness, I began pondering what was going to happen to me.
“What is it that they are going to investigate? If they have things to ask, why aren't they investigating us already?” The more I thought, the more fear smeared into my mind. In this pathological fear and terror, I stayed up almost all night with open eyes, and managed to fall into sleep around dawn. Then suddenly <Ra ta ta tat!>, came the sound of rifles. When I woke up with start, there was nothing I could see in front, but only darkness, and I could only hear people bustling outside.
A few moments later, a North Korean military officer came into the room, set a piece of paper on fire for light, and checked the number of people with slight nodding of his head. At that moment, I noticed the corner near the door was empty. With my instinct, I sensed that those friends from the night before, had been talking about escaping. Later, I found out they were trying to run away while the sentry was dozing off, and all six of them were shot dead by rifles instantly. In a twinkle, those people turned dead from being alive. From then on, I could not suppress the fear dragging at my heartstrings. I was not the only one who had that fear to death but everyone else who was there shared the unpleasant feeling.


Displacement

After staying up all night in fear and terror, all of us spent a day broken sleeping(dozing for a short period of time in hectic situations). At dusk, they gave each of us one dollop of rice ball. Having been famished, I swallowed the cold rice ball at one gulp without drinking one sip of water. It was hardly enough to be worth eating, like an elephant eating a small piece of biscuit. Soon, a North Korean military officer turned up. He arranged 24 of us into three groups of 8 people, placing one girl in each group. Their reason was that if girls were gathered in one group, they would chatter with each other and try to escape. Once the group arrangement was done, they took us to a separate house which was about 500m away. They made us carry a heavy backpack filled with rice and bound the kicking straps on the sides with another belt. It was their means of preventing us from throwing off the backpack to escape. We could not budge, being under this heavy yoke.
The march began at last with one North Korean military officer and four soldiers convoying us. The armed soldiers were watching over us from all four sides of our marching line. When we got to the main road, there were an endless line of the Communist Chinese army cars and coaches on the way to Neung-gok. The street was filled with North Korean army on flight and abductees. There were people being dragged just like we were. Our initial thought 「Are they taking us to do forced labor?」 began fading away as we figured out that we were being taken to North, after passing through Neung-gok, Il-san, Mun-san and Imjin River. At that instant, unable to restrain the fear, anxiety and sorrow that welled up within me, I bursted into tears. The sight of my mother's pale face in her sick bed, the last voice of my father crying out my name, 『Yong-gyu!』 while he was being pushed by gunstock, kept on echoing back in my ears. There were sobbing sounds from everywhere around me. As soon as I deviated a little from the line thinking,「Is there any chance to escape?」, they screamed out <Grrr!> to keep me from moving. When I needed to urinate, they stood next to me, monitoring me. On the way, they kept on checking on the belt binding the kicking straps of our backpacks. That is how we were taken to far North, like lambs to the slaughter.
Unit 526

Western Front liaison department

As their 2nd phase strategy in the war was broken up and scattered by UN forces' counter attack, instead of learning their lesson from the defeat, North Korea made a new scheme of harassing tactics in the rear line by establishing a second front line at the rear of South Korea. Kim Il-sung founded and strengthened Kumgang Political Academy for training espionage agents to South Korea, as well as establishing Unit 526 for exploring secret routes and escorting spies to South. Unit 526 was organized in western and eastern front liaison offices. In March 1951, after their second rout, North Korea abducted youths from their way back from pull-out regions, including Seoul. One day, after two months of severe training that surpassed humans' imagination, the training camp had us take a qualification test. The test included topographic intelligence, underground mountain marching training and ball firing, under the inspection of key members of Unit 526. The trainees who passed went through personality evaluation and joined Unit 526, and the rest were transferred to rear side of North. After passing the qualification test, I was assigned to join Unit 526. Out of all 500 trainees who passed, there were only twelve 16-year-olds including myself. I went through special training like overcoming obstacles, passing through the sentry post, underground mountain marching training and martial arts(Taekwondo) for a month in Unit 526, and was arranged as a route espionage at the western front liaison department, 1st direction(battalion-sized subordinate unit of Unit 526) on May 15, 1951.
Two thousand-ri(4 hundred km) across the firing line
The first course we were in charge of was from the boundary of Yeokgok-cheon, southern part of 327, Galhyun-ri, Idong-myeon, Cheolwon-gun, Gangwon province to the boundary of Gunja mountain in the southwestern part of Yeoncheon of 30km depth. The zero hour was 18:30 the next day(July 7) and the scheduled duration of the action was 6 days.


The tragic end of Abductees

The number of abductees by North Korea before and after June 25, 1950 was over 140,000(excluding people from voluntary army). When categorized in chronological order they were abducted, there were about 84,000 political, social, academic and cultural figures during the war, 55,000 youths abducted at 1.4 retreat and the others who were abducted through various other ways - such as from fishing boats, or passenger planes - post war. Why, for what reason, was Kim Il-sung so eager about <Human hunting>? For one reason, they lacked personnel to lead North Korean society in the future; also, they needed to secure human resources to realize their political ambition of communizing the whole Korea. For these purposes, Kim Il-sung initiated <Human hunting> in full scale from June 25 and abducted people through barbaric means whenever they had any chance, just like African slave dealers. What happened to the fate of abductees after they were kidnapped? I could never find out what happened to all abductees, but the personnel who had high reputation ended up as following.


Scientists deported after being exploited

The major personnel among the scientists abducted to North during the war were the president of Seoul National University, Dr. Choi Gyu-dong, the president of Korea University, Dr. Hyun Sang-yoon, the dean of College of Education Seoul National University, Son Jin-tae and professors of College of Engineering Seoul National University, Dr. Lee Seung-gi and Dr. Choi Sam-yeol. Some of these abducted scientists passed away during the war, but most of them were manipulated by North Korea and purged between 1958~1959 when Central party had authority. Dr. Choi Gyu-dong and Son Jin-tae were dragged to Hyangha-ri, Ganggye-si, and confined in a dim cavern after they refused to conform to North Korea's order. They both passed away about a year after being detained in the cavern -in the end of 1951 and beginning of 1952. Dr. Hyun Sang-yoon who was the president of Korea University, along with other personnel, completed the special course from the People's College of Economy in 1955, and was forced to become a member in the Council for Promotion of Peaceful reunification of DPRK that was organized by North Korea. In the end of 1958, he was imprisoned in reformation center for being involved in Um Hang-seob case, was sent to Im-san lumber camp in Wi-myeon for forced labor and suffered from the illness he got from the reformation center until he passed away in 1960.
Meanwhile, a medical doctor Lee Sung-bong and a professor from College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Kim Si-chang were dragged to Manpo, Jagang province by North Korean army, and were employed as surgeons in field hospital No. 57 during the war, then as professors in Pyeongyang College of Medicine after the cease-fire agreement was made in 1953. Dr. Lee Sung-bong moved to clinical research center of Red Cross Central hospital, was purged in the end of 1958 and was never heard of since then.


Being dispatched to Geomundo and three-minute rebellion

The operation of Geomundo 4th maneuver that had been repeatedly postponed was finally decided to be launched at 22:00, September 19, 1976. The missions of 4th maneuver were bringing Kim Young-hee, the daughter of a resident espionage, Kim Jae-min, from Geomundo and obtaining resident identification card of South, as well as gathering information on South Korea's military and political situation after 8.18 incident.
(…)
We left Pyeongyang the next day around noon time, given send-off by the minister of liaison department, Jeong Gyeong-hee. After arriving at Wawu-do, the dock for Nampo liaison office, we got on the familiar maneuver ship No.56 at 19:00 with warm see-off of vice-minister, Kim Sang-ho and other officials. The crewmen welcomed us as though they had been waiting for us. Soon, the ship started and with ear-splitting noise, the maneuver ship left Nampo port. As the ship left Nampo port, I decided to defect to South as I had always longed for.
As Young-cheol grabbed his pistol after falling to the ground, I pulled the trigger. <Ra ta tat> The blaring sound of gun echoed in the night sky of Geomundo. With short bursts of gunfire, two people got shot and fell down.
(…)
The rebellion took only 3 minutes. Once it was over, it became quiet again. Breathing in the dawn air of the southern sea, I turned toward Seodo-ri. Even after the loud sound of gunshot shook the sky, the village remained silent as if nothing happened.
I was finally enfolded in freedom.