Dispute Over Government Compensation to 10000 HID Special Agents Sent to North

“Sulahk Comrades’ Association of HID Special Agents for Infiltration into North” (SCA), which waged a street demonstration on Sep. 29, held a press conference on October 2, 2002. In the conference, the SCA has made the following strong demands: establishment of a commission to conduct a comprehensive probe into the past and present status of the agents; government’s treatment of them equal to that received by veterans, and release of the arrested SCA members without any charge or prosecution.

The special agents, who are now known as “Solders without Dog tags” or “Fighters in the Shadow,” are acknowledged of their existence by the government’s decision to make compensations. But, depending on the government’s reaction and the level of accommodation of the demands, another confrontation may be triggered again.

▽ Status of the special agents = The special agents refer to those armed spies sent by South Korea to North on various missions ranging, for example, from assassination of important political figures and gathering of intelligence. So far, 7,725 of the agents are officially confirmed missing. But the number will reach up to 10,000 if unidentified and the alive are included.

The special agents, who are still alive, have made 7 representative bodies so far, whose membership in total is estimated at around 2,000. It is difficult, however, to figure out the exact number since some agents retain membership with more than one organization and some who were rejected during the special training act as those who completed the training.

▽ Reason for street demonstration = The SCA consists of young agents who had been trained from 80s to recent days. Thus, the SCA members are in their late 20s to early 40s. SCA members, after completion of the hellish training program, were not deployed into North and, upon the government’s advice, resumed a social life as ordinary citizens. What triggered them to take to the street is the government’s compensation policy. The government has decided to make compensations, which are from 20 million won to 60 million, based on factors such as the number an agent had been dispatched to North. Thus, SCA members, who have never been sent to North, would receive almost nothing under the policy, which erupted their anger bottled up inside.

▽ “What about the wasted time of my life!” = The special agents are “hired” based on a long-term contract lasting 3-5 years. When hiring them, the government promised to make them solders or police officers once their activities as the agent were over. But the government did not keep its promise, and re-hired only a fraction of them as solders and police officers. The overwhelming majority of them have been left unemployed at the end of the contract.

The special training program they had received was for pushing them to the limit of the human being. Nonetheless, they have not been compensated enough to set off the hardship they have gone through. In the process, their dissatisfaction has been inflated more.

Mr. Chong (43), who had been trained as the special agent for 4 years starting in 1983, argued, “The hellish training program has destroyed my character and personality. I could not adjust myself to society, and I still can’t. The government has just taken advantage of me, and then simply betrayed me. It should do something to compensate for my ruined life.”

Koo Hong-hui, a high-ranking official of the SCA, declared, “What we want is the restoration of our dignity, not the money. If the government would not budge, we will mobilize whatever skills the government has taught us, and fight for our dignity with those killing skills.”

buddy@donga.com