[Opinion] Spies Dispatched to North Korea

“All of them hoped to get along with the other people when the operation wrapped up. Their never changing desire was to correct their blundering direction of life. They incidentally confronted their destiny in order to change their hopelessness into patriotism and make a new beginning in their deserted lives.” In the recent edition of the seasonal magazine “Changbi,” poet Shin Dae-chul, a professor in Kookmin University, described the spies dispatched to North Korea as above. In accordance with the retrospective of the poet, who himself has experienced spy activities in North Korea when he was in the military, the spies were not a living homicide arm as people usually imagined. They were just mere humans like us who were naïve, innocent, and simple.

As the movie “Silmido,” which describes the life of spies, is set to reach the ten million- viewer mark, the concerns of society toward spies who have continued to live out a “forgotten existence” so far, have also been stirred. Re-investigating the dark side of current history is an affirmative phenomenon. In accordance with data from the Ministry of National Defense, the number of spies from the 1950s to nowadays is no less than 13,835. Among them, 7,726 have been killed or disappeared. It jumps over the number, 5,000, killed in the Vietnam War. It is just astonishing that s case that sacrifices this amount of human life could have concealed so perfectly beneath the flow of history.

But, on the other hand, it seems that another side effect will also arise when people settle their curiosities about the spies dispatched to North Korea that are stimulated by watching this movie. Firstly, it could give a distorted image of the spies to the people. In addition, the younger generation, faced with cases of nationwide violations that occurred in the dictatorship period in the name of ”fiction,” can accumulate a bad view toward the function and existence of the nation.

In order to minimize the side effects, it is indispensable for the government to present its position on spying. Revealing as much as possible, it should restore the forfeited dignity of the individuals involved. But it seems that the government still takes a negative attitude on the matter. After coming into contact with several demonstrations made by the spy organizations, the government has at last prepared a compensation bill. Among the 7,000 fatality cases, only 136 families have received reports of loved ones killed in action. Though the government coils itself up defensively and points out that the case is “sensitive,” it will be much more sensitive if the government abandons its responsibilities. In that case, the government itself will become estranged from the minds of its constituents.

Editorialist Song Moon-hong, E-mail: songmh@donga.com