KAL기사건 진상규명 시민대책위원회

An Open Letter to President Kim Dae Jung

Dear President Kim Dae Jung,

The year 2002 marks the 15th anniversary of the mystery of KAL-858 plane that was lost without anything left behind it. There is an old saying that the passage of time is a medicine that cures the pains of sufferings, sending dark memories sometimes forgotten. For us - the families of those 115 passengers and flight crew members aboard the KAL-858, however, the passage of the long decade and a half has helped little in curing pains. Our wounds of mind have rather deepened with time not only because the shocks were too great to bear then and afterwards, but because the cause of the event still remains a mystery.

The nerve-wracking military government of the 5th Republic ascribed the mystery to the deeds of North Korea. Its National Security Planning Agency(NSPA) arrested Kim Seungil, a seventy-year old man, and Kim Hyunhee, a young lady in her mid-twenties, under the suspicion that they were North Korean spies who had sent the KAL plane into explosion. (They were supposed to have done it to the personal handwritten order of Kim Jung Il.) But the old man died of self-poisoning at the site. Then, Kim Hyun-hee, such a fragile, young woman looking too mild to fit that task, was alone accused of the crime, by NSPA. But the Agency's story about Kim Hyunhee and her involvement in the affairs looked full of doubts with no material evidences to support it. A statement by Kim Hyunhee herself was all that was telling about what had happened with the KAL plane.

A person of sound common sense, not necessarily a lawyer, was able to see that Kim Hyunhee could not be ruled guilty on the ground of her own confession alone, when there were no material evidences to support her crime. The courts of law of those days under the military dictatorship, however, ruled that Kim Hyunhee was guilty of spying, murder, sending the plane into explosion, etc., wholly on the basis of the suspect's confession.

Also in that same year of 1987 there was a murder case involving Suzie Kim who, according to NSPA, was killed in a North Korean spy connection, in Hong Kong. Recently, 14 years later, the national prosecution has uncovered the truth that she was not a spy but was simply killed by her own husband, Yun. We recall that shortly after his killing his wife 14 years ago, Yun was arranged by NSPA to appear before reporters in Seoul to explain that he had been kidnapped in Hong Kong by North Korean agents, his wife being one of them, and on their way to the North, he managed his escape from their holding, in Singapore. It was a drama in which the murderer had emerged as a victim and was allowed a free life for some mysterious reasons.

Both cases strikingly analogous in ways they were treated by NSPA, by the prosecution afterwards, and finally at the court of law. As we behold the recent development of Suzie Kim case, we return to our last hope that the true cause of the KAL plane's tragedy could also be unveiled if the case were thoroughly reviewed and investigated from the beginning, again.

You, as presidential candidate, were once reported to have said that 'such events' often had some political backgrounds and were to be closely examined if you were elected. So we were once encouraged with those of your words hoping they would be coming into action sooner or later. But, now after you were in office for four years, we feel our vacant hopes are being filled in with growing despair. Many petitions that we addressed to each and every government agency responsible for the matter, brought back replies saying, "We are going to deal with the matter in proper ways at proper times." But, after your June-15 summit meeting in Pyongyang, their reply shifted to new terms: "The matters are going to be resolved properly as the North-South relations progress."

We no longer trust those government agencies. Yet, however, we have doubt if you have actually been aware of our heart-breaking cry that went without being responded for the last fourteen years. So, today, we write you this letter in public, hoping it will get your attention focused on our problem. Please give us a good news.

Sincerely,
The Families of KAL858 Victims

November, 2001