A martyr in the truest sense.
A page from his passport
Posted on 03/03/2005 1:45:34 AM PST by HAL9000
SEOUL, March 3 (Yonhap) -- A Korean-American pastor who went missing earlier this year in Myanmar is presumed dead, a South Korean civic activist claimed Thursday.The pastor, identified as Jeffrey Bahk, was swept away by strong currents while trying to swim across the Mekong River on Jan. 2, said Chun Ki-won, director of Seoul-based Durihana Missionary Foundation.
Bahk, 63, appeared to have drowned while attempting to cross the river from Myanmar to Laos with six North Korean defectors he reportedly met in Jilin and Yanji, China, in November.
"I saw him enter the river, but that was the last I ever saw of him," a North Korean defector said in a hand-written statement, a copy of which was obtained by Yonhap News Agency.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson said he was unaware of the reported death of the pastor.
Bahk, a former businessman from Atlanta, had planned to take the defectors to Thailand and petition the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to help them defect to South Korea, Chun said.
A female defector and five others were successful in crossing the river and made it to South Korea after travelling to Laos before returning to Myanmar.
"They arrived in South Korea recently and are being investigated by authorities," an intelligence official told Yonhap on condition of anonymity.
Defection attempts by North Koreans appear to have gained support from the United States after Washington implemented its North Korea Human Rights Act late last year.
The Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in October, empowers its government to spend up to US$24 million annually during the 2005-2008 period, mainly to assist North Koreans fleeing their communist homeland.
Chun accused South Korea of doing too little to help North Korean refugees in China and Southeast Asia reach South Korea due to its concerns over upsetting thawing inter-Korean relations.
"South Korea is concerned about being seen as aggressive (in bringing North Korean refugees to South Korea)," Chun said, adding that Seoul is too mindful not to anger its impoverished communist neighbor.
He noted that his four previous attempts to bring back the refugees through Korean embassies in Southeast Asia were rejected.
Seoul has said it will accept any North Koreans in third countries who want to defect, but government officials are becoming concerned that an increasing number of defections are putting a strain on inter-Korean relations.
Last July, Seoul airlifted 468 North Korean refugees from Vietnam in the largest defection since the Korean War (1950-53). The North accuses Seoul of kidnapping them and has since boycotted previously arranged inter-Korean talks.
Until now, most North Koreans have defected to South Korea via China, which shares a long land border with the North, but an increasing number have also managed to reach Southeast Asian countries after travelling through China in recent years.
More than 6,300 North Koreans have defected to South Korea to escape poverty and political oppression since the end of war. A total of 1,894 North Koreans came to the South last year.
He paid a high price for their freedom. I wonder how many others he helped to freedom.
A martyr in the truest sense.
Ping!
BTTT
A true hero.
prayer bump
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