KCTU visit to North Korea South & North Korean workers' football gathering is an expression of aspiration for reunification. August 15: Demand for reunification gains ground.

KCTU Delegation for "South and North Korean Workers' Football Gathering in Aspiration for Reunification" arrived in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea), on August 10, 1999.
The 37 member delegation, including 22 players and "carefully selected" KCTU representatives led by president Lee Kap-yong, was embraced by hundreds of thousand people who lined up the streets of Pyongyang from the airport to the Koryo Hotel.
The visit to the 'north' of the dividing line by the KCTU delegation was the first for the workers of south Korea (Republic of Korea) since the arbitrary partition of the country along the 38th parallel that accompanied the Japanese surrender and the end of 36 years of colonial occupation.
The historic visit and the five days of "emotionally exhilarating and draining" encounter were the fruition of the KCTU's effort to create new dimensions in the south-north Korea relations dominated totally by volatile military and security tension.
The shrill charge about the so-called "north Korean satellite/missile test launch" spurting out from the U.S. and the Japanese governments, the naval skirmish between south and north Korea in the Yellow/West Sea (over the 'north limit line' defined by the U.S.) that resulted in the death of at least 30 north Korean personnel, and the suspension of the Hyundai's Kumgang-san Mountain tourism business, brought an instantaneous freeze (or sudden breakout of volatility) in the relatioship between south and north Korea.
The statement by General Tillely, the Commander of the U.S. Armed Forces in Republic of Korea, who declared that the tension and likelihood of war in the Korean peninsula is currently the worst since the Korean war in early 1950s, demonstrated the unique pre-eminent status of military relations and foreign determination in the overall Korean peninsula relations.
Everyone felt so powerless before yet another eruption of military tension - which has totally dominated and clouded over Korea ever since the division - which the KCTU hoped to overcome
through its meagre initiative starting with an 'innocuous' football match.
As everyone began to sense that the situation had turned a corner with the conclusion of an agreement for the resumption of the Kumgang-san Mountain Tourism Programme in the previous day, the air in the KCTU office on July 31 became charged with expectation
as everyone held their breath.
The KCTU and GCLK agreed for the KCTU delegation to arrive in north Korea on August 10 for a five day programme to return to Seoul on August 14.
The north Korean Koryo Airline carrying the KCTU reunification football mission landed at the Pyongyang international airport at 3:30 in the afternoon, August 10. Hundreds of women and men with bundles of flowers, children, and brass band greeted the delegation.
The bits and pieces of ad hoc speeches and comments by the members of the KCTU delegation used by the north Korean media were picked up by the south Korean media - supplied by a
specialised government news agency monitoring north Korea news. The KCTU officers - without any means to communicate with the delegation in Pyongyang - could sense that some parts of the media and the government were beginning to seize any kind of opportunity to tarnish the KCTU's historic achievement and its significance. The Prime Minister made a specific statement that he was concerned that the actions and behaviour of the KCTU delegation may warrant full police or security agency's investigation for possible violation of the National Security Law.
The historic football matches were - televised live across all over north Korea. In contrast, the total absence of any means of communication between south and north Korea meant that the staff of KCTU office and all other did not know when - and whether - the match started.

In the last minute arrangement, KCTU president Lee Kap-yong met with Kim Young-nam, the Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Council - the number 2 man in north Korea. At the meeting, president Lee called on the north Korean government's assistance to allow all future exchanges between KCTU and Jik-Maeng to go through Panmunjom. Tens of thousands of people again filled the streets of Pyongyang to send off the KCTU delegation. All 37 members of the delegation could not hide tearing rolling down their cheeks. Tens of thousands of people again filled the streets of Pyonyang to send off the KCTU delegation.
Before crossing the dividing line, KCTU Reunification Committee Chairperson Lee Kyu-jae and GCLK vice-president Ri Jin-su signed an agreement including the plans for industry-sector level and regional-level exchange programme and a commitment to hold the second south-north Korea workers football gathering in aspiration for reunification in 2000 in Seoul, south Korea.
The KCTU reception committee was not allowed to enter the Panmunjom area due to the decision of the U.S. Armed Forces in Korea and the Korean government.
The KCTU delegation and the welcome committee moved, then, to Kyunghee University where KCTU and other labour organisations jointly organised a Workers Reunification Cultural Programme. The KCTU delegation reported its successful visit to north Korea to around 2,000 people.
On the other hand, KCTU Reunification Committee Chairperson Lee Kyu-jae was dispatched to the Seoul National University where another reunification programme, mainly of students, was being held to report on the KCTU's visit to north Korea.
On August 15, KCTU held another workers reunification cultural completion of all the programme, as people began to leave the university ground, riot police began to apprehend the
participants. As a result more than 400 people were taken by police.
Included among the people taken by police was Chairperson Lee Kyu-jae. Police and public prosecutors refused to release him and conducted endless interrogation. They questioned him about his activities in north Korea, the work and activities of the KCTU Reunification Committee, his other activities and beliefs.
On August 18 - after the mandated 48 hours of interrogation -- the prosecutors applied for a warrant of arrest (detention) against Lee for alleged violation of National Security Law.
The prosecutors, however, could not pin point where the specific violations took place. They explained that there was nothing they could fault regarding the KCTU delegation's activity in north Korea, nor about Mr. Lee speech at the Seoul National University. Despite the absence of any concrete grounds for prosecutorial action, the authorities tried to push ahead with the arrest and detention.
The court, fortunately, turned down the application for warrant of arrest (detention) against Mr. Lee, and he was released from the police custody late in the evening of August 18. (While Mr
Lee was charged and indicted to face trial without detention, 2 leaders of the August 15 rally were arrested and detained.
In the press conference on August 16 to report on the visit to north Korea, KCTU president Lee Kap-yong explained the significance of the south and north Korean workers football gathering in aspiration for reunification. He said, "the first ever gathering of workers of south and north Korea in 54 years of national division signifies the beginning of a new level of civilian exchange between south and north Korea. It will contribute to and accelerate the continuing process of
reconciliation, cooperation, and solidarity."
The football gathering demonstrates the aspiration of the Korean people to break out of the straight-jacket of military and security tension which are determined mainly in the context of
the new post-Cold War hegemonic project of the U.S.

AUGUST 15: Day for Demand of Reunification of two Koreas

August 15, the anniversary of liberation from the Japanese colonial domination, has become the central date for
"reunification", as the liberation was accompanied by the division of Korea into south and north. August 15 has, since mid-1980s become identified more with the issue of national division and movement for reunification than "liberation", especially for the people's movement in south Korea.
The people's movement organised massive reunification programmes on August 15 since late 1980s or early 1990s. This effort obtained a new dimension, as some of the south Korean reunification movement groups began to incorporate overseas Koreans and groups in north Korea as a part of common or joint programme, leading to the formation of a broad umbrella group - "Pan-Korean Conference for National Reunification" which is composed of three parts, one part in south Korea, another among overseas Koreans, and the third in north Korea.
The Pan-Korean Conference and its south Korean branch have been declared as either "anti-state organisations" or "organisations working in aid of the enemy" (north Korea), under the provisions of the National Security Law, by the south Korean authorities who have been habitually involved in ideologically inspired stigmatisation and repression.
Most of the other south Korean groups which have adopted reunification issue as one of their key programmatic concerns regard the stigmatisation of these groups by the government is motivated by an intent to curtail the broader people's efforts for reunification. KCTU has been one of the key 'intermediary' groups which have endeavoured to build bridges between the "stigmatised" groups and others to consolidate the broad basis for unity within the reunification movement.