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Andrew Salmon

Kim Myung-bok, 79, has not  set foot on his native soil for 60 years. Now, the slight, emotive veteran of the North Korean People’s Army begs for the chance to see his homeland one last time.
“When a tiger is dying, it returns to its den,” said a weeping Kim this week in Seoul, quoting an archaic Korean proverb. “I don’t know if my family is alive or dead, but I want to visit my hometown again.
Kim, who has spent his years since the war living in Brazil as a farmer, was on his first trip to the Korean peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War ended.
Speaking to reporters in halting, half-forgotten Korean, he begged for the opportunity to visit his parents’ grave, meet surviving relatives, and scatter the ashes of departed comrades in North Korea before he dies.
Kim is one of the last surviving characters in one of the war’s least-known chapters.
Captured in 1950, the North Korean was imprisoned in a Prisoner of War (POW) camp in South Korea. Behind the barbed wire, a brutal “war within a war” was fought between hardcore communist POWs and rightists.
After the war’s end in 1953, among 170,000 communist POWs, almost 27,000 defected. However, 77, traumatised by the carnage, turned their backs on the peninsula, and were granted asylum in neutral countries - Argentina, Brazil and India.
Eighteen remain alive; Kim is one of them.
This week, on his first trip to South Korea, he was accompanied by South Korean documentary director, Cho Kyeong-duk, who is making a film, “Return Home” about the last surviving neutral-country POWs.
Astonished by modern Seoul, Kim - smiling briefly – said: “This is part of my hometown, surely, surely.”
But he  ultimately yearns to return to North Korea.
“I want to touch the skeletal remains of my parents,” he said.
“And if my siblings had any children, I want to meet them, too.”
Kim also carried the embers of two ex-comrades who died in Brazil. He hopes to honour their final wish and scatter their ashes in North Korea.
For two years, Kim sought a visa from North Korea’s embassy in Brazil – without success. On his behalf, Cho contacted UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for help – but didn’t get a response. In desperation, Cho brought Kim to South Korea to raise publicity for his plight.
However, fearful of being dubbed a traitor, Kim will not travel to North Korea alone and seeks the assurance of a film crew.
“If I visit North Korea, they will protect me,” he said.
“To go alone - I am terrified.”
As a South Korean national, it will be difficult for Cho to travel North; he said he would willingly outsource filming in North Korea to another crew.
But another ex-North Korean POW, a comrade of Kim who was formerly resident in Brazil and now the United States, has no intention of visiting North Korea.
“I am scared,” said Pastor Kang Hi-dong, 87, who also features in Cho’s film. “Even if they give me permission, I won’t go.”


After living in asylum in Brazil, a former North Korean prisoner of war yearns to return to his homeland one last time 

Captured North Korean and Chinese soldiers being held in a detention camp in Pusan, South Korea in 1953.  Photo: US Department of Defence

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