Happy To Be Out Of North Korea

Waving and smiling, 25 North Korean asylum seekers arrived in Seoul on Monday, four days after they barged into the Spanish Embassy in China demanding that they be allowed to travel to South Korea.

The North Koreans — 14 adults and 11 children under age 20 — landed at Incheon International Airport outside Seoul aboard a Korean Air plane that took them from Manila, the Philippines.

"We're glad to be finally in South Korea, which is better off than the northern side," Choi Byung Sup said, speaking on behalf of the whole group. "We want to live freely here, abiding by South Korean law and do whatever we want to do."

After taking a few questions from reporters, the North Koreans were whisked away by officials for debriefing. They are required to receive up to three months of education on capitalistic lifestyle, including how to open a bank account and use the subway and personal computers.

Before entering the Spanish Embassy, the North Koreans said in statements that their action was to draw international attention to their plight. They threatened to commit suicide if sent back to their impoverished, hard-line communist homeland.

China quickly extricated itself from a diplomatic dilemma by expelling them to the Philippines. Sending them back to likely punishment in North Korea risked alienating world opinion.

But China also tried to avoid angering North Korea, its longtime ally. It called the asylum seekers lawbreakers and flew them to a third country, not South Korea.

There was no immediate North Korean response.

South Korean officials said the issue would not have a big impact on inter-Korean relations, which remain frozen amid tension between the United States and North Korea.

"It's a humanitarian decision, which we hope North Korea would not interpret otherwise," said Kim Eui-taek, spokesman for South Korea's Foreign Ministry.

Unification Minister Chung Se-hyun, whose ministry handles North Korean affairs, said South Korea would continue to accept "all North Korean escapees from a humanitarian viewpoint."

It was the largest North Korean defection ever to South Korea. In 1996, 17 North Koreans, including 16 from a single family, defected to South Korea via Hong Kong.

The latest North Korean group comprises 22 members from six families, a farmer and two orphaned children. They are 13 men and 12 women.

According to South Korean officials who interviewed them in Manila, the North Koreans escaped their homeland between 1998 and 2000. They are from Hamkyong province in the North's northeastern region where food shortages are known to be more serious than in other areas.

It was the second time in less than a year that the Philippine government has allowed North Korean asylum seekers from China to pass through the country on their way to South Korea.

Last June, a family of seven North Korean asylum seekers sought refuge in a U.N. office in Beijing. After four days, they were allowed to leave for South Korea via a circuitous route that took them to Singapore, then to Seoul via the Philippines.

Philippines officials warned that their decision to allow transit twice of North Korean asylum seekers should not be interpreted as setting a precedent.

A trickle of North Korean defections that began in the mid-1990s has become a steady flow in recent years, rising from 71 in 1998 to 148 in 1999, 312 in 2000 and 583 in 2001. So far this year, 113 North Koreans have fled to South Korea.

Most North Koreans defect through China, which shares a long land border.

China is bound by a treaty with North Korea to repatriate people that cross the border. Many have been caught and sent back.

German and Japanese human rights activists helped organize the latest defections and promised to arrange more in greater numbers until China recognizes the thousands of North Koreans hiding in its territory as refugees.

The Beijing government maintains that those North Koreans are temporarily staying in China for food.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees also is urging China to recognize the North Korean escapees as refugees — a move that will entitle them to international aid and free travel to South Korea.

The Koreas were divided in 1945. Today, they share the world's most heavily armed border.