Korean-American Pastor Detained in Myanmar's Rebel-Controlled Area
A Korean-American pastor who is said to be missing in Southeast Asia is being detained in a rebel- controlled area of Myanmar along with six North Korean defectors
A Korean-American pastor who is said to be missing in Southeast Asia is being detained in a rebel- controlled area of Myanmar along with six North Korean defectors, a new agency reported Monday. According to the Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency, the pastor—identified as Park Joon-jae, or Jeffrey Park—and the others are safe but are becoming dehydrated as their detention in poor conditions drags on, the activist said on condition of anonymity.
Late last month, the wife of Seattle-based Park reported that she lost contact with her husband—a former U.S. businessman who took up missionary work to assist Northern refugees in China five years ago. Park reportedly picked up the defectors in Jilin and Yanji, China, in October before arriving in Myanmar the following month.
On Jan. 22, Chun Ki-won, a representative of Park’s ministry in Seoul, said that one of the six defectors who was accompanying Park on their escape route through Southeast Asia called on Jan. 16 to say the group had made it across the Myanmar-Laotian border with the exception of Park. The phone then cut off mid-sentence.
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According to the activist, Park appears to have encountered difficulties over a "transit fee" while crossing the border from Laos, suggesting that he and the others could have been kidnapped in the rebel-controlled area—where the government of Myanmar is said to have no influence in.
The activist said an effort is under way to free Park and the North Korean defectors from detention and for the defectors to seek political asylum in the United States, where the recently enacted North Korea Human Rights Act opened the way for defectors' entry.
Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, more than 6,300 North Koreans have defected to South Korea to escape poverty and political oppression. Last year, a total of 1,894 North Koreans went to the South.
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 via China in recent years.
Last month, four North Korean defectors entered the French Embassy in Vietnam and two others entered the Swedish Embassy in Vietnam a few days later, seeking asylum in South Korea.
