Section A · Page 9
The University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, December 9, 1997
Cold war isn't abating in North and South Korea
Plight of families separated by war meets indifference
The Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean woman flew to China for a chance to stand at the Yalu River and wave to North Korean relatives on the other side.
A middle-aged man tracked two brothers through an underground network, confirmed they were still alive in the communist-ruled north but found out little else about them.
Many of the estimated 5 million
These are the lucky ones.
Koreans who fled the north just after World War II or during the 1950-53 Korean War — and an equal number of relatives left behind — have gone to their graves without ever hearing of their parents, brothers, sisters or children again. Many now are in their 70s and
"We cannot afford to lose hope, even though there's hardly a ray of hope," said Cho Dong-young, 72, secretary-general of the Korean Assembly for the Reunion of 10 Million Separated Families.
Many now are in their 70s and 80s.
Cho fled North Korea with a brother in 1947, leaving his parents and five siblings. Three years ago, he also traveled through China to the Yalu, which is the Chinese-North Korean border, and hired a contact to search his hometown for
The contact came back saying Cho was too late — the family had moved.
his family.
"The whole world sympathizes with the agony of separated families." Cho said.
But no one seems able to do much about it, he added.
The North Korean government opposes reunions. South Korea's leaders are ambivalent about them. The rest of the world has more pressing issues —such as reining in North Korea's nuclear program — when it comes to dealing with the isolated and hostile Stalinist regime in Pyongyang.
More than four decades after an armistice halted the Korean War, North Korea and South Korea maintain one of the last Cold War face-offs. Officially still at war,
they are separated by the world's most heavily fortified border— with nearly 2 million soldiers at the ready.
North Koreans reportedly have been imprisoned, persecuted or, at the least, branded as suspect if their relatives escaped to the south.
South Koreans are barred from communicating with or visiting northerners without their government's approval or without reporting the contact within seven days. Approval is rarely given.
The difference between the two is that Pyongyang seems to want to ignore the problem of divided families
Seoul's policy is often self-defeating. On one hand, it encourages the Red Cross to push for reunions as a
humanitarian policy, then virtually blocks contacts between relatives in pursuing its political and security policies.
The restrictions are written into espionage laws designed to foil North Korea's penchant for infiltrations, bombings and assassinations and to clamp down on South Koreans who might intentionally or accidentally aid the enemy through contacts with North Koreans.
Seoul says its records show that in the last nine years about 130 South Koreans have arranged meetings with northern relatives in a third country and about 4,000 have written to their relatives.
That is believed to vastly understate the number of Koreans who actually have made contacts. Some
people use ethnic Koreans in China and the United States to communicate with relatives in the north. Others pay underground contacts and message-passing networks.
Underground contacts in China reportedly charge $500-$1,000 to look for relatives in North Korea, a cost too high for some of South Korea's low-income or elderly citizens.
So while lacking an overall solution on divided families, South Korea's National Assembly recently budgeted about $53,000 to help defray the costs.
The tiny appropriation would provide roughly $225 each, for a maximum of 235 people next year, with each case presumably to be studied for political and security consequences as they are now.
Officials decline to discuss details of the program.
"This is very delicate." one noted.
Newborn baby survives liver transplant
The Associated Press
LONDON — A 5-day-old baby who received a new liver — cut down to one-eighth of its original size — has become the world's youngest liver transplant patient.
Dark-haired Baebhen Schuttk, born with a disease that killed her two brothers, laughed and gurgled yesterday through a news conference called to announce the operation.
"She's just like any normal baby. It's almost easy to forget how close we came to losing her," said her Irish mother, Ita.
Ita Schuttke, 30, and her German husband, Jurgen, 33, were referred to King's College Hospital in London, the largest transplant center for children in Europe, after the death of their sons due to liver problems.
Two days after her birth in Dublin, Baebhen was diagnosed with the same condition, neonatal hemochromatosis, which causes a buildup of iron in the liver. She was flown by air ambulance to King's College Hospital.
There, doctors told the Schuttkes there was a chance for Baebhen. And on the fifth day of her life, the family of a 10-year-old boy who died outside London gave permission for the liver transplant.
"This is the youngest child to get a liver transplant because she was lucky enough to get a donor," said Mohammed Rela, the surgeon who led a 20-member medical team that performed the six-hour operation in July.
During the surgery at King's College Hospital, one group of doctors took two hours to prepare a 4-inch by 3-inch section of liver for the transplant. Other doctors removed Baebhen's diseased liver.
The cut-down liver still was slightly too big for the 6-pound infant, hospital spokesman Nick Samuels said, and for a few days the wound was left open while the liver adjusted to the size of the patient.
"She has done very well, and the liver is now adapting to her body and is growing normally. She will not need another transplant when she is older." Rela said.
Pa, the biggest pediatric transplant center in the United States, said the youngest baby given a liver transplant there was two weeks old.
Even younger children have received heart transplants. Canadian Paul Holc, now age 10, received a heart at Loma Linda University Children's Hospital in California three hours after birth.
The Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh,
Infants are good candidates for transplants — for the first 30 days of life, a baby's immune system is too immature to detect foreign bodies, reducing the risk of rejection.
Baebhen — whose name is Gaelic for "sweet, beautiful woman and melodious" — now takes a light dose of anti-rejection drugs.
The Schuttkes also have an elder daughter who is 5 years old, Aodhbha, who was born healthy.
"We want to thank them (the doctors) from the bottom of our hearts," Ita Schuttke said. "Because the donor is anonymous, it is impossible to thank them for what they have done. But we would like to give our heartfelt gratitude to donors of all organs."
Study says Brazilian police need reform
Report cites links between violence and police forces
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON—Brazilian police forces require widespread reform to curb repeated instances of violence and other abuses, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said in a report released yesterday.
The commission said the number of deaths in Rio de Janeiro attributed to police with links to the Brazilian military averaged 20 per month last year.
It said one battalion that covers slum areas was responsible for a third of the deaths.
The commission also said the number of deaths in civilian confrontations with the military-affiliated police was triple the number injured by them, a reversal of normal patterns.
"This is evidence of the use of excessive force and even shows a pattern of extrajudicial executions by the Rio de Janeiro police," the report said.
As a result of these abuses, public confidence in the police in Rio is at a very low ebb, the study said, noting that only 12 percent of robbery victims reported the incident to police.
The report said there have been instances in which officers guilty of victimizing suspects have been rewarded. It cited one case in which a corporal was decorated and elected "Officer of the Year" even though he had been accused in 49 assassinations.
The colonel who awarded the medal was accused of 44 murders in his 24 years on the force, the report said.
It said police authorities routinely cover up violence perpetrated by individual officers
In many Brazilian states, according to the study, death squads have acted with impunity, eliminating poor youth and suspected criminals in urban areas and community and labor union leaders in rural areas.
The report was partly based on an in-country study by commission members two years ago and on a follow-up visit last July. Titled "Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Brazil," the study covers 1988 to early 1997.
A copy of the report was sent to the Brazilian government. It offered a specific unpublished
comment, which will be included in a final version of the study.
The commission's recommendations include:
Rigorous internal inspections to identify and discipline police officers who commit violations or fail to take the appropriate measures to prevent or report the criminal conduct of other officers. Officers accused of homicide should be transferred to positions in which they do not use firearms until they prove their innocence.
Establishment of a permanent commission to investigate possible extermination squads and vigilante groups.
Changes in the investigation process so that members of a division or district are not appointed to investigate abuses by members of the same division.
More work still awaits Senators
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Also on the legal side, Senate created a judicial board to hear disputes among students, student organizations and Senate. The board also will interpret Senate's Rules and Regulations.
"I think it will mainly be useful for Senate-related questions," said Jason Fizell, Rights committee member. "Senate's Rules and Reqs can be very unclear."
Fizell cited the recent disputes about whether Senate should be involved in the establishment of a Daisy Hill polling site as an example.
The Judicial Board will be formed next school year.
Aside from Senate, Scott Sullivan, student body president, did most of the work to get a course-content proposal for students passed in University Council.
The guide, which will most likely be online, will allow students to check a professor's teaching style, course requirements, the cost of the texts and the size of classes among other factors.
Sullivan said the guide most likely would be available for the next school year.
As far as transportation is concerned, Senate approved a $2 increase to the transportation fee to maintain and improve Saferide services.
Scott Kaiser, KU on Wheels coordinator, said that expanding hours and adding Saferide vehicles were main goals.
The transportation board also made the nighttime buses free.
Despite improvements, campus safety remains an issue.
"I think there are a lot of issues of campus safety that Saferide doesn't address," Fizell said. "That still needs to be addressed."
Senate created a forum to address that and other issues.
Senate's online listserv is up and running. So far it hasn't served many people not affiliated with Senate, but Kelly Huffman, Student Executive Committee chairman, said efforts such as the Senate Web page would help to reach non-Senators.
"We're going to try and get the word out about what we're doing better than we have been doing." Huffman said.
More information about Senators and the executive staff, how to get involved in Senate and committees, meeting and committee minutes, legislation and issues, Senate Rules and Regulations, Student Rights and Responsibilities and information on how to st. rt student organizations will be components of the completed Web page, Huffman said.
Tests right before finals not allowed
Continued from page 1A
Rick Snyder, professor of psychology, agreed. Snyder, however, petitioned the committee to allow him to give a test during the last week of class before the finals period. He was turned down.
"In retrospect, I can see where the board was coming from," he said. "It wouldn't be fair for students to have to take several finals during the last week of class."
Snyder moved his test forward a week so that he was not in defiance of the rule.
Both inquiries fell within the rules.
Jeannette Johnson, assistant to the provost, said she received questions about this particular rule from both an instructor and a student last week.
Both inquiries fell within the rules.
Johnson said some reasons for an
exam being scheduled during the last week of classes without a corresponding final were because a professor was new to the University and unaware of the rule or because the professor wanted to end the semester early.
Daniel Bays, professor and chair of the history department, said the department reminded faculty of the rule.
He said he had not received any student complaints during the last two semesters, but if a student had a serious complaint about exam schedules, the department might have to ask faculty members to change the test.