2023-02-04

[Column] Why Korea must open its door to Russian refugees : Editorial & Opinion : News : The Hankyoreh

[Column] Why Korea must open its door to Russian refugees : Editorial & Opinion : News : The Hankyoreh

[Column] Why Korea must open its door to Russian refugees

Posted on : Feb.1,2023 17:11 KST Modified on : Feb.1,2023 17:11 KST
To turn away young people refusing to fight a war of aggression would be a betrayal of South Korea’s own history of fighting for democracy

Illustration by Kim Dae-jung

By Pak Noja (Vladimir Tikhonov), professor of Korean Studies at the University of Oslo

“The world is such a strange place,” said Alexander, a 30-year-old Russian from Siberia. “Many countries ask Russians to refuse to participate in this war of conquest and to renounce the aggression of the Putin regime. However, if one does refuse to be conscripted, not one of those countries offers the support that we need. Korea is no different. Isn’t it so strange? Why are their actions so different from their words?”

Alexander doesn’t look like what most people imagine when they think of a person fleeing conscription. He, in fact, did not reject military service itself. As a young man, Alexander served in the Russian Special Forces and has been placed on the reserves list.

However, as someone whose family is from Ukraine, Alexander has no idea why he should go to Ukraine, the land of his ancestors, and kill innocent countrymen who have never threatened Russia.

Alexander is also a pro-democracy activist who supports Alexei Navalny, the currently imprisoned opposition leader. He is critical of the Putin regime’s entire neoliberal nationalist policies such as the invasion of Ukraine, the cuts in education and welfare budgets, mass production of low-wage contracted jobs, and the suppression of labor and democratization movements. From his point of view, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a part of such anti-democratic policies.

So as soon as he received a conscription letter in October 2022, signaling that he would be mobilized for war, he secretly crossed the border and headed to Korea, a democratic country known for fighting its way to democracy and winning.

In this “democratic” and “advanced” nation, he has been sleeping out in the open at Incheon International Airport after being denied entry to the country.

Before I left Seoul on Dec. 15, I briefly met him at the airport. The gate for my flight was a short walk from where he was currently camped out.

Alexander was not alone. There were several Russian nationals who were seeking refuge in the terminal indefinitely including Zashar, a native of Caucasus, and Vladimir, a native of Buryatia. All three young men came from minority ethnic groups in Russia.

I spoke more in depth with Vladimir, a 23-year-old university student, who expressed rage towards the racism shown by the Putin regime. People from his native Buryatia have been mobilized to fight in eastern Ukraine since 2014, when Russia started to interfere militarily in Ukraine.

Russian authorities have been treating them as “cheap cannon fodder.” There is also an economic background to explain why minorities have been used as “bullet sponges.” Marginal areas like Buryatia, where minorities form communities, have suffered from economic discrimination by being alienated from any sort of governmental economic investments, so with no suitable jobs, the military is basically the only employer there.

After recognizing that the discrimination against ethnic minorities was something inherent to Putin’s dictatorship, Vladimir refused to be mobilized for the invasion of Ukraine (despite the fact he was a reserve troop) and secretly left the country through Mongolia to come to Korea, in which he arrived with a heart full of hope. He could’ve gone to any other country, but he firmly believed that Korea, which has a proud history of fighting for democracy, would lend him a helping hand.

However, the hope that these youths had placed in Korea crumbled one by one. The young men were turned around and chased out of their immigration screening. Alexander said that the statements that he made about his experiences of participating in anti-government protests and being beaten by the police were not even properly translated.

These young men had come to Korea to oppose the atrocities committed by dictatorship, such as the war of conquest and racism, but the Ministry of Justice only considered them as mere “conscription objectors” and stated that “refusal of conscription was not a reason for refugee recognition.”

The youths, who were not even given the opportunity to be considered for asylum, have raised objections and are waiting for a response. However, in the meantime, they are trapped in the terminal much like animals in a zoo and have to live out in the open. South Korea, considered by many to be a “country of democracy,” does not seem to welcome these youths’ longing for democracy.

Vladimir stated his will to persevere by stating that “by hanging on to the very end, we’ll show that we are true political refugees and not just some people who want to live in a rich country,” but his face showed signs of fatigue. What is the difference between being locked up in an airport for months and living in a prison cell?

Even after parting ways with and boarding my flight, I couldn’t get the young men out of my head; I turned their words over and over in my mind. As they said, the Korean democracy that we are so proud of was borne from desperate struggles. During those struggles, many fighters for democracy were forced to seek asylum, just like these Russian refugees trapped indefinitely in the airport.

Kim Dae-jung, who later became president, lived in exile in the US between 1982 and 1985. Former Hallym University professor Chi Myong-kwan, who later became the chairperson of the Korea Broadcasting System (KBS), informed the world of the Korean pro-democracy movement while in exile in Japan from 1972 to 1993. Hong Se-hwa, a former South Korean National Liberation Front Preparation Committee activist who later became a founding member of the Hankyoreh, had to stay in France from 1979 to 2002.

One of the reasons Kim Dae-jung, Chi Myong-kwan, and Hong Se-hwa were able to play important roles in their democratized homeland was the support and solidarity they received while in exile. Is it not the moral obligation of the people who live in a country with such history to provide support and solidarity to foreigners who want to fight for democracy in the Republic of Korea?

The Russian refugees stuck at Incheon International Airport aren’t simply looking for democratization. They came to South Korea because they refused to be part of a war of aggression.

We might compare them to the heroes of Korea’s modern history, people like Kim Jun-yeop or Chang Chun-ha who successfully escaped after they were forcibly drafted as student soldiers during the Japanese occupation. They too took action to reject participation in the war of aggression that Imperial Japan was waging in China.

Conscientious Korean journalists like Kim, Chang, or Lee Young-hee — who criticized the war of aggression in Vietnam — are historical figures who serve as examples to us all. So why are we chasing away these objectors to a war of aggression who have come here from Russia?

Democracy and opposition to imperialist invasions are historical values that sustain us. These values should be applied universally, without distinctions between “Korean” and “not Korean.”

In that sense, our callous treatment of foreign objectors to aggression and activists for democracy amounts to a form of self-betrayal. Why do we want to leave this sort of blot on South Korea’s history as a democratic state?

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

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