By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
With hundreds of thousands of South Koreans enthused by the recently released domestic film ``Silmido,’’ military authorities on Friday confirmed for the first time the existence of ``Unit 684,’’ a secret unit of agents who were trained for the assassination of then-North Korean leader Kim Il-sung in late 1960s.
The Defense Ministry said the unit in question is a detachment of the ROK Air Force’s Squadron 2325, which recruited 31 civilians for special missions on April 1, 1968.
``Seven of them died in training, 20 were killed in a rebellion and the four survivors were put to death after military trial,’’ ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Nam Dae-youn said in a press briefing.
Nam added the ministry found five out of the seven men from a village of Okchon, North Chungchong Province, who altogether went missing around the time, had identical names with five of the 31 unit members. ``We cannot confirm if the five are the same people that were members of the unit, because most of records were destroyed. We will have to check further,’’ he said.
Keen public attention was drawn to Unit 684 and the Silmido incident as a movie, portraying the fate of 31 unit members in rebellion, was released late last year.
The unit was launched in retaliation against a North Korean attempt to assassinate South Korean president Park Chung-hee in 1968. On Jan. 21, 1968, 31 North Korean agents sneaked into Seoul on a mission to assassinate then-president Park Chung-hee. They almost reached Chong Wa Dae, but most of them were killed in the mountains surrounding the presidential residence.
The number of the unit, 684, stands for the April, 1968 when the unit was founded. The members were trained harshly on a remote, deserted island in the West Sea called Silmido.
The identities of those 31 figures and how they joined the unit are not known, though the movie described them as condemned criminals.
The unit was ready by 1969 for its infiltration mission into Pyongyang, but by that time relations between the two rival Koreas had thawed somewhat, and Seoul reconsidered its assassination plans. The unit members were left isolated on the island, unable to leave, for about three years in conditions described in the film as inhumane.
In August of 1971, unit members rose to kill their overseers and made their way to Chong Wa Dae in rebellion. Most of them, however, committed suicide with their grenades when confronted with troops in Seoul.
