A frail, elderly tycoon brought 500 cattle into hungry North Korea Tuesday, crossing the world's most heavily guarded border on a mission to promote peace, pay back a debt to his dead father - and maybe do a little business on the side.
Chung Ju-yung, 82, founder of the giant Hyundai conglomerate and South Korea's richest man, shuffled into the North through Peace House, the long, squat border building where the truce was signed that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.As he emerged from the northern end of the building supported by family members, Chung was greeted by North Korean officials and bouquet-bearing women in long, flowing traditional gowns. "You are really, really welcome," one of the officials said.
Minutes earlier, a convoy of 50 white Hyundai trucks loaded with 500 prime cows and bulls lumbered across the border, the first civilian vehicles to make the crossing since 1945, when the Koreas were divided into the communist North and capitalist South.
"I'm delighted to go back to my hometown through Panmunjom, the same passage I took when I left for Seoul . . . while I was young," Chung said in a statement he read to reporters.
Chung hoped his visit would "lay the cornerstone of reconciliation and peace" between the rival Korean states.
Chung's visit, dubbed "Operation Rawhide," comes as the new government of President Kim Dae-jung is trying to open up its reclusive northern neighbor to the outside world. Seoul already has lifted virtually all restrictions on non-governmental exchanges.
"We hope that an era of peace and mutual cooperation will come as early as possible, allowing millions of separated family members in the two sides to go and come through Panmunjom," chief presidential spokesman Park Ji-won said in Seoul.
Hyundai officials said the cattle were more suited for farm work than for slaughter. North Korea is suffering from a famine brought on by inefficient, socialist farming methods and three years of alternating drought and floods that destroyed large areas of farmland.
The trip was a nostalgic one for Chung. Sixty-five years ago at the age of 17, he sold one of his family's cows, stole the money and fled to the South.
When Chung arrived in Seoul in 1933, he planned to study law. Instead he went into business and built Hyundai, South Korea's largest conglomerate, with more than 50 subsidiaries producing everything from cars and computer chips to ships and steel.
"I am now returning back to my hometown to pay back the debt owed to my father," Chung said.
He plans to visit his hometown of Tongchun, on the east coast 125 miles northeast of Seoul, later in his trip.