The Korean tears to come

KOREANS commemorate August 15th as the day in 1945 when they were freed from Japanese colonial rule. But it left a peninsula divided into the capitalist South and the communist North, and later a war which ended in an armistice in 1953, but no peace treaty. This week, however, there was a different sort of celebration. It began when a North Korean airliner landed in South Korea with 100 people who had not met their relatives south of the border for 50 years. On the aircraft's return flight to the North's capital, Pyongyang, it carried 100 South Koreans making a reciprocal visit. The reunions were tear-jerking stuff; some of the families had for half a century been unaware if their loved ones were alive or dead. But the event was also tinged with the sad reality of living in such a divided country.