North Korean Defector Claims South Koreans are American Puppets in Interview
I would not be surprised if this guy is a North Korean plant in South Korea to say propaganda like what is in this article or is being told to say these things for fear of harm to family members back in North Korea. It is like he is just repeating things straight from the Uriminzokkiri Twitter account:
Five years into his resettlement, the defector says the social environment is so different from the North that calls for unification no longer ring true for him.
“It’s better there is no unification,” he said. “If unification takes place now, only civil war and chaos would erupt,” as South Korea is not ready to deal with a flood of refugees coming to Seoul in the event of the Kim regime’s collapse.
He said discrimination is an obstacle and his fellow defectors struggle in menial jobs.
It is frosty indifference that is the greatest barrier to adjustment, he said, suggesting the real “nuclear” catastrophe on the peninsula has already happened with the nuclearization of Korean lives.
South Koreans “take no interest in your life,” he said. “There is not one person who wants to be your friend. In apartment buildings here, they do not even know who their next-door neighbors are.”
By contrast, in North Korean apartment communities, families “gather on the rooftop to play together, drink soju together and eat,” he said. “In South Korea you cannot have that kind of enjoyment. South Koreans only seek you out when they need you.”
He also criticized South Korea’s politics.
“South Korea has no ideology of its own,” he said.
“I came hoping to contribute to the healing of a divided country…but after living here I think it’s accurate to say South Koreans are [American] puppets,” he added, using the term commonly used to refer to South Korea in North Korea propaganda.
He also said South Koreans fear being at odds with the United States. “That’s why Americans don’t even regard [South] Koreans as human beings, or Asians in general,” he said. [UPI]
Here is what he had to say about defectors who have testified about human rights abuses:
“There’s too much focus on North Korea’s human rights abuses, too little on how it is a society constructed for the people,” he said, adding the defectors who expose human rights violations represent the worst of North Korean society.
“If you only bring together people who spent time in prison, all you get is the gutter,” he said, adding that many defector testimonies in United Nations Commission of Inquiry reports are “lies.”
“They should all be put away.” [UPI]
You can read more at the link.
Perhaps he should return to the land of milk and honey. Where he can return to the rooftops and enjoy his soju.
Obvious spai is obvious? 😐
Spy, or a Country Mouse not quite understanding the City Mouse ways?
His anti-American comments are the propaganda he has been taught since he was in diapers. But I’ll admit sometimes it’s hard to make friends in a new place. I know the South Korean accent is a lot different than the North. Go to the Big City with a country drawl, and people assume you’re nothing but a dirt clod kicking rube.
All the things South Koreans take for granted are totally new to the defectors. An 8 week class isn’t really going to replace growing up in South Korea.
He can always return…
“The former deputy chief at Pyongyang’s Ministry of People’s Security”
There’s your clue as to why he would feel this way. He was used to be the cream of the crop high ranking North Korean official with all the obscene privilege afforded to the 0.5% of the party members loyal to KJU. Now he’s in South Korea, just another common ordinary man with skills that are not transferable to the South Korean job market. He would have probably had to get a job driving a truck, cleaning toilets, and serving food in restaurants for 1.5 million won per month minimum wage – the kind of jobs that North Koreans are only qualified for. No more evening cocktails, concubine North Korean women, state provided Mercedes Benz, eating in state restaurants with $200 dishes, etc. He will have to learn how to be a productive member of society, and that doesn’t come easy when you were spoiled by KJU to keep his loyalty (however the drawback for that is a lifetime of terror that you may one day be purged).
South Korea doesn’t have a single ideology of worshipping KJU as a man-god, like North Korea. You can believe in any ideology you want as long as it’s not North Korea or Communism. The plurality of ideology and beliefs is a strength, not a weakness.
Well of course. He was a high ranking secret police official responsible for torturing North Korean dissidents and innocent North Korean people for whatever the supposed crimes committed by them. This tells us he has no regrets of torturing people.
For making free speech. Says the former North Korean secret police head.
Why is the UPI giving him free publicity? He’s a rare case not even fully representative of the vast majority of North Korean defectors. This is a pathetic non-story.