Thai Government to Return North Korean Defectors
Here is some breaking news courtesy of OFK:
Just caught this story on naver – It seems about 52 defectors have been aprehended by Thai authorities and if convicted of entering the country illegally are expected to be sent back to North Korea. [Joongang Ilbo, Korean link]
It looks like the new Thai military government is trying to cozy up to the North Korean regime by returning these defectors. What is the Korean government doing to stop this? Nothing that I could find. Ditto for the US government as well. To echoes OFK’s sentiment what the heck is Amnesty International doing about this? Just like everyone else, absolutely nothing.Â
I went over to the Amnesty International webpage and there was nothing about North Korea, but guess what right on the front page is this story about David Hicks the Australian terrorist who went from a skinny terrorist to a fat terrorist due to his time in Gitmo and received a trial to where he was sentenced to 9 months in jail. Here is the human rights violations Amnesty International is more concerned about, overweight terrorists receiving a trail and sentence of 9 months while at the same time North Korean refugees are being sent back to North Korea to be enrolled into a gulag or be executed. If only Bush or Haliburton could be connected to a North Korean gulag than maybe they would care.Â
As usual it looks like the grassroots groups will have to be the ones to fight for the lives of the defectors. In South Korea one Christian North Korea human rights group is already protesting at the Thai embassy.Â
One Free Korea has a list of embassy contact information for people to contact these embassies in order to express displeasure with the return of these refugees to North Korea.Â
Just another reason why I will not visit Thailand.Â
That's profound.
Why hasn't our own government stepped in now or before? The Thai government or Laos or such other isn't a big friend with NK as China is. And it isn't like the US doesn't have the money and living space to take these people in. And I would think their intel value is pretty high —- both for what they can tell us in the immediate now and the information they can spread around by being heard on talk shows, college campus, reporters, and so on — instead of such groups having to go to Thailand or China to find them when they are hiding out.
Basically, it wouldn't take more than the lifting of a finger for Uncle Sam to take these people in once they've made it out of China, and there seem to be good policy reasons for doing so ….
….so why haven't we….???…
I don't think that Thailand is trying to cozy up to North Korea. I think that Thailand is trying to cozy up to China. Thailand wants stronger economic and political ties with China. They are kissing up to them by following China's law of returning NK defectors.
The Thai government is returning the defectors to the North simply because South Korea does not do anything to prevent that. As the numbers increase, the North Korean refugees are becoming economic burdens and social outcasts to South Koreans. Also Roh Myu-hyon does not want to do anything to offend Kim Jong-il.
The fact that President Roh does nothing to help defectors is definitely true. The primary reason though is not the fear of offending Kim Jong-il. The primary reason is because a mass exodus of refugees from North Korea makes the possibility of regime collapse a real possibility which the ROK government does not want to deal with. The costs of reunification both economically and socially would be astronomical. The ROK government would rather use their current economic might to ensure everyone can afford to buy a Hyundai and take a vacation to Guam than end the suffering of North Koreans and unify the country.
Althoug noboby knows when, the reunification will come sooner or later. South Korea had better accept every NK refugee whenever they come until nobody lives in NK except Kim's family. Gradual accommodations of the defectors would
cost less no matter how long it would take. Stop giving away
money to NK. Instead SK should save the money for the coming reunification.
[…] Just caught this story on naver – It seems about 52 defectors have been aprehended by Thai authorities and if convicted of entering the country illegally are expected to be sent back to North Korea. [Joongang Ilbo, Korean link] … – more – […]
I think Thai Govt is sending a messege to defectors and their NGO helpers that they don't want to get in the middle to Korean peninsula politics. Even with all those ROK tourists and ROK company investment in Land of Smile, new Thai Govt is taking a bold move to do this.
Also, why don't ROK Embassy set up a Satellite office in ChangRai to help Thai Immigration officers to process the defectors. ROK Embassy has a Satellite office in Phuket for ROK tourists already.
Working on NK issues this week, I've gotten to where I'm getting somewhat annoyed with the refugee prevention angle you hear from a lot of the top government type people. Things like how nobody wants to see 22 million refugees flowing across the borders and yada yada yada…
True.
But, I think we can handle it. A tsumami or hurricane wipes out large sections of land and creates total destruction, and we handle it. Two major world wars that flattened cities, and we handled it. South Korea flattened as armies yo-yoed up and down the peninsula, and we handled it…..
22 million refugees? So, the whole of NK is going to leave that lands, right? Sure guys….sure….
And the US, Japan, SK, EU, China, and so on don't have the money, man-power, logistical technology and infrastructure to handle a NK collapse….? Sure….yeah….whatever….
It really boils down to not wanting to be inconvienced with a touch of "if NK collapses, the regime will probably go out with tha bank by unloading its missiles and artillery….
I'm not totally convinced the regime would go out with a bang if the regime was on the verge of collapse. Think about it, if the regime collapsed what would the power elite mainly the NK generals gain from launching an all out war that would lead to their destruction?
If the regime collapsed and these power elites worked with the occupation force instead they could still ensure themselves a place in a future unified Korea. What worries me though is that a Chinese occupation force may be the first ones to respond to a regime collapse because the ROK has no contigency plan to respond to NK collapse before the Chinese do. If the Chinese move in I highly doubt we will see a unified Korean peninsula.
I think the very top will strike out to take as many with them as possible. But, it might end up like Hitler's bunker as the Russians closed in……where the generals simply refused to carry out the scorched earth orders.
It is a gamble if we followed a topple-NK policy, (but I'm becoming more convinced it is the right thing to do).
One key difference between Germany and NK is that Hitler didn't have 50 years of indocrtination on his masses. Maybe his generals will be more willing to follow doom's day orders……
If you think about the Japanese occupation too and then the Hermit Kingdom status, especially in the area that is now North Korea —- German's society was a hell of a lot more in tune with world thought and news and ethics and what not than the generations of North Korea. They are in much more of an information vaccum and might follow Kim Jong Il to hell…
I think the people would obey orders to follow any doomsday orders but I don't think it is a 100% guarantee the regime elite will. The regime elite has plenty of access to the outside world compared to average citizens and thus are not indoctrinated as the average citizen. They do Kim's bidding to keep their privledged status. If Kim can't ensure their privledged status than they may look for better alternatives.
I don't know how deep or wide knowledge of the outside world is among the elite. I say that because I remember a Korean professor in the US telling us about a delegation of North Koreans who went to Hawaii, and he was showing them around Oahu, and he took them to a Korean Buddhist Temple set up by the large and long term Korean community on the island. He said one of the North Koreans showed he was knowledgable and like you might expect out of a high level government person, but he said the other asked as they were driving by a large church later that day if Christianity and Buddhism were the same thing…….and he said that one high ranking official routinely showed great ignorance about the outside world…..???….
[…] is holding roughly 400 North Korean defectors in their jails and has threatened to return them to North Korea. Now the defectors are all going on a hunger strike in order to draw attention to […]
[…] has been threatening to crackdown on the defectors and send them home. However, they have been holding off on doing this and now appear to be focusing on going after […]