Tag: defector

This is interesting because it is very rare for a North Korean Soldiers to defect across the DMZ like this. It causing officials to wonder if Seoul’s newly started propaganda broadcasts might be having an effect:

A North Korean soldier crossed the border into South Korea early Tuesday in the latest defection amid Seoul’s propaganda campaign in response to Pyongyang’s s repeated launches of trash-carrying balloons.

The South Korean military detected the soldier from north of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) within the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas in the eastern section of the border and conducted an operation to help him arrive in the South.

The North Korean, wearing a military uniform, is believed to have walked southward through a path located near the Donghae road along the east coast — one of the two rare roads connecting the two Koreas where the North has installed mines and removed street lights. (….)

The defection came just 12 days after a North Korean resident defected to the South by crossing the neutral zone of the Han River estuary located west of the inter-Korean land border.

It also came as South Korea has been conducting full-scale anti-Pyongyang broadcasts, including news and K-pop music, daily through its border loudspeakers since mid-July in response to the North’s repeated launches of trash-carrying balloons.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The Messenger got access to the Serious Incident Report (SIR) that was filed for the defection of PV2 Travis King. It shows that how the United Nations Command vets people taking the DMZ tours is clearly broken:

When King arrived for his tour of the demilitarized zone the following day, he checked in with a U.S. government identification card. The tour company submitted the list of participants in the tour to the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission, the international body which supervises the armistice between the two Koreas. King had been placed on an international hold by U.S. and South Korean authorities owing to his disciplinary exhibits, and it’s not clear why he was not flagged prior to taking the tour. 

United Nations Command approved the manifest submitted to them by Hana Tours ITC.

The Messenger

What is most interesting from this report is apparently the North Koreans had a van waiting for King that he ran into after he crossed the border:

The tour began around 2:30 p.m. at Camp Boniface, a military post of the United Nations Command, just south of the southern boundary of the Korean Demilitarized Zone, the report details. Roughly an hour later at 3:30 p.m., King walked away from his group and sprinted through a space between U.S. and South Korean troops. 

Security Forces chased King as he ran to the far end of what’s known as conference row, the bright blue buildings in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. The Army private then ran north to Panmungak. 

The report says King ran to the back of a Korean People’s Army building where he entered a van and was driven out of the area by North Korean troops. (……..)

A U.S. military official familiar with the investigation told The Messenger the U.S. military is looking into the possibility that the North Koreans had prior knowledge of his intention to cross the border. The U.S. military official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing investigations. 

You can read more at the link, but King likely had this defection planned out. However, I don’t think he was smart enough to find a way to contact the North Koreans to actually coordinate his defection. It will be interesting to see what the investigation determines.

It looks like either PV2 King is a bad drunk or has some serious anger management issues. Considering he deliberately planned his defection to North Korea I think he has some mental and anger management issues:

Seoul police arrested King just before 4 a.m. on Oct. 8 in Mapo and placed him in the backseat of a squad car, according to records from Seoul Western District Court. He refused to answer questions, kicked the car’s doors and ranted: “F— Korean, f— Korean Army, f— Korean police.”

The court records redact the names of victims and the defendant; however, a court official on Tuesday confirmed by phone that King was the defendant in the case.

He was also fined about $3,950 and paid roughly $790 for damage to the police car, the records state. 

King joined the Army in January 2021 and was a cavalry scout administratively assigned to the 4th Infantry Division in South Korea, according to Pentagon spokesman Bryce Dubee.

King was also accused of assault on Sept. 25, according to court records. Seoul police say he pushed and punched a fellow customer at a Mapo bar who refused to buy King a drink, records state.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

I doubt this will become a major trend because the North Koreans will likely increase security on their side of the DMZ to prevent more defections:

With its surveillance equipment, the South Korean military detected the soldier crossing the military demarcation line at 7:56 a.m., the JCS said.

“Related agencies plan to investigate him regarding the details of how he came to the South,” the JCS said in a text message sent to reporters, adding that there were no “special activities” from the North Korean army on the front line.

“Following demolition of guard posts between the South and the North, our security operations on the front line have had no problem,” a JCS official said. “The soldier is safely in our custody.”

The Stars & Stripes has a good read about the actions the American medical evacuation team took to save the life of the North Korean soldier who defected across the Joint Security Area and was shot five times by his comrades:

The crew had just returned to Camp Casey, a base near the heavily fortified frontier that divides the peninsula, after a more than three-hour training mission when radio operator Pfc. Karina Lopez told them to stand by for a real mission.

After initial confusion about whether the team was needed, Lopez got the call at 4:04 p.m., about an hour after events had begun to unfold, and the team took off five minutes later.

“That’s when I started … calling the hospital, trying to figure out which hospital they were going to take him to,” said the 20-year-old from Raleigh, N.C.

Singh and his teammates had only basic information that somebody had suffered a gunshot wound to the torso at the Joint Security Area. But that was enough for concern.

“I was in Iraq and Afghanistan … that’s what you expect there,” said Gumm, the 37-year-old pilot. “Here you’d expect a concussion or the other types of missions that we’ve had, not a gunshot wound to the torso. So it was surprising.”

It took about seven minutes to get to Camp Bonifas, the base near the JSA, where more than a dozen people met them carrying the wounded soldier on a stretcher in a chaotic scene.

“We had to kick some people out of the helicopter,” said crew chief Spc. Carroll Moore, 25, of Lenoir, N.C., adding there was only room for two escorts from the security battalion.

Singh, 39, of San Antonio, said he immediately spotted signs that a lung was in danger of collapsing so he did a needle chest decompression, with a 3.5-inch needle. He also worked to stop the blood from hemorrhaging.

The defector, who was in and out of consciousness, asked for water at one point, but Singh said he couldn’t have any because of the nature of his wounds.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the whole article at the link, but great job by everyone involved to save this defectors life.

I was a bit surprised that the North Korean guards at the JSA did not try to go across the MDL and drag the defector back across and maybe that is what the Kim regime expected them to do as well:

North Korea suffered acute embarrassment on November 13 when a border guard fled first by jeep and then on foot across the joint security area (JSA) with South Korea.

The defector, identified only by his surname Oh, sped in a jeep towards the South before losing control and crashing into a ditch. He sprinted the final few metres as North Korea guards opened fire.

Now those border guards are believed to be taking the full force of Kim Jong-un’s fury for the incident – with all believed to have lost their positions.

Yonhap News, a Seoul-based news agency, believes all border guards have been replaced at the border in a huge security overhaul.

And they said an intelligence source had told them the guards were also in danger of cruel punishment at the hands of Kim’s security agents.

The unnamed source told the agency: “Signs were detected that North Korea has replaced all border security officials following the defection.  [UK-Express]

You can read more at the link, but imagine some very senior Kim regime officials are displeased with this defection and people will be held accountable for letting it happen.  In addition the soldier’s family will be held accountable as well for his defection and are probably already in a labor camp somewhere as punishment.

The North Korean soldier shot while defecting to South Korea across the JSA will live.  However, his poor medical condition before he was even shot is drawing increased scrutiny in South Korea:

The revelation that the man had a severe parasitic infection — Lee said he had never seen such a case except in medical textbooks — and that his stomach contained raw corn kernels prompted widespread shock in South Korea. North Korean front-line soldiers were supposed to be elite troops, yet this man had worms not seen in South Korea since the 1970s and had been eating uncooked corn?

Oh also has tuberculosis and hepatitis B, Lee said. And, at 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighing about 130 pounds, he is several inches shorter and 20 pounds lighter than the average male 18-year-old South Korean.

There is intense interest in the soldier, and military intelligence officers reportedly are eager to question him about his escape, but Lee has been fending them off. The soldier is showing signs of depression and post-traumatic stress, and it will take about a month before he is well enough to answer questions, the doctor said.  [Washington Post]

You can read the rest at the link, but just think there are 25 million people in North Korea with probably many other bad health conditions which will need to be considered in a unification scenario.

By the way the soldier’s trauma surgeon Lee Cook-jong is a bit of celebrity in South Korea:

This is not Lee’s first time in the spotlight. The surgeon became a national hero in 2011 when he saved the life of a ship captain who had been shot by Somali pirates.

After pirates seized a chemical freighter near the Gulf of Aden in 2011, South Korean commandos stormed the ship and the pirates shot the captain six times during the rescue attempt.

Lee was waiting at a hospital in Oman and saved the captain’s life, earning a reputation as the country’s leading trauma surgeon. There was even a popular medical drama based on this story, “Golden Time.” The title was a reference to Lee’s frequent reminder that it is the hour after a severe injury that is most important for saving someone’s life.  [Washington Post]

The Jeep the solider drove to JSA is a Chinese-made vehicle: BJ2020. There is high probability that the defector is a driver, who served at least the rank of a battalion cadre/above. Unlike ROK, where nearly every adult knows how to drive, that's often not the case in NK. pic.twitter.com/x4Hlk4CnR8

— Seongmin, Ink. (@SeongminInk) November 22, 2017

This will probably be an award these soldiers will remember for the rest of their lives considering the unusual circumstances leading to the award and who presented it to them:

In recognition for their efforts in rescuing a North Korean defector, Nov.13, Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command and U.S. Forces Korea commander, awarded Joint Security Area Soldiers the Army Commendation medal, during a ceremony Nov. 23.

Awardees are Sgt. 1st Class Noh Yeong Soo, Sgt. 1st Class Song Seoung Hyeon, Sgt. Robert Hartfield, Maj. Jeffery Schmidt, Lt. Col. Kwon Young Hwan, and Lt. Col. Matthew Farmer  [USFK Facebook]

You can watch video of the award presentation at this link on the USFK Facebook site as well.  Basically the soldiers received an ARCOM because they were able to pull the North Korean defector to safety while at the same not escalating the situation or violating the armistice like the North Korean soldiers had already done.

My guess on not releasing this footage may be that the UNC does not want to rub it in the face of the Kim regime that one of their soldiers defected when they have been quiet recently:

The United Nations Command has put off a plan to release video footage of a North Korean soldier’s dramatic escape across a jointly patrolled area in the heart of the Demilitarized Zone.

The soldier defected to the South on Monday by driving a military jeep to the line that divides the peninsula, then rushing across it under a hail of gunfire from his former comrades.

The defector was severely wounded by the gunfire and has been hospitalized. His doctor, Lee Guk-jong, told reporters his condition was stabilized after a second operation on Wednesday, but he was riddled with parasites that were complicating his recovery.

Officials with the UNC, which is commanded by U.S. Army Gen. Vincent Brooks and has authority over the Joint Security Area, said earlier this week they would make public footage from surveillance cameras that monitored the border dash.

But the UNC issued a press release Friday summarizing already-known facts of the case and saying it will not release more details or material until an investigation is completed.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.