CNN has a good article published where various pictures recently taken in North Korea are commented on by North Korean defectors. Here is my favorite comment:
“This is an Arc of Triumph, erected to commemorate Kim Il Sung allegedly liberating Korea from the Japanese,” explains Russian North Korean studies researcher, Fyodor Tertitskiy. “It may be the biggest building in honor of an event which never happened.” “Allegedly, the people of Pyongyang were expecting to see a veteran general with gray hair,” says Kang Jimin about the dedication ceremony. “But the crowd was rather disappointed to see Kim Il Sung emerge, who was only in his thirties at the time and looked like a Chinese food delivery guy.” [CNN]You can read the rest at the link.
High profile North Korean defector Thae Yong-ho has an interesting interview with Yonhap News where he describes what it is like to be an overseas diplomat for North Korea:
Five years into North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s reign this past summer, Thae Yong-ho, a senior North Korean diplomat, concluded that he had had enough of the iron fist rule of the three Kim generations.
Despite the Kim regime’s notorious restrictions on the inflow of outside news, he, like other North Korean elites, was aware of the wide disparity between how North Korea looked from the inside and out.
The disparity was felt more acutely for Thae who, as a diplomat, was allowed free access to the Internet, a privilege given exceptionally to diplomats who have to fend off any external criticism of the communist regime.
“The first thing North Korean diplomats based overseas do at work is open the homepage of (South Korea’s) Yonhap News Agency whose North Korea section compiles all the local and foreign news involving North Korea. Even what I said today will be read by every North Korean diplomat who is outside of the country,” Thae said at a press meeting on Tuesday.
The Internet also connected him to the vast pool of South Korean media content involving fellow North Koreans who risked their lives to escape the socialist country and have successfully settled down in the South.
The 1950-53 Korean War divided the Koreas into two ideologically different countries and the rivalry has continued to today, with more than 30,000 North Koreans defecting to South Korea between the early 1960s until recently. Only a small number of South Koreans have deserted their country to become North Korean.
“I got to know the superiority of democracy and witnessed the democratization (of other countries) from the Internet, and realized that the North Korean regime has no future,” he said, recalling how he finally made the decision to desert.
“As the Kim Jong-un regime took power, I had a slight hope that he would make a rational, reasonable regime because he must be well aware of how the world runs after he studied overseas for a long time,” Thae said. But Kim turned out even more merciless than his father and late leader Kim Jong-il, he said, citing the shocking public execution of the leader’s once-powerful uncle Jang Song-thaek in 2013 as one of the moments of awakening that eventually solidified his decision to defect. [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link to include the fact that an ambassador makes about $900 – $1,100 a month which requires them to conduct outside activities to earn money to survive as well as to send foreign currency back to the Kim regime. As I read the article I wonder what illegal activities he was part of in the UK? I would think that whatever schemes the embassy in the UK had going on Thae has already briefed intelligence agencies on to get them shut down.
Via a reader tip, Thae Yong-ho the North Korean diplomat who defected with his family from the North Korean embassy in the United Kingdom, has spoken out for the first time:
Thae Yong-ho at the North Korean embassy in west London CREDIT: KATIE SCHUBAUBR
Mr Thae spoke to the committee behind closed doors, but Lee Cheol-woo, the committee chairman, told newswire Yonhap that he had become increasingly aware of the “gruesome realities” of the authoritarian regime.
Mr Thae promised to devote his life to “freeing the North Korean people from repression and persecution,” said Mr Lee.
“There are many ranking North Korean officials suffering from depression over concerns they will have to live like slaves for a long time if the North’s young leader rules the country for decades,” he quoted Mr Thae as saying.
“Thae said that he had come to grasp South Korea’s democracy and (economic) development by watching South Korean dramas and movies during his long stay in foreign countries,” added Mr Lee.
Mr Thae, who fled with his wife and two sons, will begin his resettlement process on Friday. He has vowed to work for Korean unification, but he will likely continue to live under tight security.
“I will engage in public activities even if it threatens my own safety,” he is reported as saying. [The Telegraph]
You can read more at the link, but you would think this guy would want to keep a low profile because he is definitely going to be a target of North Korean reprisals. He likely has a poison needle with his name on it right next to the one for fellow outspoken defector Park Sang-hak. It will also be interesting to see how outspoken the ROK government will allow him to be if a Korean left wing politician likely takes power after the impeachment of Park Geun-hye.
This guy definitely went off the deep end. If he wanted to defect it would have been easier for him to fly to China and walk into North Korea that way:
On November 15, a North Korean defector known as Mr. A was caught while trying to re-enter North Korea in Yeoncheon County, Gyeonggi Province. Following the incident, the relevant government departments including the police and the Ministry of Unification have made statements urging more proactive approaches toward helping defectors experiencing difficulties in settling down.
According to the police and the military, Mr. A was caught on CCTV near a fence under the jurisdiction of the 25th Division of Yeoncheon Province in the afternoon of November 15, and was arrested by a dispatched force. The military handed Mr. A over to the police as he is a civilian.
Mr. A is known to have defected from North Korea in 2001 and settled in South Korea. He is married to a female North Korean defector and had been working as an assistant driver of a forklift while living in Ulsan. During the police interrogation, he is reported to have said that as he was suffering from economic hardship and his marital relations had broken down, he wished to re-enter North Korea under the belief that life across the border would be better for him.’ [NK Daily]
The ROK must have gotten all the intelligence they could out of this guy before leaking to the media that he has defected:
A high-level North Korean official in charge of state surveillance defected to the South in 2015, a government source said.
The South Korean source who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the official was a director-level member of Pyongyang’s state security department, Yonhap reported on Wednesday, local time.
The high-ranking defector was in charge of identifying trends in public sentiment among the residents of Pyongyang, the capital where the country’s elite reside.
“It is believed in interviews with [South Korean] authorities the official said public sentiment [about the North Korean leadership] in Pyongyang is ‘heated,'” the source stated.
The term “heated” is used to convey negativity about the Kim Jong Un regime, the source explained.
It is highly unusual for North Korean state security department personnel to flee the country, and the defector, identified as “A” in the Yonhap report, is believed to have left with confidential information on the Kim regime, and the leadership’s surveillance methods critical to maintaining control of the population.
The defector reportedly told South Korean government interviewers members of his bureau were uncomfortable with Kim’s rule, and after watching “others bounce,” state agents are “bouncing,” or exiting the regime. [UPI]
President Park has double down on her policy of encouraging the mass defections of North Korean refugees which the Kim regime has responded to by calling her a “impudent bitch”:
South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Tuesday told her government to prepare for large-scale defections from North Korea, just days after direct appealing to its citizens to flee their country.
A recent spate of high-profile North Korean defections have provided a propaganda windfall for Seoul, which has spun them into a narrative of a Pyongyang leadership in crisis and riven with descent.
Notable defections have included the North’s deputy ambassador to Britain and a rare, group escape by a dozen waitresses from a North Korean-run restaurant in China.
In an address to mark Armed Forced Day earlier this month, Park had vowed to “keep the road open” for future escapees and urged North Koreans to “come to the bosom of freedom in the South.”
Pyongyang’s response was to call Park a “bare-faced and impudent bitch” in a commentary carried by the ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Park reiterated her defection appeal, and stressed the importance of preparing the ground for any new arrivals.
“Defectors are like unification that has arrived early, and a test bed for unification,” Park said.
“I hope we can swiftly secure sufficient system and capacity to accommodate North Korean citizens who come seeking freedom,” she added. [AFP]
It looks like the Obama administration is about to make a bigger issue of North Korea’s human rights record:
United States Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power (C) at the truce village of Panmunjom on Oct. 9, 2016. (Yonhap)
The United States ambassador to the United Nations visited a settlement support center for North Korean defectors on Sunday, official sources said.
Samantha Power, who arrived in Seoul the day before, toured the Hanawon center in Anseong some 77 kilometers south of the South Korean capital and held talks with North Koreans who fled the reclusive country.
Authorities said she took part in a prayer session with some of the defectors who are receiving training so they can assimilate into their new lives in the South.
Government insiders said the trip reflects Washington’s drive to make an issue of the North’s deplorable human rights abuses that could lead to the matter being linked to additional sanctions down the road. Currently talks are underway at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to penalize the North following its fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9. [Yonhap]
