Very interesting read in the Joong Ang Ilbo about Hwang Jang-yop and his aide Kim Dok-hong who are the highest level Kim regime officials to ever defect to the South. What was most interesting was that after defecting they promised to assist the ROK with democratizing North Korea, but during the Sunshine Policy years the so called democracy advocates of the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations had so effectively isolated Hwang that he feared for his life and considered defecting to the US:
Hwang Jang-yop, the architect of North Korea’s Juche ideology who defected to the South in 1997, considered seeking asylum from the U.S. government because he feared for his life in Seoul, according to his former aide Kim Dok-hong.
In an exclusive interview with the JoongAng Ilbo on Saturday, the 67-year-old Kim, who left Pyongyang along with Hwang, the highest North Korean to defect to the South to date, spoke up for the first time about the defection process.
Kim recalled that Hwang, a former secretary of the Workers’ Party, claimed that he was behind the Juche, or self-reliance, ideology rather than North Korea founder Kim Il Sung or his son Kim Jong-il, and that this “slip of the tongue” led him to seek asylum.
On his way back from a trip to Japan to give a special lecture on Juche, Hwang went to the South Korean Embassy in Beijing on Feb. 12, 1997, to seek political asylum.
At the time, Hwang was the Worker’s Party secretary in charge of international affairs, and he defected with his aide, Kim, a businessman with connection to China and an official with the Workers’ party that managed resources.
At the time of the defection in February 1997, Kim described that then President Kim Young-sam in a personal letter promised to treat Hwang with the respect due a minister-level official and Kim as a vice-minister-level official, and pledged to help support activities to democratize North Korea.
“But that promise was not kept by the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations,” he recalled.
“Former Secretary Hwang was deemed an ‘enemy’ by the Kim Dae-jung government’s National Intelligence Service,” said Kim. “And feeling threatened that the NIS may kill him, he even requested asylum from the U.S. government.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
