Here is rare type of defection if these four were in fact planning to defect:
A South Korean vessel tows a wooden boat that crossed the inter-Korean border to a port in the coastal county of Yangyang, 150 kilometers northeast of Seoul, on Oct. 24, 2023. (Yonhap)
A group of four unidentified individuals from North Korea crossed the eastern maritime inter-Korean border on a wooden boat early Tuesday, officials said, in an apparent attempt to defect to South Korea.
The Coast Guard and military officials secured the 7.5-meter-long boat carrying the North Koreans in waters east of Sokcho, 151 kilometers northeast of Seoul, a military official said, after South Korean fishermen at the scene reported seeing an “unusual” boat at around 7:10 a.m.
The group consists of one man and three women, according to Coast Guard officials. Details of their identities have not been made known.
Lim Jae-kil, one of the fishermen who were at the scene, recalled seeing a man who appeared to be in his 30s wearing boots and oil-stained clothing, and two women, presumably in their 30s and 50s, respectively.
The individuals did not express their intent to defect to the South but asked where they were and remarked on how “nice” Lim’s boat was, he said.
Lim said he had never seen such a boat in his more than 40 years of life as a fisherman, adding it appeared to have the engine of a cultivator.
Here is what we know about Travis King, the U.S. Soldier who ran across the DMZ to North Korea laughing earlier this week:
Officials say Pvt. 2nd Class King has been a cavalry scout with the U.S. Army since January 2021.
The 23-year-old had been stationed in South Korea, but had recently served two months in a prison there on charges of assault, the Associated Press reported.
Several South Korean media outlets report that King had punched a South Korean national in a club last September. He had also been fined 5 million won ($3,942) for causing public damage and being uncooperative with police during his arrest.
According to an accountfrom the Chosun Ilbo newspaper,citing legal sources, King yelled obscenities at South Korean police as he kicked the doors and interior of a police vehicle.
Before bolting into North Korea, King was being escorted to an airport outside of Seoul where he was expected to board a plane bound for Fort Bliss, Texas, to face military disciplinary action.
Officials escorted him through airport security, but King somehow managed to ditch the escort and make his way out of the terminal and back to the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.
That is where officials said King, who was dressed in civilian clothes, joined a tour of the Korean border village of Panmunjom.
You can read more at the link, but King had to have planned this out because here are the rules for going on a tour of Panmunjom on the DMZ:
According to the UNC rules the roster of the tourists to Panmunjum should be reported 48 hours (2 days) prior to the tour briefing time (13:45) in the camp Bonifas on the tour day. So person who is interested in this tour should send your name, passport number and nationality to us at least 3 days before.
The fact he claimed that he lost his passport to not board his flight is further evidence of how planned this was:
On Monday, the American solider was escorted by military police from Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, to Incheon International Airport. The solider then went through a security checkpoint alone because the military police officers were not allowed to accompany him.
King arrived at the boarding gate, but did not board the plane.
“At the gate, he approached an American Airlines official and reported that his passport was missing, and was able to return out of the departure gate under the escort of an airline employee,” an official at Incheon International Airport told The Korea Times, adding that King appears to have lied about his missing passport.
Once a passenger goes through the customs and immigration checkpoint at Incheon airport, he or she cannot go back to the terminal without a valid reason approved by an authorized personnel.
So this was clearly not a drunken spur of the moment type of defection like we saw decades ago with Charles Robert Jenkins. King had this planned out at least three days in advance. The closest defection to this I can think of is PFC Joseph White who defected in 1982 likely because he was forbidden by his unit leadership from meeting his Korean girlfriend. So he got pissed off and crossed the DMZ into North Korea. In 1985 North Korea reported that White died in a river drowning. Will a similar fate await King?
This is why it is important to continue to undermine the Kim regime by providing access to outside information into North Korea:
North Korean brothers who brought their family members out of the country earlier this month are late millennials, part of the tech-savvy younger generation of North Korea who have increased access to external information.
Sources with knowledge of the latest defections told The Korea Herald on Sunday that it was the two brothers in their early 30s who had made the decision to leave North Korea with their family.
The sources said that the brothers told Seoul officials here in a screening interview that they had yearned for a life in South Korea after secretly watching South Korean TV. In particular, they cited the talk show “Now on My Way to Meet You,” featuring North Korean defectors, as having had a major influence.
Analyses say North Korean millennials are the main consumers of foreign media content, mostly from South Korea, in the totalitarian country where such acts are severely punished.
According to a South Korean government report on the human rights situation in North Korea released in March, North Korea has publicly executed citizens including teens for watching South Korean media.
He used to beat my mom when he was drunk. Sometimes, after he abused her, she would run away. My greatest fear was that she wouldn’t come back and it would be just me and him. To me, he was worse than the North Korean regime." pic.twitter.com/gZLeDWyi80
This is a really interesting read from a North Korean defector that had a very different upbringing from most defectors:
Lee Seo-hyun, a Keynote Speaker with Freedom Speakers International, is a North Korean defector who recently launched a GoFundMe after she was recently accepted into the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University). She delivered the following speech at TEDxUCLA on June 4, 2022. Courtesy of Casey Lartigue Jr.
It has been said “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.” My name is Lee Seo-hyun. I am a North Korean escapee who gave up the certain opportunity to thrive in hell, and instead fled my native country to face certain uncertainty.
My experience as a North Korean escapee might surprise you. I did not grow up in extreme poverty; I was not coerced into human trafficking; nor do I have horrific stories of being a political prisoner. My father was a senior-level government officer for the North Korean regime, and his loyal commitment to the nation and the leader allowed our family to live in the capital Pyongyang, a privilege as North Koreans.
Like most people in North Korea, I had no doubts about the regime because I was brainwashed. I truly believed what our leader said: “Our country is the envy of the world!” Yes, I was living in a bubble. Not of my choosing ― I wasn’t even aware of it ― but a bubble, nonetheless.
What about you? Have you ever even considered the possibility that you may be living in a bubble, regardless of your politics or religion, regardless of the color of your skin or your perceived status in life?
What if the ‘Bubble’ ― the truth I had accepted without question ― is in some way no different from yours ― although yours probably doesn’t include political oppression and torture?
In H1 of 2022 only 19 North Korean refugees made it to South Korea. 16 female, 3 male. This is a lower rate than any point this century, and a direct result of pandemic-related restrictions on movement, especially in China. pic.twitter.com/UL5I75e58i
The deportation of two North Korean defectors by the Moon administration is getting really interesting. Now it is being alleged that they did not murder 16 people and instead it was an accusation made by North Korea that the Moon administration accepted in order to repatriate them:
A North Korean fisherman resists South Korean officials’ attempt to hand him over to North Korean officials at the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjeom, in this Nov. 7, 2019, file photo. Courtesy of Ministry of Unification
The Ministry of Unification has raised doubts over murder accusations brought up against two North Korean fishermen who were deported against their will three years ago based on that claim.
A high-ranking official told reporters Thursday that no one other than the judiciary “has the authority to decide whether they are brutal criminals.” The latest move by the ministry is a de facto retraction of the claims it made over the fishermen during the previous Moon Jae-in administration.
Authorities under the Moon administration accused the fishermen of conspiring with a third man to kill their captain and 15 others on a boat before their escape to the South on Nov. 2, 2019. After a three-day investigation, South Korean authorities sent the fishermen back to the North on Nov. 7, claiming that they confessed to the murders.
The high-ranking official said the truth will be uncovered through the prosecution’s ongoing investigation. But he refused to comment further on questions including whether the ministry can disclose information about the 2019 investigation.
The same day, a government official familiar with the matter also questioned the credibility of the murder allegation, claiming that their confessions were factually inconsistent on simple points such as how many people were on the boat and how they killed them. Munhwa Ilbo, a daily newspaper, reported that they were forced to make those confessions through “cruel treatment.”
Citing intelligence reports, the official said the fishermen were executed within several days after being sent back to North Korea.
Rep. Han Ki-ho, head of the ruling People Power Party’s team investigating misconduct involving North Korea during the Moon administration, claimed Wednesday that the murder allegations were an outright lie.
Citing a source living in North Korea’s northeastern city of Kimchaek, Han said the fishermen were brokers who had tried to help 16 people from five households escape to South Korea.
“The two were set to guide the 16 people to South Korea on a fishing vessel, but fled when they realized they were being arrested,” Han said during a meeting at the National Assembly in Seoul.
Han claimed that the North Korean regime fabricated the story and lied to the Moon administration in an attempt to have the fishermen repatriated. He believes South Korean authorities probably knew what really happened, but went ahead with the deportation.
This is not the first time that North has made false accusations of crime against someone to gain what it wants. Rep. Tae Yong-ho, former deputy ambassador of North Korea to Britain, was also falsely accused as a child rapist by the North after defecting to the South in 2016, said Rep. Kweon Seong-dong, the party’s interim head.
“North Korea’s unilateral claims were accepted as fact without verification,” Kweon said during a speech at the Assembly. “The Park Geun-hye administration did not trust such claims by the North. As a result, we have the lawmaker, Tae Yong-ho, at the National Assembly.”
You can read more at the link, but it seems totally foolish to accept the word of the North Koreans on anything relating to defectors. If this allegation is in fact true, I am not sure if anything legally can be done about it, but the people involved in this decision need to be at least publicly brought to light.
I kind of agree with the Moon administration on this one, these two defectors admitted to murdering 16 people and this is not the type of people South Koreans should want in their country:
Choi Young-bum, senior presidential secretary for press affairs, speaks during a press briefing at the presidential office on July 17, 2022. (Yonhap)
The office of President Yoon Suk-yeol immediately struck back at former Foreign Minister and National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong on Sunday after he defended the previous administration’s 2019 repatriation of two North Korean fishermen against their will.
Chung said earlier Sunday the then government of President Moon Jae-in determined the North Koreans’ expression of a desire to defect as insincere and decided to deport them, as they had confessed to killing 16 fellow crew members.
Chung also said the North Koreans “were rare, grotesque killers.”
“Some claim that we had to accept them into our society as defectors in accordance with our Constitution,” he said in a statement. “However, our domestic law stipulates that nonpolitical criminals, like them, should be deported without being allowed into the country. Nonpolitical serious criminals are also not considered refugees under international law.”
Just hours later, Choi Young-bum, senior presidential secretary for press affairs, hit back at Chung.
“What officials of the previous administration and the opposition party should do is not to engage in a political offensive, but to cooperate faithfully with the investigation,” Choi said.
Choi also criticized Chung for portraying the North Koreans as “grotesque killers,” accusing him of making such a characterization without a proper investigation of them.
Defectors sent balloons to North Korea carrying a million antiregime leaflets and pictures of the South’s incoming president, defying South Korean law barring such activity https://t.co/ylo9qvTVMn via @WSJ
The January 1 border crosser across the DMZ knew the ins and outs, where the mines & where they weren't, where the GPs used to be until they were blown up & troops withdrawn. Sounds like a well-trained North Korean operative testing the border security, response, readiness. https://t.co/ZBJWhil5xw
