Category: Inter-Korean Issues

The Moon administration has kept this very quiet for two years until it has now been leaked to the media:

A North Korean diplomat has defected to South Korea while serving as the acting chief of mission at the country’s embassy in Kuwait, a source said Monday.

Ryu Hyun-woo, who had served as the embassy’s charge d’affaires since Ambassador So Chang-sik was expelled from Kuwait after a U.N. resolution was adopted in 2017, entered South Korea, along with his family, according to the source. 

Further details were not available, including the timing of the defection.

But a media report earlier said that Ryu appears to have defected to the South in September 2019, about two months after Jo Song-gil, the acting ambassador to the North’s embassy in Italy, entered the country after disappearing in late 2018.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but Ryu apparently defected to give his family a better life.

Pyongyang has mobilized their useful idiots in South Korea to condemn groups in the U.S. critical of South Korea’s decision to criminalize the human rights activists sending leaflets to North Korea. What is ironic is that many of these so called civic groups claim to be human rights organizations as well.

A group of 17 civic organizations on Friday issued a joint statement decrying criticism from some quarters of the United States of a recently legislated ban on sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets into North Korea as “interference in internal affairs.”

The group, including the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation, stressed that flying propaganda leaflets has nothing to do with freedom of expression but is an “act that foments conflict.”

“The interference in internal affairs by related U.S. organizations and politicians, which financially and politically sponsored the sending of leaflets to the North, is going too far, as they joined hands and criticized the passage of the bill,” the joint statement read.

“They should stop the interference that undermines the vision for peace on the Korean Peninsula and inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation,” it added.

On Monday, the National Assembly, controlled by the ruling Democratic Party, passed the bill penalizing the sending of propaganda leaflets despite strong objections by conservative opposition lawmakers.

The ruling party has defended the legislation as necessary to enhance the security of residents in border regions and prevent needless political tensions with the North.

U.S. politicians and others have rebuked the legislation, claiming it could erode freedom of expression and block one crucial avenue for sending free-world information into the reclusive country.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

No surprise here that the ruling Democratic Party gave in to orders from Kim Yo-jong to criminalize the activists sending leaflets into North Korea:

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea’s (DPK) passage of a bill at the national Assembly prohibiting the sending of leaflets with anti-North Korea messages across the border is facing a strong backlash from defectors’ groups and the opposition as well as the international community.

Park Sang-hak, the head of the Fighters for a Free North Korea, a North Korean defectors’ group, said Tuesday that he will file a petition with the Constitutional Court against the so-called “anti-leaflet law,” which can hand down a prison term of three years or a maximum fine of 30 million won to people sending messages critical of the North Korean regime via leaflets or broadcasts.

The DPK pushed ahead with passing the bill despite a protest from the conservative opposition People Power Party late Monday evening. The bill came after a statement from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong in June in which she strongly denounced such leaflets and called on Seoul to do something about them. The opposition and activists for North Korean human rights such as Park have derided it as legislation “submitting to Kim Yo-jong’s order.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the article speculates that this might impact relations with the incoming Biden administration. I would be surprised if it does because when did anyone in the Obama administration ever strongly support these activists? I doubt the Biden administration will be much different.

By the way the North Korean reaction and the South Korean left’s quick criminalization of Park Sang-hak and his group is a sure sign that the leaflets are having an effect in North Korea.

The Moon administration must really think the Biden administration is going to reduce sanctions to let them restart these cross border projects to make tribute payments to economic cooperation with Kim Jong-un through:

The government is seeking to revive deadlocked inter-Korean economic projects, including the reopening of a joint factory park, expecting that cross-border cooperation could resume earlier than some forecast.

Unification Minister Lee In-young held a meeting with business leaders in Seoul, Monday, to gauge their opinions on the plan as part of the government’s re-launching of the Korean Peninsula peace process initiative. Representatives from local companies, including Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor, SK and LG that accompanied President Moon Jae-in on his visit to Pyongyang in September 2018, participated.  (……)

“While building an environment for economic cooperation between the two Koreas, the government plans to reignite inter-Korean projects such as individual tours to the North by South Koreans, cross-border railway and road connections and the resumption of work at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex,” Lee said. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but does anyone really think the money the Kim regime will make from restarting these projects will go to improving the lives of North Koreans? As history has shown us the Kim regime uses these payments to make great advances in their military, nuclear, and missile capabilities. Why will this time be any different?

It is hard to believe that it has already been 10 years since this attack happened:

South Korea will memorialize a site on Yeonpyeong Island shelled by North Korean forces in an unprovoked attack a decade ago, according to Seoul’s military.  

A Marine Corps official told the JoongAng Ilbo Sunday that an area used to station field artillery on the island that was bombarded by North Korean artillery on Nov. 23, 2010, would be turned into a memorial.    

The memorial will stand at the “gun platform where, amid the flames of the North Korean military’s bombardment, we pulled out our K-9 [howitzers] and immediately returned fire,” the official said.  

Construction on a memorial that tourists can visit on Yeonpyeong Island, located around 120 kilometers (75 miles) off the western coast, will be complete around mid-December, the official added.  

Currently, the main reminder of the bombardment of the island is the rubble of a house torn apart by the North’s shelling.  

The North Koreans are believed to have fired around 170 rounds from a multiple-rocket launcher, hitting various spots on the larger of the two Yeonpyeong islands including a village and South Korean military installations.   

The shelling killed two South Korean civilians — both construction workers — as well as two Marines stationed on the island. Around 30 more people were injured, while most of the island’s 1,780 civilian residents were evacuated on government vessels to Incheon. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.