Search Results for: thae yong-ho

Here is at least one positive highlight from the parliamentary election beatdown South Korean conservatives took in this week’s voting:

 A high-profile North Korean defector won a constituency seat in this week’s general elections, becoming the first person hailing from the communist nation to be chosen directly by South Korean voters as their representative.

Thae Yong-ho, a former No. 2 diplomat at North Korea’s Embassy in London, was elected to the National Assembly as the main conservative opposition United Future Party’s candidate in Seoul’s southern affluent district of Gangnam.

Thae received 58.4 percent of the votes cast Wednesday in the Gangnam constituency, one of the conservative party’s main strongholds, far ahead of his opponent Kim Sung-gon, a four-term lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Party who earned 39.6 percent.

“I plan to devote the best of my ability so that our parliament and government can face the reality, and implement sustainable and feasible policies on North Korea,” Thae said Thursday when his election victory became almost certain.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but Thae is going to be a rule thorn in the side of the Korean left in the parliament as they likely attempt to reopen the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the Kumgang Resort, and other projects with North Korea to circumvent international sanctions.

It is going to be interesting to see how this turns out because Thae Yong-ho only has two months to campaign for a parliament seat and he is running on an issue, North Korean defectors, that many in the Korean public are apathetic about:

A high-profile North Korean defector officially announced his bid to run in the April parliamentary elections Tuesday, vowing to work for inter-Korean unification if elected.

Thae Yong-ho, a former senior North Korean diplomat, joined the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) and will run in a constituency in Seoul for the April 15 elections, not for a parliamentary proportional representation seat.

Thae, who defected to South Korea in 2016, said his potential victory could give hope to North Koreans aspiring for freedom and help the two Koreas move toward unification.

“I solemnly promise to devote myself in building a unified Korea through parliamentary activity,” Thae said at a press conference at the National Assembly.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Fmr NK diplomat Thae Yong-ho specs NK may've lost encryption decoder(?) in CCD raid of NK embo in Spain. If this gets into US' hands, all source files would've to be changed; NK unable to use crypto comm w dip offices for while. (Forgive compy term botch!)https://t.co/yTDuYnl6JL

— Soo Kim (@mllesookim) March 25, 2019

I would expect the US will keep this defection very quiet until a way ahead on a second Trump-Kim summit is figured out:

The disappearance and alleged request for asylum by former North Korean defector Jo Song-gil are posing a challenge for North Korea and the United States as they prepare to meet, as the former acting ambassador to Italy is reportedly seeking asylum in the United States.

Washington remains mum over these reports from the Italian media, apparently wary of the fallout from the issue ahead of their possible second summit set to take place in the near future.

The U.S. Department of State declined to confirm anything on the reports on Friday that Jo, who has reportedly been in hiding for weeks, has expressed hopes to settle in the U.S.

The 44-year-old North Korean diplomat has been missing with his family since early November without prior notice. Jo’s specific whereabouts remain unknown. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but former diplomat defector Thae Yong-ho has request that Jo seek asylum in South Korea. Considering the Moon administration’s cozy relationship with the Kim regime I can understand why he doesn’t want to go to South Korea.

Former North Korean diplomat Thae Yong-ho who defected to South Korea in 2016 describes in his book what it was like escorting Kim Jong-un’s brother, Kim Jong-chul around London to attend an Eric Clapton concert:

Jong-chul stayed in London for 61 hours, during which he saw Clapton’s concert twice. He also went shopping at an HMV record store and Selfridges department store, both in London, and drove 100 kilometers to buy a “Made in U.S.” guitar he had been eagerly looking for. He paid 2,400 pounds for it.

His plan to see the concert could have been canceled when his visit was leaked to the media. A throng of reporters gathered at the concert venue to catch a glimpse of the “unfortunate prince,” an often-used term to explain his fate of yielding the North’s throne to his younger brother.

But he pushed ahead and ended up seeing the concert under British police protection. He bought many souvenirs after the concert ― cups, key chains, T-shirts and albums.

Jong-chul looked quite moved when he bought the American guitar, according to Thae. He cuddled it for a while and gave an impromptu performance for 40 minutes at the shop. People extolled his play. The guitar was at his side all the way back to London.

“I’ve sent a cable to many embassies to find this guitar, but they failed. Why couldn’t they be able to find this?” he asked himself.

Thae said Jong-chul was married and had children. He bought children’s clothes at Selfridges.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but Kim Jong-chul has been described as being effeminate in the past, but Thae said he saw no evidence of that his time with him in London. Judging from the above picture Jong-chul does not have the same authoritarian appearance Jong-un.  Plus the behavior described by Thae makes Jong-chul appear a bit childish.  This tends to further validate why he was passed over for the North Korean leadership.

Remember the 12 North Korean restaurant workers that defected to South Korea that infuriated the Kim regime?  Well it appears the Moon administration may be laying the ground work to send them back:

South Korea says it will look closer into the circumstances surrounding the arrival of a dozen North Korean restaurant workers in 2016 after a television report suggested some of the women might have been brought to the South against their will.

Unification Ministry spokesman Baik Tae-hyun on Friday did not provide a clear answer on whether the women could be sent back to the North if it’s confirmed they didn’t want to come to South Korea.

Seoul had previously said it sufficiently confirmed the women’s free will in escaping from the North and resettling in the South.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I am not sure what else there is to examine on this issue.  The 12 defectors have been resettled in South Korea and nothing is stopping them from going to a local television station and claim they were kidnapped.  The Kim regime has been using their leftist lawyer allies in South Korea, the group call Minbyun, to claim that the the 12 restaurant workers were kidnapped by the ROK National Intelligence Service (NIS).  Since their defection Minbyun has been making life very hard for the refugees anyway they can.

Now it appears that the Moon administration may be putting pressure on these 12 restaurant workers to return to North Korea as well.  I would not be surprised if the Moon administration is also putting pressure the other high profile defector Thae Yong-ho to keep silent during the Kim regime’s current charm offensive as well.

Former North Korean diplomat turned defector, Thae Yong-ho is calling for the US to increase its efforts to fight the information war within North Korea:

The North Korean leader does not have a full grasp of the strength and might of U.S. military power, Thae said, leading him to believe that if he can get Washington to accept Pyongyang’s possession of ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S., all sanctions against his regime will be lifted.

The former diplomat is in Washington at a time of heightened tension over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile testing. U.S. President Donald Trump is set to travel to Asia on Friday in part to rally further support behind his administration’s sanctions and pressure campaign.

But Thae appeared to question the U.S. policy.

“We can educate the North Korean population to stand up by disseminating outside information,” he said. “However, is the United States really doing enough in this regard? The U.S. is spending billions of dollars to cope with the military threat. Yet how much does the U.S. spend each year on information activities involving North Korea in a year? Unfortunately, it may be a tiny fraction.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but this is something I have been saying for years is that fighting the information campaign inside of North Korea should be aggressively pursued.  Something else Thae discussed was the world coming together against the Kim regime like it did to end Apartheid in South Africa.  This is another viewpoint I have advocated for is that why is North Korea welcomed at international venues like the Olympics when Apartheid South Africa was shunned?  Apartheid South Africa had no where near the human rights abuses or was a threat to world peace as the Kim regime currently is.

Over at One Free Korea he has videos of Thae’s speech available which should be required viewing for those interested in this topic.  OFK also has some great analysis I recommend everyone read as well.

Over at the PBS Frontline website their latest program “North Korea’s Deadly Dictator” can be watched. The program focuses on the assassination of Kim Jong-nam and has a number of interviews with his friends that he went to school with in Europe.  Former North Korean diplomat turned defector Thae Yong-ho and ex-CIA analyst Su Mi Terry also features heavily in the program.

It appears the reason for the assassination was Kim Jong-nam’s criticism of Kim Jong-un combined with the fact that based on his friends’ testimony he planned to move to Switzerland and defect to the West.  For those that regularly read this site there is really nothing new in the program, however for those not familiar with the issue it is a great run down on who Kim Jong-nam was and why his half brother Kim Jong-un is doing the things he has done.

Unlike many other places in the world a popular uprising in North Korea I don’t think will do much.  This is because the Kim regime will just kill the people and then pretend it didn’t happen just like what their primary sponsors in Beijing did at Tiananmen Square back in 1989.  What I do see the outside information flowing in doing is discrediting the regime with the North Korean public.  This would make it easier for someone in the military down the road perhaps to launch a coup with little public resistance:

North Korea’s former deputy ambassador to Britain has told a group of reporters that a “popular uprising” against North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is imminent. Thae Yong Ho, who defected to South Korea in August of 2016, said that sanctions against the regime and its inability to control the flow of information about the outside world were weakening its grip on authority.

Thae’s comments came during a press conference in Seoul, the first time he has spoken to international media since his defection.

During the press conference, Thae, who speaks fluent English, declared that “Kim Jong-Un’s days are numbered,” as information about the outside world becomes more accessible. “Low-level dissent or criticism of the regime, until recently unthinkable, is becoming more frequent,” he added.  [Yahoo News]

You can read more 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.