Tag: defectors

It didn’t take long for the North Koreans to use the proposed family unions as leverage against the South Korean government:

North Korea’s state-run media released a string of articles on Friday that criticized the South Korean government, hinting that planned reunions for families split between the two nations could be canceled. An editorial in the official state newspaper of the North Korean ruling party, Rodong Sinmun, argued that South Korea had been exaggerating its role in denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington. South Korea’s role in the talks does “not even amount to that of an assistant,” the editorial stated. The same article described comments made by South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Singapore last week as “presumptuous” and “flippant.”  [Washington Post]

You can read more at the link, but it appears the North Koreans are trying to put the ROK government back in its place as being subservient to the Kim regime with the denuclearization talks solely between the US and North Korea.

Here is the main reason they are threatening the cancelation of the family reunions:

In another attack against the Moon administration, Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean propaganda website, urged it to repatriate a dozen North Korean restaurant workers who came to the South in 2016.

The 12 had worked at a North Korean restaurant in China. Pyongyang claims they were abducted by South Korean authorities. The South has said the workers defected of their own free will.

Uriminzokkiri said there could be an “obstacle” in the planned reunion of families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War next month if the workers are not returned.

It lashed out at Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon by name, accusing him of “siding with” the former government which it said plotted the workers’ defection. [Reuters]

I think even for a left wing administration like President Moon’s, this will be politically very difficult to do.  Could you imagine the backlash of forcibly removing these defectors from South Korea and handing them over to the Kim regime?

It looks like the Kim regime has made good progress on getting the restaurant workers returned to North Korea:

A former North Korean restaurant manager who defected to South Korea in 2016 together with a dozen female workers claimed Sunday that Seoul’s spy agency had lured and blackmailed him into defecting.

Ho Kang-il’s claim, made in a phone interview with Yonhap News Agency, corroborates suspicions that the high-profile defection was not voluntary and the then-government of President Park Geun-hye orchestrated it behind the scenes.

During the interview, Ho claimed that the South’s National Intelligence Service had tried to persuade him to defect, saying it would help him open a restaurant in a Southeast Asian nation, but the spy agency didn’t make good on the promise.

“Originally, I was a cooperator of the NIS and brought information to them,” Ho said. “But they lured me, saying that if I come (to the South) with my employees, they would get us to obtain South Korean citizenship and then they would open a restaurant in Southeast Asia that could also be used as an NIS hideout. They told me to run the restaurant there with the employees.”

Ho claimed NIS agents blackmailed him when he hesitated.

“They threatened that unless I come to the South with the employees, they would divulge to the North Korean Embassy that I had cooperated with the NIS until then,” Ho said. “I had no choice but to do what they told me to.”

He also said that the restaurant employees had thought they would be going to a restaurant in Southeast Asia, and it was only after they got on board the flight that they learned they were headed to the South.

Questions about their defection first arose in May after a local cable broadcaster aired an interview with the restaurant manager. Pyongyang has demanded their return, saying they were abducted by South Korean intelligence, but the South Korean government has claimed that all of the North Koreans defected voluntarily.

Last week, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, Tomas Ojea Quintana, called for a “thorough” and “independent” investigation after he met with some of the defectors.

“It is clear that there were some shortcomings in regards to how they were brought to South Korea,” Quintana told reporters. “From the information I received from some of them, they were taken to the Republic of Korea without knowing they were coming here.”  [Yonhap]

First of all the ROK intelligence service should be asking North Koreans if they want to defect, however I don’t believe they should not be blackmailing them.  With that said we don’t know if the blackmail claims from the restaurant manager are true.  Remember these allegations from the restaurant manager only came up after the Moon administration came to power.  Is the Moon administration putting him under intense pressure and allowing the North Koreans to contact him with threats against his family back in North Korea?

Remember these restaurant workers could have easily have made statements to the media that they were kidnapped before Moon became President or even over the first year of the Moon administration.  It was only this past May when JTBC, Pyongyang’s favorite South Korean news channel, was allowed to interview the restaurant manager did these claims come up.  It is going to be interesting to see if the Moon administration ups the pressure on the restaurant workers to voluntarily return to North Korea to keep the current peace process moving forward.

This makes a total of 3 NK refugees admitted to the US thus far in 2018. (There was 1 person in 2017.) https://t.co/6zAtSKshgY

— Sheena Greitens (@SheenaGreitens) July 13, 2018

This is why South Korea dreads a collapse of the Kim regime:

When Chang Ho Kim was living in North Korea, information trickled in from China about the world outside the closed country. Through the lens of pirated movies, he says, America had looked to Kim like “a very rich and luxurious place”.

In 1997, at the height of a famine that killed around one million people, Kim escaped with his wife into China, then Mongolia, then to South Korea.

Defectors from the North automatically become South Korean citizens after a mandatory three-month transition that is part debriefing, part re-education. Most North Korean defectors in the South stand out, and the Kims were no exception. They have distinct accents, and are often shorter and slighter with darker, sallow skin from years of malnutrition. It’s hard to avoid South Koreans’ prejudice and suspicions that North Koreans are spies.

Remembering the Hollywood images of the US, the Kims decided to make their way to the US illegally through a broker.

But for the Kims, and others like them, life in the US is not necessarily easier.

The American celluloid dream comes with skyrocketing price tags. North Koreans arrive with little or no experience of bills, rent, and no means to cope with the lack of social services and health insurance that illegal immigrants must navigate.

“American life is so hard. Money, money, money,” said Pastor Young Gu Kim, an evangelical South Korean immigrant who helps defectors. “Some defectors told me, ‘Oh pastor, sometimes I miss it over there.’”

Like Chang Ho Kim, many North Koreans enter illegally and settle in Los Angeles, amid the large population of ethnic Koreans. Nearly 200 former North Koreans live in Los Angeles, advocacy groups say, but exact numbers are unknown.  [The Guardian]

You can read more at the link, but North Koreans are not socialized to live in a western society that largely demands individual initiative to work hard and make money to support ones self.  Imagine if millions of North Koreans showed up in South Korea instead of the small trickle that currently exists if the regime was to collapse.  The social problems this would cause would be enormous and thus why the ROK government is pushing a policy of gradual reunification instead of regime collapse.

I wonder how much effort the Moon administration is putting into stopping these phone calls from Kim regime operatives to North Korean defectors?:

As North Korea makes increasingly aggressive calls for the return of a group of restaurant workers in China who defected en masse to South Korea in 2016, it has come to light that the regime is also making efforts to persuade other defectors in South Korea to return to the North.

“Anti-espionage agents from the provincial Ministry of State Security offices are calling up defectors in South Korea in an effort to get them to return to the country,” said a Ryanggang Province-based source to Daily NK on May 23.

“The agents tell the defectors point-blank that they will be met by agents in China and even give them telephone numbers to call once the defectors arrive in China. They are trying to bring them back to the country.”

A “Lieutenant Colonel Choe” of the Ryanggang Province Ministry of State Security (MSS) Anti-Espionage Unit is calling defectors living in South Korea on a frequent basis, according to the source. The agent tells defectors that “they will not be asked about their past history and will be guaranteed the same position they had when they left the country.” He also tells them that they should “[…] relax and return home. The motherland will always accept you if you decide to come back.”

The Ryanggang Province source provided details about how MSS agents are conducting calls with the defectors in South Korea. When a defector reaches out to brokers in North Korea to send money back to their family, sometimes these brokers are arrested by the MSS.

The MSS becomes aware of defectors the brokers have had contact with during the interrogation process and collects information such as their phone numbers. The MSS agents then directly contact the defectors to threaten or entice them to return to North Korea. A defector who was contacted by MSS agents recalled that, “[The agents] were really persistent in sending text messages and making phone calls.”   [The Daily NK]

South Korea's Unification Minister confirms what we already knew — that the Ningpo 13 came to SK of their own free will. Now let the SK government do its duty to protect their privacy & safety.
조명균 ˝탈북 여종업원, 자유의사로 한국 왔다˝ https://t.co/L1As6VMm92

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) May 18, 2018

Considering the current attitude towards defectors that the current South Korean government has it will be interesting to see what their response to this is:

Two North Koreans defected to South Korea early on Saturday and were found in the Yellow Sea, Seoul-based news agency Yonhap reported, citing a government source.

Yonhap said that South Korean military spotted two people in a boat near the inter-Korean sea border, one of whom was a military officer, and they showed willingness to defect to the South.

South Korea’s unification ministry was not immediately available for comment.

The defection came after North Korea declined to accept a list of South Korean journalists hoping to observe the closure of its nuclear test site on Friday, raising new questions about the North’s commitment to reducing tensions in the region.  [Business Insider]

Not suspicious at all:
1. N Korea tells S Korea to send back the Ningpo 13 or no "reunions" between S Koreans & their loved ones held hostage in NK.https://t.co/NYHj0sp0GS
2. N&S agree to "reunions" on 8/15.
3. This happens:https://t.co/oVc10eaNl7@RefugeesMedia @UNrightsSeoul

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) May 15, 2018

Considering that JTBC was the lead network used to take out former President Park Geun-hye by finding the highly suspicious tablet computer, I would not be surprised at all if they are now trying to create a narrative that these defectors were kidnapped:

The shift in the ministry’s attitude has made other defectors nervous. One woman who came to South Korea in 2008 and is raising a son here said, “I haven’t slept more than an hour a night since the inter-Korean summit. People like me who have been living quietly could be dragged off to North Korea any moment.”

Some 31,500 North Korean defectors live in South Korea, and many are feeling unsure of their status amid the thaw. They have been seen as having the potential to build bridges between the two sides if the two Koreas reunify but could now find themselves treated as obstacles to the smooth running of the political machine.

They are complaining about the South Korean government’s indifference and ostracism by other South Koreans. To them, it would be a devastating signal if some of the restaurant staff are sent back to the North.  (……………)

Meanwhile, the women who appeared in the JTBC report are living in fear, scared that their identities and whereabouts may be exposed. They have claimed that their comments were taken out of context in the JTBC report.

Civic groups supporting North Korean defectors also said their comments were not portrayed accurately. They simply said they miss their homes and wish to see their parents, but the report made it sound as if they were forced to come to South Korea against their will.

Kim Byung-Jo at the Korea National Defense University said, “North Korean defectors really know the good and bad points of both Koreas. It is important for the government to ensure that they do not feel nervous.”  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Kim Jong-un’s favorite lawyer group in South Korea continues its legal attack against the North Korean restaurant workers that defected back in 2016:

A liberal lawyers’ group plans to lodge a complaint with prosecutors on Monday against former President Park Geun-hye and her top aides over allegations that Seoul’s intelligence agency engineered a 2016 mass defection by a dozen North Korean restaurant workers.

The Lawyers for a Democratic Society, or Minbyun, said it will lodge the complaint with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office seeking an investigation into Park, her chief of staff Lee Byung-kee, ex-spy chief Lee Byong-ho and the restaurant manager who allegedly took the workers to the South against the will of some of them.

In April 2016, the manager and 12 female North Korean restaurant workers defected to the South. Park’s government said they came of their own free will, while Pyongyang accused Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) of luring them for political purposes and demanded their repatriation.

Rumors have persisted that the defection, which occurred just before the parliamentary elections, may be the work of the NIS. Minbyun has demanded the government allow its lawyers a face-to-face meeting with the defectors to verify the allegation.

The story took a new turn last week when a cable TV network aired an interview with the restaurant manager. He said that he had planned to defect with his wife but threatened his employees to come with him at the instruction of NIS agents.  [Yonhap]

Here is more from Newsweek:

But last night, on South Korean television, Heo himself admitted that the women were unaware they were being sent to South Korea and that the whole operation had been orchestrated by him and South Korea’s spy agency.

“It was luring and kidnapping, and I know because I took the lead,” Heo told TV channel JTBCon Thursday, as translated by The New York Times.

At least three of the women also appeared on the program with their names withheld and their faces blurred. One of the trio said “I want to go home because living like this is not the life I wanted,” adding, “I miss my parents.”  [Newsweek]

If these restaurant workers in fact did not know they were going to South Korea this is a serious incident.  However, what we don’t know is what pressure are these workers now under to make these allegations?  Is the Moon administration putting them under intense pressure and allowing the North Koreans to contact them with threats against their families back in North Korea?

Remember these restaurant workers could have easily have made statements to the media that they were kidnapped before Moon became President or even over the past year that he was President, but did not.  This is only coming out now after the charm offensive was launched by North Korea.