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:
North Korea runs dozens of restaurants in other countries as a valuable source of income
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.
Nonviolent free speech is not the problem. People who answer nonviolent free speech with threats & violence are the problem. A people who can't comprehend this won't stay free for long.https://t.co/4Dg4YTmQJo
— (((Joshua))) Stanton (@freekorea_us) May 4, 2018
This article below sounds like something right out of a South Korean action movie:
It has been reported that a man identified as Mr. Kang (Senior Colonel, late 50s), the head of the Foreign Counter-Espionage office in charge of North-Eastern China for the Ministry of State Security (MSS) fled overseas in February. He is also known for having a connection to Kim Il Sung’s Mother, Kang Pan Sok.
In a conversation with a source in China close to North Korean affairs, it was revealed that “Mr. Kang was residing at the Chilbosan Hotel (now Zhongpu International Hotel) in China, overseeing operations at the foreign counter-espionage office for Russia, China, and Southeast Asia, before he suddenly disappeared on February 25. He was reported to have taken a machine capable of printing American dollars and a lot of foreign currency with him.”
According to the source, Mr. Kang was a significantly important individual, often being called the “Troika” of the Foreign Counter-Espionage Office. He was in charge of directing intelligence and ground operations in Russia and China, and supervised the development of essential talent for North Korea’s nuclear program by covertly arranging exchanges between Russian and Chinese scientists. (…….)
Accordingly, Kim Jong Un ordered his immediate execution upon hearing news of the defection. “Right after the incident occurred, 7 agents were immediately dispatched with the mission of assassinating Mr. Kang. After returning empty-handed, 3 more agents were sent out,” the source said.
“Despite presently being unable to locate Mr. Kang, the search is still underway. It is presumed that he has gone to France or Great Britain.” Fearing that he will succeed in acquiring asylum in Europe, it appears that North Korea is going to great efforts to kill him before this occurs. [Daily NK]
You can read much more at the link, but assuming this is all true this is a guy the US needs to find and help defect.
"Many defectors I met, they hardly sleep. They're putting in more time and energy to earn money so they won't be too behind," documentary filmmaker Steve Choi said. https://t.co/8IZucaJuJl
How come I get the feeling there is more to this story?:
A North Korean defector has been arrested and indicted on charges of supporting the North and preparing to defect back to Pyongyang in violation of the National Security Law, prosecutors here said Sunday.
The defector identified only as a 49-year-old woman is accused of sending 130 tons of rice worth about 105 million won (US$97,000) to North Korea’s State Security Ministry, according to the Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office.
The rice was sent via a broker in China on two occasions last year, the prosecutors said.
Prior to her arrest, the defector again attempted to send additional rice to the North by remitting 80 million won to the broker, they noted.
The former North Korean woman is also suspected of having attempted to return to the North, as she has sold her house in the South and disposed of other personal belongings.
It is rare for a North Korean defector to voluntarily send rice to a North Korean government organ.
The woman came to the South in 2011 and began contacting the North’s government early last year, prosecutors said, adding she told investigators she wanted to return to the North to be reunited with her son. [Yonhap]
I would not be surprised if this woman was being blackmailed with threats by Kim regime agents against her son if she did not send the payments.
This explains a lot of why this North Korean soldier was in such a rush to defect across the DMZ:
A North Korean soldier who made a desperate dash across the border in November escaped after causing a person’s death, a South Korean newspaper reported Tuesday, quoting an unidentified intelligence official.
According to the report in newspaper Dong-A, the confession came from Oh Chung Sung—or Oh Chong Song, depending on the translation—over the course of a routine interrogation led by the the South Korean spy agency.
“I committed a crime in North Korea, which caused a death,” Oh reportedly said. Though South Korean media reported his comments about killing someone, the nature of the alleged crime was not clear.
The South Korean Ministry of Unification did not confirm the reports. “The investigation has not been completed yet,” a ministry spokesperson told reporters at a press conference, quoted in South Korean news agency Yonhap. “We cannot confirm specific details of the incident.” [Newsweek]
You can read the rest at the link, but it is not expected that the ROK will send the defector back to North Korea despite the murder.
Not only is South Korea having diseased defectors arrive, they now have to deal with ones that have radiation exposure as well:
At least four defectors from North Korea have shown signs of radiation exposure, the South Korean government said on Wednesday, although researchers could not confirm if they were was related to Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.
The four are among 30 former residents of Kilju county, an area in North Korea that includes the nuclear test site Punggye-ri, who have been examined by the South Korean government since October, a month after the North conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test, Unification Ministry spokesman Baik Tae-hyun told a news briefing.
They were exposed to radiation between May 2009 and January 2013, and all defected to the South before the most recent test, a researcher at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, which carried out the examinations, told reporters. [Reuters]
Yet another North Korean soldier has defected across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and this time it was not as dramatic as the November defection at the JSA:
A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea across the mid-western border Thursday, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
“A low-ranking soldier defected to our GP (guard post) across the mid-western border at 8:04 a.m.,” a JCS official said, asking not to be named.
The latest defection came about 40 days after another North Korean soldier fled to the South through the Joint Security Area (JSA) at the truce village of Panmunjeom.
The JCS said the GP occupants identified the soldier coming toward the South through surveillance equipment, adding that the soldier carried an AK-47 assault rifle.
“Relevant bodies will conduct an investigation into how and why the soldier defected to the South,” the official said.
No shots were exchanged between the two Koreas during the soldier’s defection; but South Korean troops fired 20 warning rounds from K-3 machine guns at 9:24 a.m. when North Korean border guards approached the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) while searching for the soldier who defected.
“The North’s border guards stopped approaching the MDL after our warning shots,” the official said.
At 10:13 a.m. and 10:16 a.m., shots were heard from the North, but there was no damage on the South Korean side, the official added. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I would not be surprised if the shots heard from the North were executions of the officers responsible for the soldier who defected. The same thing happened after the Russian student defected during the 1984 JSA Shootout.
This defection is the fourth this year by a North Korean soldier. Prior to these defections there were four defections of North Korean soldiers in the past 5 years.
Coincidentally on the same day two North Korean fishermen defected across the East Sea as well. They were picked up to the north of Dokdo. That makes 15 North Korean defections this year across the DMZ or maritime border compared to 5 last year. The numbers may be up this year of defecting across the border, but the numbers are still too low to draw any hard conclusions. I guess we will see what happens in 2018.
