Category: North Korean refugee

Delay in establishing a North Korean government in exile

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South Korean newspaper DongA Ilbo had reported that heads of defector organizations in South Korea along with defectors formerly of North Korea’s elite class would launch a refugee government early next year in Washington D.C.

Now it seems a group of North Korean defectors has temporarily put on hold plans to establish a DPRK government-in-exile in the United States, a leading figure in the organization told NK News on Friday. North Korean defector Dr. An Chan-il, who was described as a leader of the movement in DongA’s report, confirmed to NK News that the report was true and that plans were in motion, but later said that “the plan has been delayed”.

An, head of the World Institute for North Korean Studies based in Seoul, said his group wanted to provoke regime change by building up an anti-Kim Jong Un government.

“A government-in-exile is what the Kim Jong Un regime is most afraid of. I laid out the plans this April at an event for defectors around the world. My suggestions drew a furious response from Pyongyang,” An said.

An has not given more concrete details of his organization’s membership and an exact timetable for the plans, and despite his claims that his group has provoked a “furious response” from Pyongyang, NK News could find no references to it in North Korean media.

One North Korean observer said the idea of North Korean defectors establishing a government-in-exile in the United States was an attempt to enhance the bargaining power of North Korean defectors.

“The community of North Korean defectors [are] playing a hidden card by building up the government-in-exile,” Jiyeon Ihn, president of Now! Act for North Koreans! (NANK), a group affiliated with the Ministry of Unification, told NK News. “They want to be respected as negotiating partner… It’s a [symbolic] gesture.” Read more

[NK News]

Mixed support from defector groups to plan for a North Korean government-in-exile

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Seo Jae-pyong, executive secretary of Association of the North Korean Defectors, criticized the opaque nature of the process, saying an unknown person had been in contact this spring asking for participation in establishing a government-in-exile. But they left neither a name, details about the organization, or a phone number.

“How can they proceed in secret without introducing themselves [to defectors]?” Seo told NK News.

Jung Gwang-il, head of North Korean human rights organization No Chain, said he had been aware of the project since early this year, but disagreed with the plans.

“I can’t accept the idea of establishing a government-in-exile because it’s nonsense. Do we live in the 1930s (Japanese colonial period)?” Jung, who was imprisoned in a North Korean political prisoner camp, told NK News. “It’s ridiculous that someone who hasn’t put any effort into improving the North Korean human rights situations at international organizations like the UN claims [representation]. This is illogical.”

Henry Song, a North Korea human rights activist based in Washington and the North America Director for No Chain, said the so-called “elite” defectors should cooperate with existing organizations.

“While I welcome this particular defector’s desire to help his homeland by establishing this ‘exile government,’ I seriously doubt how much of an effect this new organization will have,” Song told NK News. “It would be very symbolic, but without much weight or relevance in the overall scheme of things.”

[NK News]

Health issues of North Korea defectors obstacle to employment

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The unemployment rate for North Korean defectors [now living in South Korea] has trended downward in recent years but a significant number of those without jobs struggle due to worsening health.

Shim Jae-kwon, chairman of the [South Korean] National Assembly’s Foreign and Unification Committee, said a recent survey on the economic activities of defectors in 2015 indicate 4 out of 10 unemployed defectors quit their jobs due to health issues.

The South Korean parliamentary budget office said while North Korean defectors receive special health benefits, the patient must pay 70-80 percent of nursing bills and other optional services, a financial disincentive for those who need medical attention.

[UPI]

North Korean defectors to create US-based government in exile

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A group of high-profile defectors are planning to establish a North Korean government in exile in the U.S. early next year, a South Korean newspaper reported Friday, citing one the of the group’s leaders.

The defectors — some of whom are based in South Korea — aim to play a key role in the democratization of North Korea, the DongA Ilbo newspaper said. The move comes amid an increase of high-profile defections and an apparent rise in the number of elite officials in the isolated nation turning against leader Kim Jong Un, the newspaper reported.

According to the report, the government-in-exile would seek to install a democratic political system with a Chinese model for the economy that would attract support from Beijing.

It would be based in the U.S. because South Korea’s constitution includes the North in its territory.

[Bloomberg]

Japan at the center of North Korean defection drama in Beijing?

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Tokyo denied reports that two high-ranking North Korean officials in Beijing have defected and are seeking political asylum in Japan.

One of the defectors is described as a senior representative whose work included procuring medical supplies for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his immediate circle.

JoongAng Ilbo newspaper identified the man only as “A,” saying he headed the North Korean Representative Office in Beijing and was an employee of a department of the Ministry of Public Health. “A,” his wife and their daughter disappeared on Sept. 28 from a residence used by North Korean diplomats in Beijing. Apparently they then contacted Japanese officials to ask for protection. The newspaper added the man has a relative living in Japan.

It identified the second would-be defector as official “B,” also from the Representative Office. He went into hiding with his family around the same time and supposedly also applied for asylum in Japan.

Yonhap said South Korea’s government is working to bring the defectors there, but the nation’s Unification Ministry had little to say on Wednesday.

[Japan Times]

North Korea official who supplies medicine to Kim Jong-un defects

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A ranking North Korean embassy official in Beijing has defected, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency has said, while a separate report suggested two embassy staff had sought asylum with the Japanese mission in the Chinese capital.

If confirmed, it would mark the latest in a recent series of high-profile North Korean defections that some observers see as a sign of growing instability within the leadership in Pyongyang.

Yonhap, quoting an anonymous source “familiar with Pyongyang affairs”, said the official – stationed in the Beijing embassy but attached to the North Korean health ministry – had disappeared with his family in late September. The source said the official was responsible for sourcing medical supplies for a clinic in Pyongyang that caters to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and his family.

In a separate report, the South Korean daily, JoongAng Ilbo, said two senior staffers at the North Korean embassy in Beijing had asked for asylum in Japan.

[The Guardian]

Laos a remote battleground for the Koreas

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“North Korea has had fairly close relations with Laos for several decades. They’re both countries that [are] at least nominally socialist or communist states,” says Sokeel Park, research director for Liberty in North Korea, a South Korean organization that assists North Korean refugees.

To find evidence of Laos’ longstanding ties to North Korea, look no further than the dining establishments. Laos hosts a North Korean-run restaurant in the heart of Vientiane, the capital of Laos. These North Korean restaurants are part of the regime’s money-making operations, a way for Pyongyang to earn hard currency abroad, since sanctions have increasingly cut it off from the rest of the world.

Laos is also one of the countries North Korean defectors sometimes pass through on their way to a final destination, like South Korea. They know …. Laos is willing to look the other way.

But in recent months, South Korea has stepped up efforts to drive a wedge between Laos and North Korea. South Korea has been sending diplomats, increasing communication and signed a new military-to-military agreement. All in hopes Laos will get tougher on its North Korean partner.

“We think Laos and other countries previously friendly with North Korea have turned around considerably after the U.N. sanctions went into effect, and that they’re now supporting South Korea’s policies,” says South Korea’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Cho June-hyuck.

[NPR]

South’s Park Geun-hye directly appeals to North Koreans to defect

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South Korean President Park Geun-hye has called on North Koreans to abandon their country and defect, just a day after a soldier walked across the heavily fortified border into the South.

In a rare message directly addressed to rank-and-file troops and North Korean citizens, during a speech marking the country’s Armed Forces Day, the president on Saturday invited North Koreans to relocate to the “bosom of freedom” in the South.

“The universal values of freedom, democracy, human rights and welfare are the precious rights you should also enjoy. We will keep the road open for you to find hope and live a new life. Please come to the bosom of freedom in the South whenever you want.”

Park said defections by North Koreas fleeing hunger and oppression were increasing “drastically”. “There have been persistent defections, even by North Korean elites who have been supporting the regime”, she said.

The call comes a month after North Korea’s deputy ambassador to Britain defected to South Korea, handing the country a major propaganda coup at a time of rising tension on the divided Korean peninsula.

Ties between the two Koreas are at the lowest ebb since the height of Cold War in the 1970s, with Pyongyang test-firing more than 20 missiles and carrying out two nuclear tests this year alone.

[Al Jazeera]

North Korean soldier defects crossing border into South Korea

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A North Korean soldier defected Thursday after crossing the border and entering South Korea, according to a press release from the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The South Korean military says the soldier crossed the mid-eastern portion of the Military Demarcation Line — which is located inside the Demilitarized Zone that divides the two countries — at 10 a.m. local time.

It’s not clear how or why he defected, but the South Korean military said it will investigate.

The defection comes amid a particularly tense time in North-South relations.

[CNN]

The generation of semi-legal North Korean jangmadang markets

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As the United States and other nations grasp for new ways to sanction Pyongyang in response to its latest nuclear test, some North Korean defectors see investment in its rudimentary market economy as a way to foment gradual change from within.

South Korea forbids its citizens from trading with anyone in North Korea but turns a blind eye to remittances estimated at $10 million a year sent to relatives by many of the nearly 30,000 defectors in the South.

Surveys of defectors by Seoul National University found that the biggest challenge for North Koreans doing business was funding, followed by bribes paid to authorities and occasional crackdowns on market activity.

One young defector, Seoul-based activist Ji Seong-ho, has been sending funds of $300 to $500 at a time for North Koreans to open food stalls and crop-lending businesses in rural areas.

“The bigger markets grow, the weaker the regime gets, so we need to support North Korean entrepreneurs,” said Ji, 34, who heads Now, Action and Unity for Human Rights (NAUH), which tries to help North Korean refugees in China to defect.  Read more

[Reuters]