Lack of opportunities source of discontent for North Korean defectors

According to one survey, 50% of North Korean defectors described their status in the North Korea as “upper” or “middle” class, but only 26% said they fell into this category when living in South Korea.

The vast majority – 73% – described their new status as lower class.

Andrei Lankov, a historian at Kookmin University in Seoul who has also studied in Pyongyang, says the problem is that skills acquired in the North are insufficient for the modern South Korean economy. For example, doctors who defect often fail to get jobs in South Korean medicine.

In his opinion, this has implications for unification whenever (and if ever) it happens. “Can a graduate of a North Korean medical school hope to get a license in post-unification Korea if all his (or, more likely, her) medical knowledge is taken from poorly translated Soviet textbooks that are a few decades old?” he asks in a story for the NK News website.

[BBC]                                             

An unsettling mystery washing up on Japan’s shores

Over the past two months, at least 12 wooden boats have been found adrift or on the coast, carrying chilling cargo — the decaying bodies of 22 people, police and Japan’s coast guard said. The first boat was found in October, then a series of boats were found in November.

Their best guess so far is that the ships are from North Korea. One clue pointing that direction is Korean lettering on the hull of a boat containing 10 decomposing bodies, one of three boats that were found adrift off the city of Wajima on the west coast of Japan on November 20.

“There’s no doubt that these boats are North Korean,” John Nilsson-Wright, head of the Asia program at the Chatham House policy institute, told CNN after looking at pictures of the boats. Wright said the lettering on the boats he looked at is Korean — or Hangul — text and the “primitive” boats and reference to the Korean People’s Army makes it “very logical” to assume the boats are from North Korea.

Yoshihiko Yamada, a maritime expert, told NHK the vessels bear a “striking resemblance” to those used by defectors from North Korea.

Wright believes it is people trying to flee the regime, although he said it’s impossible to be sure with the limited information available.

“What we do know is that for those people living outside of (North Korean capital) Pyongyang … life remains extraordinarily hard, and it may be an economic necessity as much as a desire for political freedom (that is) encouraging some people in the North to try and leave the country.”

He added that defectors could be taking the more dangerous route across the Sea of Japan — also known as the East Sea — because traditional routes, like crossing the border into China, are now policed and could be harder to use.

[CNN]

How South Korea screens North Korean refugees

South Korea has spent decades screening refugees from its hostile northern neighbor but some enemy agents manage to get through, underlining the challenges Western nations face in dealing with a far larger influx of people escaping the war in Syria.

Seoul uses lie detectors, interrogation and a screening process that includes keeping people in solitary confinement to catch North Korean agents among genuine asylum seekers.

Still, between 2003 and 2013, of the 49 North Korean spies apprehended in the South, 21 entered the country posing as refugees, according to the country’s justice ministry.

“The question of spies slipping through is always a problem, and we need to make the process more meticulous and advanced,” said Shin Kyung-min, the ranking opposition member of the South Korean parliament’s intelligence committee. “But it’s not like we can stop taking in North Korean defectors because of that,” Shin told Reuters.

Around 1,000 North Koreans defect to the South every year and are held for up to 180 days while they are screened. If they clear that, the refugees are transferred to a resettlement complex, which they cannot leave, for another 12 weeks to help them adjust to life in the South.

New North Korean arrivals to the South, who typically enter via a third country, are brought to a facility in Siheung on the southern outskirts of Seoul. There, they are separated for questioning on their backgrounds and lives in the North, spending time in solitary but comfortable rooms.

No exception is made for families or children, who are taken from their parents and face similar questioning, according to a civic group.   Read more

[Reuters]

A North Korean refugee’s experience being interrogated by South Korea

“It was like writing my autobiography,” said a 59-year-old female defector who spent three months at the South Korean interrogation center from 2012 and asked that she not be named because she is not supposed to talk about the process.

“I talked about my whole life in chronological order and got checked,” she told Reuters.

“I came here to change my life so there was nothing that I was afraid of.”

Lie detectors are used as a basic tool, as many defectors from the isolated and impoverished North are undocumented, a former National Intelligence Service official said.

A typical interrogation starts with the defector’s address, and the program has built a database with locations, names and other details to compare with their story. The program has succeeded in weeding out about 120 bogus defectors and 14 spies, local media reports last year said, citing intelligence officials. Fake defectors are believed mainly to consist of ethnic Korean citizens of mainland China. The numbers could not be independently verified.

Those found not to be North Korean defectors are deported, while those determined to be spies are prosecuted, according to South Korean authorities.    Read more

[Reuters]

Seven North Korean refugees apprehended in Thailand

Seven North Korean defectors have been arrested on the Mekong River in Nong Khai for illegally entering Thailand, a senior immigration police officer said.

The four men and three women aged between 22 and 75 were apprehended on Tuesday night, said Pol Col Panlop Suriyakul na Ayutthaya, chief of Nong Khai immigration police, during a media briefing in the northeast province.

Kyodo News reported none were carrying passports and confirmed through a translator they were from North Korea. They were charged with illegal entry and later handed over to Ban Due police station.

Many North Koreans fleeing their country have entered Thailand illegally through its northeastern borders in recent years, but Thai authorities have not repatriated them to North Korea on humanitarian grounds.

[Read full Bangkok Post article]

Helping North Korean defectors enter the 21st century

Joseph Park wants others who have escaped North Korea to buy in, literally and emotionally, to his venture. Ten dollars is all it takes to become a shareholder in the Yovel coffee shop in Seoul. It’s not about the money. It’s about the investment.

“There are a handful of coffee shops and restaurants in South Korea that employ North Koreans, but they don’t have any decision-making power . … They don’t get a chance to learn and take responsibility. No one lasts more than a year because they don’t have a stake in it,” he said. “That’s why, when I started this company, I wanted to give North Koreans power to make decisions.”

There are more than 28,000 Koreans who have escaped the North and now live in the South, and many struggle to make it in the frenetic South Korean society. When they arrive, most have never used a computer or owned a credit card. …Many struggle to hold down jobs in the capitalist South.

The South offers some job training to the North Koreans who make it. After three months in a reception center, they can choose to continue with vocational training, such as hairdressing, welding or car repair. But these classes are not popular, with most defectors eager to get out in the “real” South Korea. Only 174 have opted for such courses this year, according to the Unification Ministry.

[Washington Post]