Category: North Korean refugee

North Korea threatens retaliation if defectors’ leaflets are launched from South

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A group of South Korean activists plans to launch 200,000 anti-Pyongyang leaflets slung from gas-filled balloons into North Korea from a site near the border despite retaliatory threats from North Korea. Civic groups in the South regularly float leaflets over the border with messages criticizing the Kim dynasty and urging the North Korean people to rise up against repression.

The North’s official Internet website Uriminzokkiri reads: “We will never sit by idly as a vicious provocative act, openly backed by South Korean authorities, is being committed against us at a time when our athletes are taking part in the Asian Games” [hosted by Seoul].

North Korea’s military warned it would immediately “wipe out” those “provocateurs” and their supporters if they push through with such launches. These were not “simply empty” words, the website warned. “Should puppet authorities instigate so-called ‘defectors’ to push through with the leaflet launch, there would be unpredictable consequences,” it added.

But South Korean activists said they would not flinch at the threats. “Let the North rage in anger and scream. We will do it as planned”, Park Sang-Hak who leads the activists’ group told AFP.

The warning came days after North Korea sent a rare message to the South Korean president’s office, demanding an end to such anti-Pyongyang leaflets. The message, addressed to the presidential Blue House, was sent through a military hotline on Monday by the North’s powerful National Defence Commission (NDC).

It urged Seoul to stop anti-North activists sending leaflets over the border, saying action would have to be taken before the North would consider the South’s recent proposal for high-level talks.

North Korea has sent 150 athletes for the Asian Games, who are being guarded by hundreds of South Korean security personnel.

[AFP]

Defectors detail North Korea Leader’s slush fund

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Choi Kun-chol says he didn’t know he had spent several years helping to fill Kim Jong Il’s private slush fund until he left North Korea. Like the thousands of others working under the North Korean government division known as Office 39, Mr. Choi was told by superiors that he was generating money to build a strong socialist economy.

In fact, according to details that Mr. Choi gave about his work it was a shadowy network of businesses that contribute to a private fund believed to be worth billions of dollars for the use of the ruling Kim family.

Defectors say Office 39 was created during the 1970s by Kim Jong Il, the father of current leader Kim Jong Un, to buy influence in his own rise to power. Office 39 has been accused by the U.S. and others of running an array of illicit money-making operations such as currency counterfeiting, narcotics and arms sales. Some experts estimate the total annual income of Office 39 to be up to a couple of billion dollars a year.

High-level defectors, security officials and analysts say the fund still enables current ruler Kim Jong Un to underwrite comfortable lifestyles for the upper tier of North Korean society to ensure their support. Analysts and security officials say the execution of Kim Jong Un’s uncle, Jang Song Thaek, late last year may have been because Mr. Jang had interrupted the flow of funds to Office 39.

Office 39 also runs legal businesses under a state-owned shell corporation known as the Daesong Group, according to Mr. Choi and other defectors.

[read full Wall Street Journal article] 

Free NK newspaper based in London’s Little North Korea

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About 20,000 Korean immigrants live in New Malden, a suburb of southwest London. Approximately 600 of these immigrants are from North Korea, which is among the highest concentrations of North Korean refugees anywhere in the world. Certainly in Europe, New Malden is the closest thing to a “Little Pyongyang.”

In New Malden you may meet Joo-il Kim, a North Korean defector and editor of the Free NK newspaper. The Free NK newspaper was established to bring news from the rest of the world to North Korean citizens, as well as raising awareness of what really goes on in North Korea to the international community.

“We see this as the first stage, where we distribute the newspaper to the international community—mainly to the European communities—in order to raise awareness of what really goes on in North Korea,” said Joo-il. “Some articles are provided by correspondents in North Korea, and some are provided by other news companies that we have contracts with.”

Joo-il explains: “On first defecting, you’re hurt by the fact that a country you gave your life to—a country I trusted—actually deceived me and failed to protect its own people. My initial reaction was to swear to myself to never be deceived again, and I wanted to give up any sort of principles, ideologies, and any goals. I just wanted to protect myself and my brothers and sisters; I didn’t think about doing anything for the greater good or for other people.”

Now he says: “It is my duty to change things for future generations in North Korea.”

For Joo-il, the eventual goal is reunification of the North and South, and he sees the current community in New Malden as a good model for this—a place where North, South, and Chinese-Koreans all live together without incident.

[Vice.com]

Canadian government stands up for its citizens

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The Canadian government has threatened to have its prime minister back out of a high-profile meeting with Chinese leadership if Beijing does not release a Canadian couple, Kevin and Julia Garratt, seized by Chinese authorities near the border of China and North Korea in August.

This is despite the fact that applying heavy pressure on China is raising warnings that Canada could pay an economic price for angering a country that does not look kindly on foreign interference in its affairs. The stakes are “huge” if Canada picks a fight with China, said Victor Gao, a director at the China National Association of International Studies.

The Garratts are Christian evangelicals from British Columbia who ran a coffee shop in the Chinese city of Dandong on the North Korean border. The couple, who first came to China 30 years ago, were taken away Aug. 4 by agents of China’s Ministry of State Security. They have not been formally charged or arrested.

Ottawa has made clear that if the couple is not released, it will decline an invitation to a meeting between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Chinese leadership in Beijing around the time of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in early November.

Canadian government officials have let it be known they see the couple’s detention as a kind of reprisal for the arrest of Su Bin, a Chinese immigrant to Canada accused of masterminding efforts to steal U.S. military secrets.

[The Globe and Mail]

North Koreans social misfits within South Korean society?

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North Korean defectors now living in South Korea on average work longer, have more physically-challenging employment and are paid less than South Koreans.

Regardless, nearly 75% of 2,355 respondents said they are either moderately or very satisfied with their new lives.

Topping the list of reasons behind positive responses were: (1) income proportionate to workload, (2) a career of one’s own choosing, and (3) increased wealth compared to the life inside North Korea.

The outlook for quality of life was on average upbeat, with 70% saying they see an improvement coming their way.

There are however very real disparities, in that:

  • The average South Korean income of 3 million won was more than double that of a North Korean refugee.
  • A North Korea-born worker works an average 47.9 hours a week, compared with a native South Korean’s 40 hours.
  • The unemployment rate for the refugees was 9.7% last year, over three times the overall South Korean rate.

[WSJ]

Uncommon story of a South Korean defecting to North Korea

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In an apparent conciliatory gesture, North Korea said Friday it will send back a South Korean man who entered the North illegally.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Kim Sang-geun entered North Korea through a third country after having unspecified difficulties living in the South. It said Kim asked to live in North Korea and bring his family members from the South but the country decided to repatriate him next Thursday.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a statement it has informed North Korea that it will take custody of Kim.

Kim’s repatriation suggests that impoverished North Korea is still interested in improving ties with South Korea, said Chang Yong Seok, a senior researcher at Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies.

In recent months North Korea has proposed a set of measures it says would reduce tension, but South Korea has rebuffed the overture, arguing that North Korea must first take steps toward nuclear disarmament. Outside analysts say the North is pushing for better ties with South Korea to help attract foreign investment and aid to revive its economy.

[The Republic]

Senior North Korean official defects to Russia

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A South Korean newspaper reports that a high-ranking North Korean official who managed leader Kim Jong Un’s personal finances has defected to Russia.

The newspaper Joong Ang Ilbo on August 29 quoted an unidentified source as saying that Yun Tae Hyong, a senior representative of North Korea’s Daesong Bank, disappeared last week in Nakhodka, a Russian port near the North Korean border, with $5 million.

The newspaper quoted the source as saying that Yun was “allegedly requesting asylum”, and that Pyongyang had asked Russian authorities for cooperation in his capture and repatriation.

[Reuters]

The process of getting defectors’ remittances to North Korea

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The number of North Korean refugees now in South Korea who remit money to their families still in the North is rising.

“Some 15,000 North Korean refugees have settled in the country, and over 6,000 of them are remitting money to North Korea,” a government official said. “We understand the size of the remittances is also growing.” An official with a refugee organization said there must be more than 10,000 who remit money to their families in the North.

Remittance routes are clandestine. Money is remitted to a Chinese broker, who contacts another in North Korea, who pays the recipient with his own money and settles the account with the Chinese broker later, leaving no documentary trail.

Currencies are usually American dollars and Chinese yuan. Commissions range between 15 and 20 percent, according to sources. “Remittances through brokers designated by North Koreans generally reach the recipient without a hitch, but Chinese brokers contacted in China are liable to steal the money,” a refugee said. The brokers handle tens of millions of dollars and are linked to organized gangs.

In the past, remittances required enormous bribes. First a man had to be sent to North Korea to bribe guards, with commissions exceeding 40 percent. But with the emergence of remittance brokers and the establishment of an organized system, the amount of money that reaches North Korean families has increased substantially.

The North Korean won is practically worthless in international exchange. $1000 would be the equivalent of 100 years’ worth of earnings and buys two apartments in places like Chongjin, North Hamgyeong Province, or Hamhung, South Hamgyeong Province.

[Chosun Ilbo]

North Koreans send money to defector in S. Korea

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North Koreans have sent money to a family of defectors in South Korea in the first reported case of its kind.

Specialist website the Daily NK on Tuesday cited sources in the North as saying two sisters who sell Korean and Japanese-made home appliances in a market in Chongjin, North Hamgyong Province, wired money to their youngest sister, who defected to South Korea but is having a tough time making ends meet.

It is common for many of the 27,000 North Korean defectors in South Korea to send money to their families in the North, but this is apparently the first time the opposite has happened.

The two sisters, who were raised in Japan, had apparently done well from their business. This case confirms that a growing number of North Koreans are becoming wealthy by selling goods in open-air markets.

The woman, who defected to South Korea two years ago, reached out to her sisters when she had a tough time adjusting to life in the South. One source said people in the market in Chongjin where the two sisters work were apparently surprised to learn that a defector was experiencing financial problems, contrary to popular belief that defecting to the more affluent South would guarantee financial security.

[Chosun Ilbo]

Chinese policy to get rid of all missionaries by 2017?

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Proselytizing by foreigners is officially illegal in China, and China is no longer turning a blind eye.

Paul Yoo, a South Korean missionary, had lived untroubled by authorities for years in northeastern Chinese city. The knock on Mr. Yoo’s door marked the beginning of a quiet forced evacuation of foreign missionaries, including hundreds of South Koreans, some of whom have worked to train and convert Chinese, and others who have helped Christian defectors from North Korea.

Those who remain live in mounting fear that they will be next, as China’s new president Xi Jinping seeks to rid the country of foreign influences and effectively nationalize Christian churches to bring them under state control.

“This crackdown, and the people being deported, has intensified starting from May,” said Rev. Peter Jung, director of Justice For North Korea, which supports North Korean defectors. And, he said, “the number of missionaries getting arrested has increased.”

The Chinese pressure on missionaries, however, extends far beyond the North Korean border, suggesting Beijing’s chief motivation is concern about religion.

“One of the aims of Xi Jinping’s policies is to get rid of all missionaries by 2017,” said one missionary who continues to work in north-eastern China.

Such a claim is impossible to verify. Mr. Xi, the Chinese president, has publicly said no such thing. But fears in the missionary community of a coming clean sweep offer a window into the degree of alarm that has spread. The missionary asked The Globe to reveal no potentially identifying details, including his age or nationality, how much time he and his wife have spent in China or the nature of their work there.

[Globe and Mail]