Be wary of Kim Jong-Il: North Korean defector

[Lefty Wilbury]

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/031030/1/3fgia.html

Be wary of Kim Jong-Il: North Korean defector


Hwang Jang-Yop, the highest-ranking North Korean official to defect to South Korea, met members of the US Congress and warned against putting too much faith in the promises of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.

"I don't think that any promise made by Kim Jong-Il is of any significance," Hwang told reporters when asked whether Pyongyang would be prepared to give up its nuclear weapons programs in exchange for US security guarantees.

A former secretary of North Korea's ruling Workers Party and the architect of the country's Juche ideology of self-reliance, Hwang has been a harsh critic of Kim Jong-Il and his regime since defecting six years ago.

Hwang, who is making his first visit to the United States since defecting, met State Department officials on Wednesday and briefed members of the Committee on Homeland Security of the House of Representatives on Thursday.

Representative Chris Cox, the committee chairman, described the briefing as a "candid exchange" with Hwang which helped lawmakers gain a greater appreciation for the extent of the "horrible mistreatment of the North Korean people."

"He has seen Kim Jong Il grow up. He is intimately familiar with the workings of the North Korean state and the North Korean society," said Cox, a top Republican lawmaker.

Hwang said that during his meeting with a half a dozen members of Congress, he offered his advice about the most effective way to help oppose the Stalinist regime in Pyongyang, which he described to US lawmakers as being more hideous than Nazi Germany.

"I have provided some suggestions ... about how to oppose the dictatorship," he said.

On Wednesday, Hwang met with Washington's top diplomat for Asia, James Kelly, for about 45 minutes and with senior aides to John Bolton, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security, for about an hour.

He was to meet Thursday with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

Hwang's 10-day visit to the United States comes at a time when tensions are running high over North Korea's nuclear weapons programs and questions over the resumption of multilateral talks aimed at ending the year-old deadlock.

A first round in Beijing in August brought together the United States, China, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas.

China and North Korea agreed in principle Thursday to continue the six-party talks during a visit by China's number two leader Wu Bangguo to the North.

The agreement was reached during a meeting between Wu -- China's second ranking politician and head of its legislature -- and Kim Jong-Il on the second day of the highest-level Chinese mission to the country in two years.

The meeting followed North Korea's surprise weekend statement that it would consider US President George W. Bush's offer of security assurances in exchange for ending its nuclear weapons programs.

 

[waltky]

Real life James Bond movie...

Stunning CCTV Footage Shows North Korean Defector Being Shot By Border Guards
November 22, 2017 • United Nations Command on Tuesday released dramatic footage of a North Korean soldier defecting from his country and fleeing south across the Demilitarized Zone last week only to be fired upon by his fellow border guards.

Video captured by closed circuit television shows the moments the unnamed soldier, thought to be in his 20s, sped through the DMZ in a jeep past North Korean checkpoints as he was pursued by guards carrying weapons. The jeep later veered into a ditch before the soldier jumped out and ran across the border, where four of his comrades can be seen firing upon him. South Korean soldiers quickly moved to rescue the soldier and bring him to safety.

The man was shot at least five times and is in critical condition at a South Korean hospital. Doctors said Wednesday he had regained consciousness after having two operations to remove bullets from his body, according to Reuters. “He is fine,” Lee Cook-Jong, the lead surgeon, said at a news conference. “He is not going to die.”

United Nations Command on Tuesday released dramatic footage of a North Korean soldier defecting from his country and fleeing south across the Demilitarized Zone last week only to be fired upon by his fellow border guards.​

The Washington Post notes one of the pursuing North Korean soldiers can be seen on camera crossing the Military Demarcation Line between the two Koreas, a violation of the armistice agreement signed at the end of the Korean War in 1953. U.N. Command also said the North violated the agreement by firing across the MDL. “UNC personnel at the [Joint Security Area] notified [the North’s Korean People’s Army] of these violations today through normal communications channel in Panmunjom and requested a meeting to discuss the investigation results and measures to prevent future such violations,” U.N. Command told the Post in a statement.

Such a defection at the heavily armed DMZ is rare, and a soldier has not done so at the Joint Security Area since 2007, according to The New York Times. Thousands of North Koreans have defected in the past decades, although most travel through China. The Associated Press last week reported that doctors had to remove dozens of parasites, including intestinal worms as long as 10 inches, from the soldier while he was in the hospital. Some have said the health of the man reflects the ongoing humanitarian crisis within North Korea, which often struggles to feed its own people.

Stunning CCTV Footage Shows North Korean Defector Being Shot By Border Guards

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North Korea's wounded defector 'nice guy', says surgeon
November 23, 2017 - North Korea's latest defector, a young soldier known only by his family name Oh, is a quiet, pleasant man who has nightmares about being returned to the North, his surgeon said on Thursday.

“He’s a pretty nice guy,” said lead surgeon John Cook-Jong Lee, who has been operating and caring for the 24-year-old. Oh has become a focus of worldwide attention after he was badly wounded by fellow North Korean soldiers as he scrambled across the border in the Demilitarized Zone that separates North and South on Nov. 13. Video of Oh’s escape released on Wednesday showed him stumbling over the border and being dragged unconscious through the undergrowth by South Korean troops. Surgeon Lee has been almost the only person to speak with Oh since he arrived at the hospital, he told Reuters in an interview at his office at Ajou University Hospital, just a few floors away from where the defector lies guarded by South Korean special forces and intelligence officers. The surgeon, who has hung a South Korean flag in the soldier’s room, said he is avoiding subjects that may disturb his patient. Oh is eating his first “clear liquid” food such as broths, and can smile, talk, and use his hands, Lee said. But when his patient woke on Sunday he cried out in pain, and Lee said he is still anxious about the South Korean guards.

Lee said Oh told him that he had joined the North Korean army when he was 17, right after secondary school graduation. The soldier’s hair is styled “like a jarhead, like a U.S. Marine, so I actually joked ‘why don’t you join the South Korean Marines?’ He smiled and said that he would never ever go back to the military system again.” Medical teams have worked for days to remove the shards of at least four bullets from Oh’s body, stitch up his shredded organs, and treat pre-existing conditions including tuberculosis, hepatitis B, and a case of massive intestinal worms, Lee said. “He’s a quite strong man,” said Lee. Since Oh’s defection, North Korea appeared to have replaced all its security guards on the border, an intelligence source in the South told Yonhap news agency on Thursday.

COLLAPSED LUNG

Lee said that when the defector arrived in an American military helicopter at the hospital – which is equipped with state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment and is used to treat VIP visitors such as visiting U.S. presidents - he came with zero personal information. On the flight in, American army flight medics had fought to keep Oh alive, jabbing a large needle into his chest to treat a collapsed lung. Oh was immediately wheeled into a diagnostic room where doctors confirmed he was suffering from massive internal bleeding. “We knew then that we didn’t have time to hesitate,” Lee said, standing in that room Thursday night.

Two major surgeries were required to remove the bullets and patch Oh back together, and the medical team pumped as much as 12 liters of new blood into his body. The normal body has less than half as much blood. “He told me that he is so thankful for South Koreans for saving his life and giving him that much blood,” Lee said. Lee has been playing South Korean pop music and American films and TV shows for his patient, but has not exposed him to any news coverage. Among the shows, Oh showed a liking for the French-American thriller “Transporter 3,” comedy “Bruce Almighty” starring Jim Carrey and Morgan Freeman; and the crime-solving TV series “CSI,” Lee said.

SCARS

 

[waltky]

North Korea defector: Children ate lice to stay full...

North Korea defector: Children ate lice to stay full
Nov. 22, 2017 -- North Korean defectors who have begun to provide testimonies to the South Korean government say it was not uncommon for orphaned children to subsist on corn extracted from cow dung, or lice, during the years of the Great Famine.

Defector Lee Wi-ryeok told Daily NK on Wednesday he survived his childhood in a North Korean orphanage during the late '90s, but the memory of his experience haunts him to this day. Lee did not identify the orphanage where he lived until he was a teenager, but said diseases like tuberculosis were deadly because there was no cure. "After I came to South Korea, I was amazed to learn tuberculosis is a disease that can be treated," Lee said. Food was scarce in the country, but in orphanages, the conditions were even direr than in the rest of the country, Lee said. "If a cow excreted kernels of corn in the form of diarrhea, we would rinse them out and eat those," Lee said.

The village of Kaepung, North Korea is seen across the Imjin river and Han river confluence point in Paju, South Korea​

The defector also said children at the orphanage would eat lice to stay full. "When you bite into lice they would burst with blood," Lee said, adding children would eat lice because they contained their blood, and they thought it would "be a waste" not to consume the parasite. Lee said North Korean orphanage administrators would build a bonfire on the grounds to disinfect children from mites. The administrators would "beat the children with a stick" if the children tried to escape the encircling bonfire. The victims would often suffer from painful burns, Lee said.

North Korean children in orphanages survived the Great Famine of the 1990s by subsisting on lice​

North Korea is a signatory to the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child since 1990. The Kim Jong Un regime has repeatedly denied human rights abuses, and has instead blamed countries like the United States for tensions. Radio Free Asia reported Tuesday North Korean authorities in the country have been preparing underground facilities for the country's postal service in preparation for potential war. RFA's North Korea sources said the maneuver is irritating locals because authorities are trying to create extra tension and mobilize people to donate funds for the cause.

North Korea defector: Children ate lice to stay full

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South Korea to work on humanitarian aid to North
Nov. 22, 2017 -- South Korea is in discussions with the United Nations' World Food Program to cooperate on humanitarian aid to North Korea.

World Food Program executive director David Beasley met with Seoul's unification minister Cho Myoung-gyun in Seoul to address some of the issues faced by ordinary North Koreans, South Korean news service Newsis reported Wednesday. The 45-minute discussion included an exchange of views on malnutrition in North Korea, vulnerable segments of the North Korean population and projects Seoul and the U.N. agency could work on in order to find solutions, according to the report.

Seoul announced a plan on Sept. 21 to provide $4.5 million in support to the World Food Program, and its project in North Korea that aims to deliver nutrition-enhanced foods to children and pregnant North Korean women. South Korea's unification ministry said the two sides agreed to "cooperate closely" on humanitarian aid.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who also met with WFP officials on Wednesday, said the time was right for South Korea to do more to help other countries alleviate hunger, Yonhap reported. Ban, who considered running for president in early 2017, said South Korea was the recipient of "grain, food, textbooks and toys" from U.N. agencies more than five decades ago. South Korea "became a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development after breaking out of extreme poverty," Ban said.

Remarkable contrasts remain between the impoverished North and the wealthy South. North Korea's GDP per capita for 2015 was estimated to be $1,013, while in South Korea that number was estimated to be $27,195. In May, the Food and Agricultural Organization said 10 million North Koreans are facing food shortages.

South Korea to work on humanitarian aid to North

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Report: North Korea swapping out soldiers at DMZ
Nov. 23, 2017 -- North Korea is replacing military personnel at the demilitarized zone, following the defection of a soldier and a shooting incident that left the soldier wounded.

A South Korean government source told Yonhap on Thursday the escape has had serious consequences for North Koreans at the Joint Security Area, or JSA, where guards of the two Koreas stare each other down every day. "After the North Korean soldier defected through Panmunjom, we have identified signs North Korea has replaced all JSA guards," Yonhap's source said. "It appears even the higher levels of command could not avoid rebuke." North Korea is estimated to retain between 35 and 40 guards in the JSA, according to the report.

North Korea has replaced all guards at the Joint Security Area of Panmunjom between North and South Korea, according to a South Korean press report.​

North Korean guards, who targeted the escaping soldier with the surname Oh, fired 40 rounds of ammunition, wounding the defector who is currently convalescing at a South Korean hospital. One armed North Korean soldier was caught on surveillance video momentarily crossing the military demarcation line at the JSA, before hastily retreating back to the North's side. Yonhap also reported North Korea has closed the Bridge of No Return, otherwise known as the 72-hour bridge. Oh drove over the span in a military jeep to make his escape.

North Korea once claimed the bridge was constructed in 2 hours, following the axe incident at Panmunjom in 1976, when North Korean soldiers attacked U.S. military personnel cutting down a tree in the demilitarized zone. Pyongyang has refrained from provocations for more than two months, but the regime could conduct a nuclear test, or launch its next ballistic missile, by the end of the year or early 2018, Japan's Sankei Shimbun reported Thursday. Kim Min-seok, a former South Korean defense ministry spokesman, told the Sankei North Korea may have stayed quiet in order to focus on nuclear warhead production. Yu Koizumi, a research fellow at Japan's Institute for Future Engineering, said North Korea could test the Pukguksong missile soon, according to the report.

Report: North Korea swapping out soldiers at DMZ