An alleged North Korean spy known only as Han appeared at Seoul Central District Court for the first time on Tuesday charged with collecting and providing to North Korea information on defectors and North Korean human rights NGOs over the last ten years.
According to the prosecution documents, 63-year old Han began collecting information in 1996 on the activities of Hwang Jang Yop, a former secretary in the Chosun Workers’ Party, and organizations including Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights (NKnet), Free North Korea Broadcasting (Free NK) and Hanawon (the resettlement education center for North Korean defectors outside Seoul).
Han’s CV makes interesting reading. As an armed spy, he infiltrated South Korea at Gochang in North Jeolla Province in 1969, but was arrested. Remaining in South Korea, he reversed his ideology and settled into South Korean life as a worker for a construction company. However, in 1996 he began to receive instructions from spies in North Korea’s General Bureau of Reconnaissance and Defense Security Command of the People’s Army.
Among the instructions were ones such as “Kill Lee Han Young (Kim Jong Il’s nephew-in-law, shot in 1997 in Seoul, though apparently not by Han),” and “Find out Hwang Jang Yop’s whereabouts.”
In another spy case, in July two North Koreans, Kim Myung Ho and Dong Myung Gwan, both of whom had entered South Korea disguised as defectors, were sentenced to ten years in prison with a further ten suspended for plotting to kill Hwang Jang Yop.
The reason why Hwang is a major target for North Korean spies even though he is too old to be any kind of menace is that he continues to explain strategies for North Korean democratization and criticize the Kim Jong Il regime in the media and lectures.
In December, 2009, on the tenth anniversary of the founding of NKnet, he suggested, “If we get the Korean-Chinese in the northeast provinces of China on our side and send around 800,000 Korean-Chinese into North Korea, they will be able to play a great role in North Korean democratization.”
In another lecture for university students in April, he stressed, “Our highest priority should be to reinforce our alliances with those who want to maintain democracy and persuade China to part from North Korea.”
However, not only defectors like Hwang but also South Korean NGO activists working for North Korean democratization are a real aggravation for Kim Jong Il.
For that reason, some of the main targets of North Korean espionage are NGOs working to improve North Korean human rights and bring about democratization.
NKnet is one of the most significant ones of these. It was founded in December 1999 by some of the most fervent of Juche Ideology followers after they came to recognize the reality of North Korean human rights and society through defectors hiding in China. North Korea knows very well that this organization is the one which knows their ins and outs the best, so the existence of NKnet is itself poses a serious threat to the Kim regime.
As if to prove the point, a package was delivered to the offices of NKnet in 2000. In the box, there were five rats with torn mouths, each with a tag on which the name of a leader or related member of the organization had been written; Kim Young Hwang (member of research committee), Hong Jin Pyo (member of research committee), Cho Hyuk (first president of NKnet), Cho Yoo Shik (former colleague), and Han Ki Hong (incumbent president of NKnet). The letter that came with the rats proclaimed, “This is a serious warning to the historical traitor Kim Young Hwan and his faction to quit the scene with the conservatives, the national security law, and other foreign powers immediately.” At the end, it said “December 19, Juche 89”.
The South Korean police investigated, but were unable to find the suspect; however, they agreed it was done by North Korean spies or a pro-North Korean regime organization.
More recently, there has been more intelligence suggesting that Daily NK correspondents in China are the target of North Korean espionage teams in charge of dealing with overseas anti-regime elements.
The Daily NK has, since its founding in 2004, revealed a number of critical issues, including video footage of public executions, super notes and the fact of the currency redenomination, not to mention the voices of North Korean people delivering countless hidden facts about North Korea to the world.
It is certainly a great headache for a North Korean regime struggling to manage a third generation dynastic succession that these inside news items and harsh, practical criticisms and analyses of North Korea produced by The Daily NK are spreading across South Korea and around the globe.
It is for these reasons that North Korean democratization activists and related organizations which are working to bring to an end the dictatorship of the Kim regime are the target of terror threats.
However, the one thing that cannot be changed is that these groups and their activities will not stop until the day when the North Korean people can live in a free society which respects their fundamental human rights. That will not happen if they submit to the threats of Kim Jong Il, and submit they will not.
Kim’s threats and terror attempts against NGOs and activists do nothing but validate their activities. This is the reason why Kim Jong Il can never stop the North Korean human rights and democratization movement.
