[imText1]With 25,000 North Koreans living in South Korea, defectors are no longer just guests of the South Korean population who have a yearning for freedom. Rather, they are core members of South Korean society, found here and there working to lead the Republic of Korea from within. With experience of life in both North and South, they are a social asset, one that can usher in the era of unification.
Last year, in the lee of the election of defector Cho Myung Chul to the National Assembly, the office of the president nominated Hong Sun Kyung, the defector who chairs the Committee for Democratization of North Korea, as a non-governmental delegate to the Presidential Committee for National Cohesion (PCNC), an advisory body.
The PCNC is designed to help bring about “national unity,” one of the core planks in President Park Geun Hye’s successful election platform of late 2012. That a defector has been appointed to it seems to offer yet more proof that the role of defectors in South Korean society is growing and growing.
Daily NK recently met Hong to ask what he thinks of his appointment to the PCNC.
“There are many things that defectors have to do for unification,” he declared. “Appointing a defector to this committee of eighteen shows how much trust the government puts in us. I think that this is not just an honor for one person, it is an honor for all 25,000 of us.”
Hong continued, “As one of these defectors, I have occasionally thought that we are a marginalized class. But the consideration and trust shown this time around has made me think that defectors should unite to do our part to for the Republic of Korea and the democratization of North Korea, and then bring about unification.”
“Our people are divided along many lines: region, ideology, generation,” he added. “In order to become an advanced Republic of Korea, we must resolve these kinds of conflicts.”
Therefore, “The purpose of the PCNC is to resolve these conflicts and combine our strength for the future of the country,” he explained, “We want to gather the power of the masses, which is facing unification and North Korean democratization. We shall work towards a united Korea and an advanced Republic of Korea.”
In Hong’s view, the biggest obstacle to the kind of national unity envisioned by the PCNC is North Korean sympathizers in South Korea. “Because they don’t have an appropriate understanding of North Korea, people who feel blind sympathy for it keep coming along,” he asserted. “Action is needed to accurately inform people of North Korea’s real intent and the extent to which North Korea violates the human rights of its people.”
“Education is the biggest aggravator of ideological conflict,” he added. “The Korean Teachers’ Union actually teaches very anti-South Korea views. We ought to be teaching our youth accurately about North Korean reality, the negative nature of communism and the truths of the North Korean regime.”
“Those who can most accurately convey the truth of North Korea are the defectors. We should educate on matters of national security in this way,” he concluded.
