Recently, Il-kyu Ri, a former counsellor at the North Korean embassy in Cuba, defected with his family and came to South Korea. The former counsellor stated his motivation for defecting, “North Korea will be a bleak society because it will have no future due to the exploitation of labor, unfair assessment, and inflammation of the regime, and I could not allow my children to live in North Korean society.”
This thought seems to be not unique to the former counsellor. It’s a problem that everyone in North Korea is thinking and worrying about.
I was always worried about my children’s future, either when I was in North Korea or when I was on assignment at the Office of the Foreign Trade Representative. Thinking about the future in North Korea with no future is like a vain dream of catching a rainbow in the sky. And the idea of being loyal to the Kim family for the rest of one’s life is a pain that only I can bear, and I want my children to live in a world with no worry where there is no surveillance and control and where they can enjoy freedom.
I decided to defect for the sake of my children’s future thinking the same way as the former counsellor Il-kyu Ri. The defection of Il-kyu Ri is likely to have brought a significant psychological blow to the North Korean government, its diplomatic missions and representative offices abroad, its workers serving abroad, and its people inside North Korea.
The North Korean regime is probably fearful that control and surveillance alone will not stem the tide of people yearning for freedom, and it has given North Koreans hope that with determination and courage, they can find freedom. The defection of former counsellor Il-kyu Ri may be a sign that the collapse of the North Korean regime has already begun. It shows that North Korea’s elites, unsure of their future, can turn the guns around whenever they see an opportunity.
The former counsellor said, “North Korean diplomats are Kotjebi (※ The homeless kids in North Korea) with ties … a salary of $0.03 a month.” This is a typical monthly salary for a North Korean government employee, and less than the cost of a kilo of rice. The days of living paycheck to paycheck are long gone in North Korea. As a result, corruption has become so pervasive in North Korean society that it has become an incurable disease.
Demanding and paying bribes has become so normalized that it felt more blatant than
before when I heard that the former counsellor said that when he returned from a business trip, the deputy director tried to recall him when he refused to comply with a bribe demand. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the face of North Korea in the international community and is also a symbol of North Korea. But if the officials working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are Kotjebi, there is nothing more to say about the lives of ordinary residents. North Koreans live from one day to the next, with no dreams or hopes for the future as they struggle to survive.
Since people’s heart is the will of heaven, I believe that democratization in North Korea is only a matter of time once the elites begin to stir and the people’s dissatisfaction with the government explodes. Conscious of this, Jong-un Kim’s regime will continue to implement a policy of fear to eradicate any sense of democratization among the people, and will further intensify a policy of secularization, including surveillance, control, and guilt by association, etc.
But just as the palm of a hand can’t block the sun in the sky, swords and guns can’t stop a procession moving in great waves toward freedom and democracy. More North Koreans will defect in search of freedom and democracy, and it seems only a matter of a determined process that the regime will fall. Lastly, as a North Korean defector, I sincerely hope that the former counsellor Il-kyu Ri and his family will have a safe and successful resettlement in South Korea.
