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People who manage to leave North Korea are often known as “defectors†— even when they are ordinary citizens, rather than government officials or military personnel. That’s because, when you are born in North Korea, you are deemed to belong to the state. If you leave, you have defected, and you are a traitor.Thae Yong-ho is a defector in a more widely understood sense. He was North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom when he went over to the South Koreans in 2016. He is one of the highest-ranking North Korean officials ever to defect. He is something rare in the world: a messenger from a closed and isolated society, a “hermit kingdom,†as North Korea is called . . .. . . The North Korean government called him “human scum†and, for good measure, accused him of child rape. (This accusation is a specialty of Communist governments, and of some post-Communist ones too, such as Putin’s.). . . In South Korea, he meets people on the left who struggled for democracy and human rights in their country, when it was under dictatorship. Yet many of these same people are reluctant to talk about democracy and human rights for North Koreans. They want to change the subject . . .. . . What does he think about the unusual relationship between the American president, Trump, and the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un? Thae says that he understands the need to discuss nuclear issues — but does not understand why Trump depicts Kim as a “nice guy†or even a “normal person.†“Kim Jong-un is a tyrant, a dictator, and a criminal" . . .
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Topic: The Incredible Guts of Thae Yong-ho (Read 216 times)
