Q. Were you hungry?
A. “To be in the military in North Korea is far better than being an ordinary citizen. I got 800 grams of rice a day. But with all the heavy training even 800 grams was not enough. From reading the South Korean materials I gathered that South Korean military men got their rations but then also could have their snacks. This was totally unthinkable in North Korea. We got snacks only on holidays, when the military got more than civilians. Once in a while when I had to work night shifts, from 6 P.M. to 6 A.M., I would get about 500 grams of candy. Outsiders never really quite grasp North Korean society. I’m appalled because when I meet youngsters in South Korea I tell them I was hungry and they reply, ‘Why should you go hungry?’ I reply, ‘Without living there you couldn’t understand.’”
Q. Why did you stay in the military?
A. “Of course when you’re young you are determined to enter the military because after your hitch you become a party member. It’s usually a seven-to-ten-year hitch. You stay in until you’re twenty-seven. Most enter at seventeen, so spend ten years at it, but some have worked in factories after high school so may have only seven years or so before they hit twenty-seven. In South Korea to become a commissioned officer you would go to the Korea Military Academy right out of high school. In North Korea, though, new cadets entering Kankon Military Academy are chosen from among soldiers with three or four years’ service. I didn’t go to the military academy. Instead, after three years I went to a training program for noncommissioned officers.
Q. Did soldiers discuss complaints such as you have mentioned?
A. “Yes. We would sit around and talk about our complaints. Of course, you would be hesitant to talk to just anyone. I would only talk to a couple of very close friends.”
Q. Did they want to defect?
A. “They had to consider their families. In my case, my parents died while I was in the military. I’m the youngest of six siblings. I thought, ‘Why would the government bother my brothers and sisters?’”
Q. Could you see South Korean soldiers across the border, and did you note any difference between them and North Koreans?
A. “I had no way of knowing their lifestyle. I only knew we had the same bloodlines.”
Q. Were they taller, fatter?
A. “I didn’t think much about that because the North Korean soldiers sent to Panmunjom are the taller ones of good family background. So I thought maybe the South Koreans had the same policy.”
Q. Tell me about your family background and childhood.
A. “My family lived in Harbin [in Northeast China]. We left there when I was two—it was the time of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and we couldn’t live there any more.
“When I was two and three years old, I went to nursery school every day while my parents worked. From age four to six I went to kindergarten at seven in the morning and returned home at 6 P.M. Since my parents were out working, there were times when I would come home early and find no one there. I would just play by myself. I didn’t get much love from my parents and didn’t have much time to spend with them. My father was a chauffeur. Mother did sewing in a neighborhood cooperation group. Because of my education, I felt more gratitude to Kim Il-sung than to my parents. I believed that Kim Il-sung was a savior, providing my education and my food. I did my utmost to be faithful to Kim Il-sung.”
Q. When you were planning your defection, did you feel any guilt toward Kim Il-sung?
A. “I think Kim Il-sung is basically a nice guy. He’s not to blame. All the brain-washing is done by the high officials just for their vested rights. They make this ideology so their privileges will stand. Kim Il-sung did a lot of painful things to his people. But he shouldn’t be blamed. His followers did it with him. High officials made Kim Il-sung into an idol so they could lead lavish lives and hold on to their privileges. I do understand he wants permanent one-man rule, but it’s the will of his followers, too. Kim Il-sung as one individual can’t be solely blamed. It’s those under him who have brought the people to this situation—people like former Premier Yon Hyon-muk and current Premier Kang Song-san.”
Q. How about Kim Jong-il?
A. “I don’t like him at all. I have lots of complaints about Kim Jong-il. He never experienced war, never knew hardship. He’s conceited, showing off his activity and power. But he has the power because of his father. Kim Jong-il wants to head the military. This brings up a complaint about Kim Il-sung. Kim Il-sung is making Kim Jong-il the head of the army when there are so many more able men, just to extend one-man rule. Kim Jong-il never served in the military.
“Kim Jong-il has curly hair. They call him ‘Curly’. They say he’s so brutal, when he sits on the ground somewhere and then gets up, grass won’t grow there anymore. Nights and days are reversed for Kim Jong-il. He sleeps days, works nights. He phones people at odd hours—that brings about complaints. I acknowledge that he’s an artistic genius, but he’s leading a sinful and dirty life. He likes women too much. Who doesn’t like women? But he’s notorious. Lots of ordinary people know about his flings with women. We heard about Kim Jong-il’s Happy Group, Kim Il-sung’s Satisfaction Group. There’s an institute of studies for Kim Il-sung’s longevity.”
Q. Did you hear about some of this after you came to the South?
A. “I’m telling you only what I knew when I was in North Korea.”
Q. Why blame only Kim Il-sung’s followers? He set out to have himself idolized.
A. “I know he’s the boss behind idolization but the followers should get together and have a coup d’etat.”
Q. It seems that North Koreans who are dissatisfied enough to do anything end up defecting instead of rebelling. What must happen before people will stay and struggle rather than defect?
A. “When I was in North Korea, after having all those complaints I wanted to form some kind of anti–Kim Il-sung movement. But I alone could do nothing, so I defected. But middle-level officials know about the outside world and they do nothing. There should be a lot of pressure from the outside world. Ordinary people need a lot of pressure from the outside.”
Q. What do you think of the idea for Radio Free Asia?
A. “It would be very effective. I’d be very glad. I’ve heard them talking about it at the [South Korean] Defense Ministry”
Q. What sort of programming should it offer?
A. “Instead of looking at the big picture, take a more micro approach. Start reporting on North Korea’s lifestyles, crime and so on. Then, later, tune it up a bit and talk about the state of economics and politics. You “would have to interpret this for people, in a way or they wouldn’t be able to understand. Make it simple.”
Q. Do people have radios to listen?
A. “Only about one in fifteen homes has the right equipment. It would be difficult.”
Q. What did you learn about the ability or willingness of soldiers to fight if Kim Jong-il should give the order?
A. “I sort ofdoubt they would really fight. In the brigade there’s a line commander plus a party commissar. The military person should have the power, but the party commissar is struggling for power. There’s a split. Some are for the commander, others for the commissar. If war should come, the initial problem would be whose command to follow.”
Q. Can you envision ordinary soldiers and officers throwing down their arms or shooting their commanders?
A. “Since there are two factions in each unit, I thought in case war should break out I would shoot the commander. I was thinking of that when I got promoted, and it gave me an incentive to treat my subordinates very warmly. I figured if war broke out and they had the same mentality as I had, maybe they would shoot me. I can’t really say how many, but there certainly are others who think the way I did.”
Q. Some young civilian defectors told me the people of North Korea think it would be better to did in war than die ofhunger, so they want war.
A. “That’s a widespread attitude. I myself thought war would have to break out. I was
suffering too much from hunger. When I first entered the army, I was 100 percent certain North Korea would win a war. But after four or five years of studying the South Korean enemy, I realized North Korea doesn’t have the economy to support a war. So I thought a war would destroy both South Korea and North Korea. Officially the government warns that war between South and North would be the third world war. But in military training we are taught we have to fight the South and win.”
Q. Tell me about your senior officers.
A. “I think they have the same sort of complaints against the regime.
I talked with them and they would complain indirectly: ‘Look at the rations my family is getting. Can they live on that?’”
Q. Other defectors I’ve interviewed had moments of crisis when they were faced with jail or loss of their positions, so they felt they had little to lose in defecting. How about you?
A. “After ten years of military service they assign you to a district other than your home district. Since you’re still young, they make you go to the mines for a couple of years. I was scared of that. I didn’t know about it at the time I entered the military but after I got in it started to worry me. [Unless chosen for something more important] you have no way of avoiding mine duty although if you work diligently you may get to cut it short earlier than otherwise. From 1987, I started thinking of coming to South Korea through China, once I got mustered out. I was thinking of just a visit en route to my new posting. It wouldn’t have been too difficult because my home town is Harbin and all my relatives except my siblings are in China. So I could set out to visit relatives in China. A high officer in my brigade promised to send me to Kim Il-sung University. But in 1988 he sent another officer instead. I got angry. With the combination of anger over that incident and fear of life in the mines, I decided to defect.”
Q. One high-ranking civilian defector suggested a scenario in which mine workers aided by military-trained people rise up against the regime and overthrow it.
A. “I don’t really know for sure the mentality of the people at the mines, but it certainly sounds plausible. Among my fellow soldiers, others besides myself were worried and angry at the prospect of being sent to the mines.”
Q. Why did you swim the Imjin River when you had a relatively painless escape route through China?
A. “I used to discuss these things with Kim Nam-joon, my friend who ultimately defected with me. At first we did plan to go via China. But then we said, ‘We’re so near the border, why not take the risk now instead of waiting a couple of years to be mustered out?’”
Q. What did you expect after defection?
A. “I didn’t have specific expectations except that South Korea was a more affluent society. I just wanted to get away from the miserable life of North Korea.”
Q. Tell me exactly how you escaped.
A. “We got all our preparations ready. There are four lines of fences, electrified from 6 P.M. to 6 A.M. The first two are 220 volts; the third, 3,300 volts; and the fourth, 10,000 volts. We got some wire cutters for the first two and planned to crawl under the third and fourth. To do that we needed a mine detector. We had guns. The Imjin River was the place where I worked. After cutting the first two fences we came to the 3,300-volt third fence. We had an iron rod and a three-meter rubber hose. The plan was to swing this and throw it at the fence, putting the fuse out. It didn’t work, although there was an enormous electrical flash, like lightning. We defected on September 10. The previous day had been a holiday, so people on the night watch were sleeping on the early morning of the tenth to rest up from the festivities. We accidentally fired a gun once, but they were too sleepy to hear it.
“Since we couldn’t get past the third fence, we crawled back to the night-watch camp and found the soldiers on watch asleeep. Luckily we found a sewer. It was low tide, so there was no water in it. We went through that to the Imjin River. We had life jackets and swam the 4 kilometers across the river, taking three hours. We went to a South Korean Marines camp.”
Q. What are you doing now?
A. “I’m still dealing with the National Security Planning Agency. South Korean people can figure from seeing me whether I’m a North Korean spy or not. I’m attending Kyongwon University, studying administration. I’m also studying hanja. I’m not married yet, but-will marry soon.”
Choi Seung-chan, an army sergeant turned factory supply official, defected in July 1996. When I interviewed him in 1998 he was thirty-one years old. There was no smile on his immobile face. His eyes were wide, his hair combed forward. He had clothed his small frame in a beige suit.
Q. Why did you defect?
A. “I had been in the military for ten years and afterward worked to supply a factory. I came via Kangwha Island, near Inchon. The main reason is, I was watching people starve. While people starve in North Korea, Kim Jong-il only prepares for war. He visits military camps, not the ordinary people. I thought, ‘This country is not for the people, only for the military’ I also heard that South Korea-was richer than North Korea.”
Q. Were you in trouble?
A. “The main trouble I had was starvation. I thought it was better to come to South Korea than to get shot while stealing.”
Q. People in charge of supply are usually better off than the others.
A. “The only advantage I had was more free time than ordinary people had. The problem with working in the supply department was a total lack of supplies for the factory. I had to sell my personal assets to supply the factory. It was a brick factory in Kaesong. That’s my home city.”
Q. Tell me about your family.
A. “I’m the third son of five siblings. Father was retired when I was born. He was a trucker, delivering supplies. He worked for a marble quarry.
Both my parents were Kaesong natives. My father was seventeen when the war broke out. He was a farmer. Seven family members all died from American bombing and my father was severely burned. The family was pro-North so they could remain in Kaesong after the war when others were moved out.”
Q. What was your military assignment?
A. “Sergeant in the Parachute Corps, stationed in Pyongyang.”
Q. Is it true that military units made up of people from one region are always stationed elsewhere so they won’t mind opening fire on the locals in case of demonstrations?
A. “I’m not sure. It’s true that they station people away from their homes, and units can be dispatched to other provinces but not where they’re from, but I don’t know if the reason has to do with demonstrations.”
Q. So in your unit, for example, you met no Pyongyang natives?
A. “Right, basically, although there were some sons of high officials who had been brought up in Pyongyang.”
Q. Why were paratroopers stationed in Pyongyang?
A. “Two missions: One is war reserve. The other is to fight South Korean paratroopers when they come to Pyongyang. I joned in 1983 at sixteen and had my whole tour in Pyongyang.”
Q. Was it a good assignment?
A. (He finally smiles a little.) “I was very proud to be in Pyongyang. I had some free time and was able to relax.”
Q. Rations?
A. “I started in the military in 1983. Rations came at first. But in the end it was terrible. There was no oily food more than once a week. We had meat only on special holidays. Rice couldn’t be cooked properly because of the fuel shortage, so we had to eat it partly cooked.”
Q. Quantity?
A. “We could have only one-third to two-thirds of the standard due to corruption. Higher-ranking soldiers took the food. So when the military came to a village, the local people were afraid because they knew lower-ranking soldiers were hungry and would steal their food.”
Q. You, too?
A. “I had to survive. There was no exception. Villagers understood our problem but asked us not to steal the farmers’ individual crops from their own plots but just take from the collectively grown food.”
Q. When did military theft
of food start?
A. “Before I joined. When I was a private I was ordered to go out and get food. Although I told you the situation was good when I first enlisted, I was speaking in relative terms.”
Q. What was the proportion of stolen to rationed food by 1983?
A. “I was in a seven-man squad. When we went out to steal, we stole 20 kilograms. We did that two or three times a month. The total I stole ?was maybe one ton. Some bad guys would steal a ton at one time, sell it and keep the proceeds for their marriage.”
Q. You knew someone who did that?
Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader Page 78