Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader

by Martin, Bradley K.

  Q. Had you studied the “Orange Tribe” (as a species of trendy young Seoulites was dubbed in the mid-’90s)?

  A. “We learned all about the people who live here, from the Orange Tribe to beggars. [In spy training] people are classified demographically by occupation and age group. We used audiovisual aids and studied dialects.”

  Q. Were you trusted to know anything whatsoever about South Korea?

  A. “I read all the dailies published in South Korea. We also knew that South Korea was a much freer country with much higher living standards.”

  Q. If they let you know that, how did they keep you loyal?

  A. “Actually they changed the system after the Kim Hyon-hui case. She hadn’t been taught what I was taught about South Korea. She was taught about Western capabilities but she thought South Koreans didn’t live as well as North Koreans. When she was taken to Seoul and saw the South Korean living standards, she betrayed the regime. So they decided it was better to teach the reality to avoid such surprises.”

  Q. But how did they keep you loyal?

  A. “First you should not imagine that we were ordinary North Koreans. Our living standards were up to those of the higher class in South Korea. We would do our best to conduct espionage in South Korea. In the past, though, if spies failed they would commit suicide. What the regime doesn’t know is that the current crop would not commit suicide in case of failure but surrender, since we had learned that defectors live pretty well here.”

  Q. Tell me about your family background and your attitudes toward the regime as you grew up.

  A. “My family was part of the elite. All who attended the academy were selected for good family background, meaning no history of association with South Korea.

  “I was a fanatical believer in the ideology. Every true rejection of ideology has a practical reason. In my case, I had wanted since my childhood to be a diplomat, and I was supposed to go to the External Information Department, the one that Kim Hyon-hui was in. But in my senior year at the foreign language school, I got into a fight with a soldier and that ruined my chances to go to the External Information Department and become a diplomat. Diplomats from my background are in fact spies who spy on other countries, not on other North Korean diplomats. Instead I had to go to the Central Party Espionage Department’s Strategic Division.

  “At the Kim Jong-il Political-Military Academy my ideology began to change. Ideological change combined with the damage to my career made me turn against the regime. I always knew about the discrepancies in the North Korean regime and felt dissatisfaction, but the main point that made me defect was this: If you’re in the Strategic Department you can no longer meet your parents or other family members. You live like the upper class but you’re isolated all your life.”

  Q. Why isolated?

  A. “Three reasons. First, we had been exposed to the realities of capitalist countries and the regime was afraid we might influence others who had not. Second, they also feared that ordinary people would see our much more opulent lifestyle and resent it. Finally, many trainees were killed in training, which could cause problems with parents—it was thought best they not know what we were doing.”

  Q. But wouldn’t the first reason have applied also to ordinary diplomats, who weren’t isolated?

  A. “Diplomats know, but they don’t have the detailed knowledge of South Korean society that I was taught. Anyhow, diplomats who graduate from the academy are also isolated.”

  Q. So you had expected isolation anyhow?

  A. “Yes. But if I had become a diplomat the isolation wouldn’t have been so extreme—I would have had occasional chances to meeet my family. Also, the work-wouldn’t have been so strenuous.”

  Q. You were isolated from women?

  A. “When I was at the language school I had friends who were girls, but the instant I entered the academy I was isolated from them. Once I reached twenty-eight or twenty-nine I would be given ten to fifteen days to get a woman. I would write to request my parents to propose a bride for me, then I’d go marry her and bring her back. In the agency there are a couple of women, but they are in great demand.”

  Q. Any other reasons for your disappointment besides the isolated life?

  A. “In the Strategic Division, there was lots of strenuous training. And I would have to kill people even though I didn’t want to.”

  Q. You disliked your assignment in Strategic? (I waited for him to mention any moral repugnance or sense of injustice.)

  A. “Yes. While I was growing up my parents always taught me to be good. In the Strategic Department they teach you to hurt or kill others to protect yourself. It bothered me.”

  Q. Did you have a moral objection or was it more a matter ofconvenience?

  A. “It cannot be only a matter of convenience. I just couldn’t stand doing over and over all my life things I didn’t want to do.”

  Q. What was your opinion of your unit’s basic mission of destroying South Korea?

  A. “That it was possible and necessary in order for there to be reunification on Kim Il-sung’s and Kim Jong-il’s terms.”

  Q. The end justifies the means?

  A. “Yes.”

  Q. (I told him about the chemical warfare colonel who wanted to wipe out the whole South Korean population.) Is there a lot of such thinking in North Korea, that the end justifies the means?

  A. “No one ought to say we should kill all the 40 million civilians in South Korea. I was taught we should not kill all the South Koreans, but if they opposed our regime then we would kill them.”

  Q. Have you met Lee Chong-guk (the man who had issued the chemical warfare warning), the only defector I’ve met who didn’t describe any personal problem as part of his motivation for defecting?

  A. “Most of those who escaped from North Korea are people who couldn’t stand their low living standards. I also am surprised by Lee Chong-guk. Could it be possible to defect with no reason?

  “In my case, if you asked for the one big reason I defected I would answer: Being exposed to unlimiited outside information I realized that if reunification came it would be by North Korean collapse or absorption into South Korea. I would become unemployed and because of my status as a spy my parents would be in danger.” Q. Do you think any of the defectors is an agent provocateur? A. “I don’t think so. That’s not the way they infiltrate spies into South Korea.”

  Q. Tell me more about the spy trainee lifestyle.

  A. “Rations for us were different. I got high-quality rice, 900 grams a day eggs, chocolate, butter, drinks. At the academy I lived in a dorm, four people to a room equipped with air conditioning, television, video, refrigerator. After graduation and before I defected I was in an accommodation of that same standard.

  “I graduated May 20, 1993, then defected on September 4. In the interim I spent one month practicing infiltration by water—swimming, scuba practice. The second month I studied taekwondo; the third month, wireless telecommunications plus reality training in a facility resembling South Korea.

  “A big tunnel, 12 meters high, 30 meters wide and 8 kilometers long, in the same area as the KJIPMA contains a 100 by 50 meter scale model of Seoul and, separately, approximately one-fourth-scale mockups of some of the more important institutions. I remember seeing the Blue House, the police department, the Agency for National Security Planning, the Kyobo Building, the Shilla Hotel, Lotte and Shinsegye department stores, as well as small cafes. When you walked through the streets you felt you were there: discos, South Korean–made cars, South Korean products inside the buildings. The scale model of all of Seoul has all the important buildings in Seoul, and the sub-way entrances. Next to each building is a brochure showing its whole interior.

  “In the tunnel they broadcast all the programs from South Korean television and radio. It was my work to watch and listen. Even during practice sessions we had transistor radios attached to our belts and continually listened. In the tunnel you get 700,000 to 800,000 South Korean won in fifteen days an
d you have to use it up. The tunnel has its own economy. You live there fifteen days or one month a year for training and during that time you buy products.”

  (I nearly gasped in wonderment as Ahn described that elaborate facility set up to train spies in conspicuous consumption while much of the rest of the population went hungry. To me it remains an unforgettable image.)

  “I’ve been in there three times. It’s like a holiday. But there aren’t any girls in the discos. Men demonstrate how the hostesses pour drinks.

  If women were inside the tunnel it would be too much like South Korean society and there would be trouble. But we were instructed in how to interact with South Korean women.

  “Training in the tunnel was to enable us to meet other spies, kidnap important officials and so on. Fifty South Koreans have been kidnapped. The people who teach you South Korean customs and dialect in the tunnels were kidnapped from South Korea. The authorities wanted to bring important figures for that, but it’s hard, so those were ordinary citizens. One was a university student who was kidnapped while camping in a tent with friends during vacation in a coastal area. Basically the whole practice drill is so that we can adapt ourselves to South Korean ways during peacetime missions to the South.

  “We got other training for wartime. We practiced wartime kidnapping of generals from a moving vehicle, and from a building whose security force we had to penetrate. We learned to destroy South Korean telecommunications, get on a warship secretly and destroy it, bomb an institution. We had highly developed light-weight explosives and learned the basic structure of a ship, the layout of the bridge, where to plant the explosives.”

  Q. Does the regime plan reunification by force?

  A. “They always have that dream of reunifying through force, but there aren’t enough resources now—they’re very weak. So they’re trying to find other ways. Thus, they’re holding the nuclear card and trying to negotiate. Whenever they get their strength back they’ll start dreaming their dreams again. Peaceful reunification can only occur through capitalist South Korean society overtaking North Korea. [If a federation or confederation is arranged] people in North Korea will be influenced by the lifestyle of the South and will oppose the northern regime. So to maintain their regime they believe they have to take over South Korea and get rid of capitalist ideas. They teach you that.”

  Q. The elite must save their positions?

  A. “They don’t put it that way They would say ‘for the people.’ They say that basically socialism is for the people while capitalism is for an elite few. They propagandize by saying if North Korea is absorbed into South Korea it will be a world for the small elite instead of a society for the people.”

  Q. How could anyone believe that in a country where the elite live well and the people live like dogs?

  A. “Ordinary North Koreans didn’t know the real circumstances in South Korea. They’re brain-washed. Now, most North Koreans do know that South Korea is wealthier. There’s been a lot ofchange in the way people think since the 1989 youth festival brought lots of capitalistic lifestyle into the country. But even ifthey acknowledge that South Korea is wealthy, people believe that ifreunification takes place they have to take its wealth and distribute it among themselves.”

  Q. How firmly are reunification and food supplies linked together in North Koreans’ minds?

  A. “Reunification is not the only prospect for eating well, but food is one factor in their hope for reunification.”

  Q. What’s the level of fanaticism among student spies?

  A. “At the academy there are between three hundred and four hundred students, sixty to eighty per class year. I have no way of knowing how many are fanatics. But not all are. And even those who are fanatic adopt that posture because it’s the way to get ahead. They aren’t fanatics on general principle. If the North Korean regime were to collapse, the people who would be the leaders in helping to bring it down would be the people in the South Korea infiltration unit.”

  Q. Did people say that?

  A. “I never heard such talk, it’s just an opinion. There’s a saying in North Korea: ‘The dog you trust the most will bite you.’ I did hear that saying. The people in the division hate Kim Jong-il more than anyone else does. Everyone used to be willing to sacrifice for the mission, for Kim Jong-il. But some things happened to change that. In 1989, he visited the South Korea infiltration division. He likes speed. He got on one of the speedboats there. And he did lots of promiscuous stuff with women he had brought there. People talked against him— ‘How come we sacrifice for him?’ Eight people disappeared suddenly after Kim Jong-il’s bodyguards ratted on them.

  “There was the Kim Hyon-hui case, too. She did her best, but when she was caught her parents were sent to a camp. The old man who died on that mission—Kim Sung-il—his family-was sent to prison. After seeing that, we thought, ‘No matter what we do, if our missions become known to the world we’ll be in trouble.’ So we were very unsure about our futures. Even if-we did our missions well, if the fact we had done espionage became known our families would be sent to political prisons.”

  Q. Did you meet Kim Jong-il?

  A. “I never personally met him but saw him during training.”

  Q. Does he have a speaking problem?

  A. “I hear he speaks well one-on-one, but doesn’t talk in a very courteous way. He’s not deferential.” (Ahn interjected that he admired my “objectivity.” The regime hated that, he said. It wanted people to be either positive or negative. If they-were negative, it could change them.)

  “High officials in North Korea are getting prepared just in case the regime collapses. All ordinary people hate the elite and everyone hates Kim Jong-il. Ordinary people still worship Kim Il-sung.”

  Q. How did you escape?

  A. “I made a run across the DMZ into Kyonggi Province, carrying two bombs to blow myself up if necessary an AK47 assault rifle and a small pistol [assembled on the pretense of a training session]. The South Koreans saw me cross. I headed for a South Korean camp. No North Koreans noticed me leave.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Neither Land nor People at Peace

  “The Supreme Committee for the Struggle of National Salvation has reviewed Kim Il-sung’s and Kim Jong-il’s crimes, and sentences them to seizure of their wealth and execution.”

  Lim Young-sun claimed to have printed that sentence on slips of paper, then distributed them in the northeastern part of North Korea in September 1991. On the reverse side of the fliers, which were about one-fifth the size of a standard sheet of typing paper, was this further message: “All you soldiers and working citizens, form combat units and fight. Hurray for a triumphant, free people!” The former People’s Army first lieutenant said that he and some anti-regime colleagues had carved a rubber stamp from a tire to print the fliers. He picked up a young woman passenger and bribed the conductor to give them both seats on the crowded train, then used his chatting with her as a cover while he tossed handfuls of fliers from the window as the train moved through the desolate region. Lim’s motive? As usual with defectors, it had begun with personal disappointment. Lim said he was outraged that his father had been mistreated by the regime and that his own career was limited on account of questionable family background. In his twenties, he “decided to get revenge on the regime for what it had done to my family name.”

  A slender, rather good-looking man, Lim was thirty when I met him in 1994. (Yes, he wore a gold watch.) “When I started learning to write,” he told me, “the first thing I learned to write—even before my own name—-was ‘Kim Il-sung’. Even though I didn’t know my parents’ birthdays, I knew the birthdays of Kim Il-sung and his ancestors. I was a very ideal student. I participated in a parade with Kim Il-sung and went on stage wearing a red kerchief as a children’s corps member. I don’t know if you could call it love, but I did revere Kim Il-sung and I would have done anything at all to show my loyalty. The whole process of daily life is a testing of loyalty toward Kim Il-sung. I just th
ought everybody lived that way It seemed normal to me at the time. I was in my twenties before I started thinking it was strange.

  “Father came from South Korea to the North during the Korean War. He was a volunteer in the Uiyonggun, the army of South Koreans fighting on the North Korean side. All those were volunteers. But there are always conflicts between Koreans from different regions. North Koreans don’t like South Koreans, because they’re more intelligent and better educated, and they have the potential to take over the regime. Father was one of the five best architects in North Korea, but his work was not properly acknowledged as the others’ work was. He resented that. Superiors or subordinates were given credit for his work. People from South Korea always confront a limit. It’s hard to break through that, regardless of your abilities.”