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| Korea |
| Top North Korean Defector Leaves for U.S. |
| 2003-10-27 |
| SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The highest-ranking defector from North Korea, a man who once mentored leader Kim Jong Il, left for the United States on Monday in a trip that could further strain relations between Washington and the communist state amid tension over its nuclear weapons program. "further"? Hwang Jang Yop, who defected to Seoul in 1997, has been invited several times to speak before a U.S. congressional hearing, he had not been allowed to travel outside South Korea until now. He has accused the South Korean government of restricting his movements. Hwang, 81, was once chief of North Korea’s parliament. When he came to Seoul, South Korea hailed his defection as an intelligence bonanza, while the North denounced him as a traitor. In South Korea, Hwang lives under tight security and has written books and given lectures condemning Kim’s regime as totalitarian. In an interview with the national news agency Yonhap last week, Hwang said the Washington trip was part of his campaign to ``save the North Korean people moaning under the dictatorship of Kim Jong Il.’’ ``Any struggle against the Kim Jong Il dictatorship cannot be separated from an alliance with the United States, which is the center of the world’s democratic forces,’’ he said. Maybe he should stay in South Korea and educate the folks there. South Korean authorities revealed few details about Hwang’s weeklong trip to Washington, except that he would attend a forum organized by the Washington-based conservative policy group, Defense Forum Foundation, on Friday. Hwang left for Washington on a Korean Air flight. Authorities kept him out of the sight of journalists at an airport outside Seoul. Until now, South Korea had opposed Hwang’s U.S. trip, fearing his outspoken criticism of Kim in the United States would hurt Seoul’s efforts to reconcile with Pyongyang. Once ammunition for South Korea’s propaganda war with North Korea, Hwang’s criticism of Pyongyang lost currency in South Korea as the South pushed its so-called ``sunshine’’ policy of engaging the North in dialogue. Hwang once headed the prestigious Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang and is known as the architect of North Korea’s guiding philosophy - juche, or self-reliance. The architect of juche? Is he also the father of white slag? He served three times as chairman of the legislature, the Supreme People’s Assembly. He was a member of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers Party, when he defected in Beijing in 1997 with an aide, Kim Duk Hong, on his way home from an academic seminar in Japan. Wonder what made him defect? I don’t think it was his conscience. Hwang said last week that his juche philosophy degenerated into ``dictatorship by a one-man leader’’ under Kim Jong Il and a ``combination of Stalinism and patriarchal despotism.’’ Wotta surprise. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #3 |
| Posted by: .com 2003-10-27 3:36:10 AM |
| #2 |
| Posted by: Crescend 2003-10-27 3:05:38 AM |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Charles 2003-10-27 2:37:25 AM |