SKorea says regrets North's ‘political’ use of defector

By Alex Jensen

SEOUL

South Korea called into question Wednesday a North Korean refugee’s statements on apparently returning to her homeland, accusing Pyongyang of "distorting the facts".

Son Ok-soon’s video testimony criticizing life in the South was released by Pyongyang’s official Uriminzokkiri media outlet Saturday. It showed Son crying and tearing pages from her 2012 book Longing For Light -- which detailed her escape from North Korea 16 years ago.

Back in 2000, she was known then as the prayerful Esther Joo, but was portrayed by Pyongyang over the weekend as somewhat dubiously repenting for her sins against North Korea’s leadership and praising the state’s healthcare and housing.

She also claimed that South Korea’s democracy is undermined by political in-fighting, the world’s highest suicide rate, and a corrupt relationship between the National Intelligence Service and Christian human rights activists.

Seoul’s response was brief when contacted by Anadolu Agency on Wednesday.

The unification ministry said that the government found it “deeply regrettable that North Korea is distorting the facts and using the cases for their political propaganda”.

Son Ok-soon is not the first double defector to be paraded by North Korean media, but the South Korean government might have pointed out the World Health Organization’s estimate that the North has an even higher suicide rate, or that a prosperous democracy presently appears a distant dream under Kim Jong-un’s dictatorship.

It begs the question: why would anyone who has successfully managed to escape North Korea -- from where travel is highly restricted -- want to return?

Teach North Korean Refugees (TNKR) co-founder Casey Lartigue says that a lack of freedom in the South could be the answer,

Lartigue has worked with hundreds of refugees out of TNKR’s Seoul’s office. One of the most celebrated to have come through his doors has been 22-year-old Park Yeon-mi, author of In Order to Live.

“North Korea makes it an all-or-nothing decision to escape, and South Korea closes the door on refugees after they arrive,” Lartigue told Anadolu Agency.

“Unfortunately, because of the slow-motion war between the two Koreas, people aren't free to find which part of Korea they want to be in.”

It is true that an uneasy truce has made inter-Korean cooperation of all kinds a major challenge since the official close of the 1950-53 Korean War -- the optimism surrounding family reunions last October evaporated with a bilateral dialogue breakdown before Christmas.

South Korea is undoubtedly a tough place for those North Koreans who do risk the journey -- an official report out of the South last month showed that life became even harder the longer refugees stayed, suggesting disadvantages in the job market.

Still, Seoul has recorded more than 28,000 arrivals from North Korea since the latter was struck by a major famine in the 1990s.

The South’s unification ministry says that they are provided “with a variety of basic benefits” after a three-month orientation at settlement centers.

Lartigue insists that South Korea does more than most to accommodate them.

“These stories should be a wake up call to the world that more people need to open their hearts and countries need to open their borders to North Koreans struggling with being outside of North Korea, " he said.

"North Korean refugees who went to other countries before coming to South Korea say that the benefits offered here are like heaven. Compare that with the support North Korean refugees get when they go to the USA or Canada.”