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A group of 13 North Koreans working at the Ryukyung restaurant in Ningbo, in China’s Zhejiang Province, may have been transported to South Korea against their will in 2016. (Yonhap News)
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NIS suspected of orchestrating “defection” of North Koreans to South Korea to sway 2016 general election
The circumstances of the defection in Apr. 2016 by a group of North Koreans working at a restaurant in China are returning to the spotlight after several of those workers testified that they had not traveled to South Korea of their own free will. When the administration of former president Park Geun-hye announced the defectors’ arrival in South Korea just five days before the general election on Apr. 13, it was accused of orchestrating the group’s defection to sway the election. If true, this is expected to lead to calls for the defectors to be returned to North Korea. An individual surnamed Heo, who was the manager at the Ryukyung restaurant in Ningbo, a city in China’s Zhejiang Province, in 2016, said during the May 10 episode of Lee Gyu-yeon’s Spotlight on JTBC that he had defected to South Korea with the employees on orders from South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS). According to the program, Heo never told the employees they were going to South Korea during the entire process, and the employees rode taxis to Shanghai and boarded a plane bound for Malaysia without knowing what was going on. “After arriving in Malaysia, we got in a taxi and went somewhere. It was the South Korean embassy. That was the first time I heard we were going to South Korea,” one of the employees said. “At the South Korean embassy, we had to sign a statement that we had defected of our own free will. Since we couldn’t go back to North Korea, we didn’t have a choice,” another employee said. Some defectors want to repatriate to North Korea “Even now, I’d like to go back to my mother if only that were possible,” one employee said. The employees’ testimony contradicted the government’s explanation. “While living overseas, the employees learned about the reality in South Korea and the falsehood of the North Korean regime through South Korean TV programs, films, and websites, and they recently made up their mind to defect in a group,” an official from the Unification Ministry said during a press conference held the day after the defectors arrived in South Korea. One employee was also quoted as saying, “We were in agreement about coming to South Korea, and none of us opposed it.” Since the Unification Ministry made its announcement just five days before the parliamentary elections, there were accusations that the defection had been engineered to influence the election, but that was denied by the Park administration. After the employees’ testimony was broadcast, the government announced that it would look into their testimony. “Fresh claims have been made about how the group of defectors reached South Korea and about the question of their free will. We’ll need to look into the facts,” Unification Ministry Spokesperson Baik Tae-hyun said during the regular press briefing on May 11. If it turns out that some members of the group of defectors entered South Korea against their free will, it is expected to prompt a debate about their repatriation. There are even predictions that their repatriation could dovetail with the return of six South Korean citizens who are detained in the North. When asked whether it would be possible to exchange the group of defectors with South Koreans who are detained in North Korea, a senior official at the Blue House declined to comment. “We will let you know if there is any progress,” the official said. By Yoo Kang-moon, senior staff writer Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
