Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty (105 page)

Q. Soldiers serve for ten years or so. Do they go without sex all that time?

A. “Although it’s not allowed, guys fantasize and masturbate. Others go to nearby villages and rape women, or seduce them with promises of marriage. Officers who have graduated from the military academy are allowed to marry and bring their wives to the camp. I was married. I never heard the word ‘homosexual’ until I came to South Korea, but I saw a lot of that in the military. The veterans would latch onto new, seventeen-year-old recruits. It’s not like homosexuality in the West. It’s just that there are no women. In their sleep, the men are lined up in their bunks. A young guy with soft skin may seem like a woman. Around half of the soldiers were involved in that sort of thing.”

Q. Did you notice any changes in the military from the cultural inroads made by foreigners at the 1989 youth festival?

A. “No. In the military you can’t satisfy your cultural wishes. There wan’t that big a change. From a foreigner’s viewpoint it may have seemed bigger. The government made people wear colorful clothing, and brought in discos and disco music. A foreigner may have imagined North Korean society had opened up, but the government’s policy actually has become more rigid by the year in terms of restraints on behavior. Kim Jong-il has a slogan about openness. ‘If you want openness, you open a window.

But flies and mosquitoes can come in then. So we’ll have mosquito nets.’ We actually had to become more tightly knit than before, rather than opening up.”

Q. What do you think about Radio Free Asia?

A. “It’s a very good idea. I have a lot of expectations for the U.S. role in opening up North Korea. South Korea has limitations in dealing with that. The U.S. should do its utmost to knock at the door and make the North Koreans open up.”

Q. What about radio availability?

A. “Most people don’t have radios. If people could listen to this kind of broadcast the regime would have collapsed years ago. The people who can listen are those who already have power—those in the central committee of the party.”

Kim Kwang-choon, the master sergeant on the front line who defected in 1989 with Kim Nam-joon by swimming the Imjin River, was a handsome, clear-eyed man of twenty-nine when I met him in 1994. He was quite short. If I had not known he was Korean I would have assumed from his appearance that he was Southeast Asian, perhaps Thai.

A native ofPyongsong in South Pyongan province, Kim had been assigned for eight years to security details ofthe city ofKaesong, just north of the border. “While I was working near Panmunjom I got to know about Seoul and South Korea,” he told me. “When you first enter the military you don’t know, but ifyou work four or five years around the DMZ you get to realize what’s happening. There’s an atmosphere of war. Both sides spread leaflets and broadcast propaganda. South Korea gives away watches and stockings, and the South Korean literature includes articles from newspapers like
Dong-A Ilbo
and
Chosun Ilbo.
The watches are electronic. Now that I’m in the South I see them everywhere. They’re pretty cheap, too. The South Koreans would send up balloons filled with those materials during the night. They were supposed to explode after two hours—usually around Kaesong. So I would pick them up. I had to give them to State Security, but while picking them up I got to see the materials.”

Q. I notice that just about every defector I’ve interviewed so far, including you, has worn a fancy gold watch.

A. “When I came South I bought a gold-plated Seiko. In North Korea gold is very rare, so every defector wants a gold watch. A government person takes us to a watch store and says, ‘Pick the one you want.’ Then the government pays for it.”

Q. You were able to read
Dong-A Ilbo
and
Chosun Ilbo
even though the North Korean school system doesn’t teach Chinese characters?

A. “This is part of psychological warfare. The Ministry of National Defense in Seoul replaces the
hanja
[Chinese characters, which are used by most South Korean publishers for many loan words] and reprints the articles all in
hangul
[the indigenous Korean alphabet, which is used in combination with
hanja
in the South but whose use Kim Il-sung made exclusive in the North as an affirmation of linguistic nationalism]. Sometimes they leave the
hanja
in, but we can try to guess the meanings.

“When I was low-ranked I couldn’t look at those. I had to turn them in. Actually I didn’t even want to read them. But later, starting around 1986 as I got promoted in rank, I was able to read them secretly in the woods. I didn’t really grasp the South Korean political scene, but I read articles on foreign affairs and the outside world. I got interested in articles about demonstrations and crime. I was fascinated because in North Korea you couldn’t possibly dream of having a demonstration or riot. I was amazed that people could have their voices, could even criticize the head of state. I read a lot of articles on that. I was very surprised and thought, ‘There must be a lot of freedom in South Korea for them to have these demonstrations.”

Q. Why were you interested in crime stories?

A. “In North Korea they don’t put that bad stuff in the papers. At first I thought South Korea must be in turmoil. Everybody must be a criminal. Ultimately, I started thinking that South Koreans must have a lot of time for theft and such. It must be an individualistic society.”

Q. How could you think such thoughts, having been raised in North Korea?

A. [Evidently he didn’t quite get the question.] “Even to this day I don’t know how I defected. But to tell you the truth, it was the lack of material goods in North Korea that made me defect. The biggest difference between South and North is that the North Korean economy is based on rationing. I realized that South Korea was a free-market society where people could go to the market and get what they liked.”

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.”