hankyoreh

Ryukyung restaurant in Ningbo

“I feel like this groundless rumor isn’t even worth responding to,” snapped Unification Ministry Spokesperson Jeong Joon-hee on Apr. 18. This was the government’s official response to North Korea’s claim that the North Korean employees who were part of a “group defection” loudly announced by Seoul had actually been “lured away and kidnapped.”

But Jeong did not offer any explanation in support of his repeated dismissal of North Korea’s claim as a “groundless rumor.”

A little over 10 days later, there has been a definite change in the government’s stance. The official briefing about the group defection that took place five days before the general election; the back-to-back background briefings by senior officials in the Unification Ministry and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday, three days before the election; the factual confirmations of “high-ranking” North Koreans who had defected last year that came out two days before the election - all of this attention-grabbing behavior was not only irregular but indeed conflicted with the government‘s official policy regarding defectors.

The Blue House’s attempt to scare voters with the specter of North Korea was pathetic and showed that such tactics no longer work with voters.

After the general election, the government made an abrupt shift to silent mode, as if it just wanted to forget about the defectors. But we cannot forget them like this. Whether North Koreans or South Koreans, people must not be treated so flippantly.

There are even doubts about how sure Unification Ministry officials were about the information that they were so eager to make public before the general elections.

At the time, a number of officials provided reporters with all kinds of unconfirmed spy reports about North Korea, claiming that the reports had been provided by a “relevant organization.” It was enough to make one think that the North Korean regime was on the verge of being snuffed out.

Even if the Blue House had given orders or applied pressure, the Unification Ministry is not supposed to be an errand boy for the Blue House or a proxy for the “relevant organization” - which is to say, the National Intelligence Service.

No wonder a number of reporters sardonically suggested that the National Intelligence Service should take over the briefings from that point forward.

It appears that the shutdown of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, which President Park Geun-hye was behind, and the emergency announcement about the group defection, which the Blue House orchestrated, were actions that had less to do with inter-Korean relations than with domestic politics, and in particular the general elections.

Indeed, the suddenness of it all - it took the 13 restaurant workers less than two days to depart the Chinese city of Ningbo, pass through Shanghai and Malaysia and reach Incheon Airport, and just one day after arriving in South Korea, a public briefing about the group defection was held, complete with their pictures - would be inexplicable if not for the impending general election. Without the active intervention of a government agency like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the National Intelligence Service, it would have been impossible for 13 North Korean passport holders to make it from Ningbo, China, to Incheon Airport in just two days.

A number of circumstances and various remarks suggest that the Blue House was behind the whole affair. It is a violation of the constitution for public officials to meddle in a general election. This is a time to determine the truth about who was meddling, how they did it, and why - and to hold them responsible. We have to find out whether this was the product of excessive loyalty inside the Blue House or whether some other faction was involved.

The truth about the group defection remains unclear.

The family of Kim Man-cheol held a press conference after their defection in 1987, at the end of Chun Doo-hwan’s presidency, while the family of Kim Gyeong-ho did the same thing in 1996, at the end of Kim Young-sam’s presidency.

This time, for one reason or the other, the show ended with the revelation of one photograph of women wearing colorful costumes. There were plenty of pronouncements by government organizations, but there has been no chance to hear the defectors speak for themselves.

Considering that the Park administration broke its own rules by officially announcing the group defection, it is hard to swallow its claim that it is not putting the defectors in front of cameras or microphones in order to protect their human rights.

With South Korea calling it a “group defection” and North Korea countering that the employees were “lured away and kidnapped,” the truth is bound to come out one way or another. But whatever may happen in the future, the lives, safety and happiness of these 13 people must be carefully protected by the governments of both North and South Korea.

By Kim Jin-cheol, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]