North Korea Defections on Rise, South Says

[Ray]

North Korea Defections on Rise, South Says

By MARK McDONALD
Published: November 15, 2010



SEOUL, South Korea — Defections from North Korea have risen markedly in recent years, South Korean officials said Monday, driven both by worsening economic conditions and more news from abroad filtering into the secretive communist state.

About 2,900 people defected to the South last year, said Lee Jong-joo, an official with the Unification Ministry, and more than 2,000 have defected so far this year. She cited "humanitarian reasons, including the food situation," as being among the leading reasons cited for defecting and said that 70 percent of defectors were women.......


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North Korea

This happens regularly, this defection.

Would it make any difference?

They move into China (as a Readers Digest stoty) and from there move into South Korea.

Is China in collusion?

What is the game plan?

 

[thakur_ritesh]

This post is Off Topic, kindly excuse, but I thought it was worth it.

I have seen a lot of documentaries on dprk defectors and defections, the life in dprk, the 7day guided tours that get given to foreigners, then an actual defection where a complete family defects and the whole defection gets recorded on camera right from their life back in dprk to making it to rok, where the route taken is dprk-china-laos-thailand-RoK and in between they even get arrested in Thailand but later make it to rok, but right now unable to find that one but here I am sharing this movie which was made on defection, a beautifully made which captures the real tragedy that happens with this individual and his family, a tragic movie indeed but worth it.

Those who have a liking for realistic cinema, it's a must watch. About the movie, Crossing (it's a 10 part movie on youtube, I am just sharing the 1st part, for the rest continue watching on youtube):

Crossing is a Korean movie which is going to be aired in late June 2008. The movie is based on a real story about the life of a North Korean defector and his family.

Actor Cha In-pyo starred as a North Korean coal miner who crossed illegally into China to get medicine for his wife. His wife passed away soon after he crossed the border, and he was separated from his 11-year-old son (played by Shin Myung-chul) who was trying to trace him from North Korea.

The story shares the hardship of North Korean refugees in the late 1990s, with famine striking the country and killed an estimated 1 million people.

The North Koreans couldnt cross into South Korea directly because of landmines and heavy military presence at the border these defectors had to cross into China and made a de-tour to South Korea instead.

The Chinese government, an ally of the North Korean regime, does not recognize the defectors as refugees and would send them back to North Korea to face stiff action.

 

[Ray]

The point that has me perplexed is that is it defection?

Or are they economic refugees?

And are they being conveniently being used as propaganda tools?

 

[thakur_ritesh]

sir real defection these certainly are not. as i see it, there is a two way propaganda here. one side is represented by the rok and the us, the other by the dprk and the prc. russia i dont think figures in as much anymore.

i recall a documentary about this only known person who has defected to rok from the labor camps, who was born in a labor camp and he said for him when he ran away from that labor camp the meaning of freedom was "color". he all his life had not seen any other colored cloths than those worn by prisoners and by the guards and once he ran away he saw people with in dprk wearing different colored cloths and that for him was freedom. there are innumerable documentaries where people say since they used to feel hungry they wanted to move to china.

in the real sense of word these are not defections though that is what the western/rok propaganda would like the world to believe. i am not suggesting life in dprk is anything less than hell, but for people who have no access to outside world, who live in a make believe world where their "great leader" and "dear leader" are treated no less than god, where the state propaganda suggests people in rok live off eating food thrown in garbage, where the only world leaders are stalin and mao, for them their life back home in dprk in their make believe world would be any day better than what they could imagine outside.

its not even economic as much, its just that life with in dprk is very difficult so they crossover to china to get something back from there and in between somewhere they get exposed to the wider world and it is only from this point that the real defection starts to happen, even the movie, corssing, that I have shared above suggests the same but even the defection from china is extremely difficult to do. official data suggests over 0.25million people have crossed over to china but just 20,000 have made it to rok, so it's a very tough game even once these people are in china.