North Korean Defector Urges to Reunify to Survive the North
Story and photos by Chhay Sophal
Cambodia News
Seoul, South Korea (March 26, 2018): Living in Seoul, no one knows that Kim is a North Korean defector until he speaks out.
About 16 years ago, Kim arrived in Seoul through Cambodia after he crossed the borders of communist China and Vietnam with the help from Chinese mafia. In North Korea, Kim studied IT but he had little chance to serve the isolated nation.
In his home village of North Korea, Kim listened to only one radio channel and watch only one TV channel broadcasting the communist ideology of North Korea, attacking America and its allies, including reactionary South Korea.
When he arrived the first time in Cambodia, he felt amazing that the country is enjoying democracy unlike the three countries where he used to live and cross.
“I arrived in Cambodia from North Korea by crossing a border of China with Chinese mafia to Hanoi. When I reached Phnom Penh, I got help from South Korean citizens,” Kim told a group of foreign journalists from 15 countries led by Asian Journalists Association through an interpreter at the Unification Foundation Office on 9 March.
“I stayed in Phnom Penh about three months and I liked it very much, especially the night market. Cambodia is a democratic country unlike North Korea where everything is closed. I usually played badminton during my stay in Phnom Penh,” he told Cambodia News, adding that Cambodia has many radio and TV stations unlike North Korea.
Kim now works at a private company with no fear in Seoul, South Korea, where some 300.000 North Korean defectors are also living.
Unification Foundation is an NGO help NGOs for Korean unification. Established in 2015, it designs its mission to act as the embodiment of hope of Korean unification.
According to an annual report of the Unification Foundation, the Foundation created its UniKorea Fund to be used solely for the sake of preparing and being ready for the unpredictable moment of unification. As of 2016, the Foundation was listed as the body that collected the second largest funds from donations in just two years with the record of more than US$265.
“The UniKorea Fund will be the cornerstone of civil moment on unification and will be sure to faithfully take on the role of utilizing the contributions with specific and practical preparations, up to the day of unification of the Korean peninsula and into the new future of unified Korea,” Ahn Byeong-hoon wrote in an annual report of Unification Foundation.
Several Korean citizens talked to Cambodia News in Seoul said similarly that they wanted to meet and talk with each other first before reunification is made.
“Let ordinary citizens meet together first, especially the family members who separated after the country divided in 1947. Let them meet and exchange information and situation to each other, so we can see what both sides want,” said one South Korean citizen who ask not to be identified.
On March 7, 2018, Dr. Lee Choon-hee, South Korea’s Sejong Mayor, told the group of journalists led by the Seoul-based Journalists Association of Korea in his office that reunification need needed but time is important.
Dr. Lee, however, said Korea was divided by international politics, so the reunification must be involved by the international community.
Korean Reunification has been hurled around the globe and after the 2018 Pyeong Chang Winter Olympics and Paralympics in March, the movement for peace and reconciliation in the Korean peninsular is at dawn.
Another good sign is the planned meeting between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un in April at the border divided the two Koreas before Jong-un plans to meet US President Donald Trump in May.
For Kim whose parents are living in North Korea, he now feels safe and enjoys his life in civilized Seoul. What he wishes is letting the divided Korea to unite in order to reach peace in the Korean peninsula.
“I hope that Korea will be able to reunify very soon and live together in peace and development,” he said.
