November 30, 2000	atimes.com

The Koreas PYONGYANG WATCH Hwang Jang-yop: an enemy of which state? By Aidan Foster-Carter Remember Hwang Jang-yop? As the self-proclaimed architect and systematizer of North Korea's official juche philosophy - you didn't really think the late Great Leader Kim Il-sung wrote all those big dreary tomes out of his own head, did you? - Hwang was a big cheese in Pyongyang. Big enough to be ranked number 26 on Kim Il-sung's funeral committee in July 1994. Typically of North Korea's elite, his career ranged widely. Born in 1922, he trained as a social scientist and philosopher both in Japan (before 1945) and Moscow. At Kim Il-sung University, whose president he became, his star pupil - a dud and traitor, he now claims - was the young Kim Jong-il. He chaired the foreign affairs committee of the Supreme People's Assembly, North Korea's rubber-stamp parliament. More importantly, he was one of several Secretaries of the ruling Korean Workers' Party. Abroad, Hwang was one of North Korea's leading emissaries to barbarians. Urbane and intelligent, he could be counted on to make Pyongyang's positions sound almost reasonable. (After all, he wrote the book.) When Kim Jong-il took over, Hwang's role broadened from theory to practice. Early in 1997 he was in Japan, ostensibly to hold forth on juche - but behind the scenes to plead for aid. But there was nothing doing, and he feared factional foes would put the knife in when he went home. He was under attack for not sounding militant enough, and had already had secret contacts with South Koreans. So for the wider world Hwang Jang-yop's 15 minutes of fame came in February 1997, when he and an aide did a runner to the South Korean embassy in Beijing. That caused a delicate diplomatic stand-off - especially for China, whose post-Cold War line of being friends with both Koreas was sorely tested. Pyongyang commandos reportedly tried to penetrate his hiding place, but Chinese guards caught them. After several weeks, Hwang was sent to the Philippines. After a decent interval he went on to Seoul, where at first he was lionized as befitted the highest-level Northern defector in half a century. Heavily guarded, he would be produced with a flourish as a star exhibit for selected audiences. I was present at one such occasion, an international political science conference in August 1997. Hwang fielded questions confidently, and had already learned to talk the language of globalization. What a difference three years make. Still cloistered by the South's National Intelligence Service (NIS) - the new nicer name for the dreaded KCIA of yesteryear - Hwang Jang-yop has been a prolific writer, with 12 books and treatises to his name. Most say the same thing - and it's a message fewer South Koreans care to hear these days. Having at first claimed his mission was to make peace between North and South, he rapidly switched to being a fierce critic of Kim Jong-il, accusing him of betraying juche and building feudalism rather than socialism. Strategically, he aligned himself with Southern old-guard conservatives: urging Seoul to beef up its military and intelligence capabilities against a foe still bent on war, and insisting that the Northern regime should be overthrown rather than appeased. Sunshine, anyone? In the new post-summit climate of reconciliation, Hwang Jang-yop finds himself out in the cold. Or worse. On November 20 he accused his hosts of keeping him a virtual prisoner and gagging him. The NIS has turned down requests for interviews by the media and ex-president Kim Young-sam (who takes a similarly hawkish line), claiming Hwang didn't want to meet anyone. The NIS was swift to strike, sacking Hwang from his job as chairman of its Unification Policy Research Institute. Despite insisting it was only guarding Hwang for his own safety, it then said he would be turfed out of his NIS safe house. After an outcry from the opposition and Seoul's leading daily, the conservative Chosun Ilbo, the government now seems to be backtracking. On November 27, ruling party members of the national assembly's intelligence committee (the opposition boycotted it) met NIS chief Lim Dong-won, who said both the safe house and the UPRI job would be reconsidered. Whatever the outcome, the issue - and Hwang - are not about to go away. Many in Seoul who back dialogue with the North are aghast at anything that smacks of gagging free speech: a mirror image of what past Southern dictators did. There is also unease over Lim Dong-won, whose unofficial role as chief architect of the South's "sunshine policy" arguably sits ill with his responsibilities as intelligence chief. And when President Kim Dae-jung picks up his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo next month, some may query his frank comment that now is not the time to raise human rights issues with North Korea. Detente has its moral hazards. "I am a person that has failed in politics." So wrote Hwang Jang-yop just after defecting - an act that will have cost the family he left behind their liberty, if not their lives. His message may be unwelcome, now. But to deny him the freedom for which he sacrificed so much is surely to betray democracy. (Special to Asia Times Online)

Front | China | Southeast Asia | Japan | Koreas | India/Pakistan | Central Asia/Russia | Oceania | Business Briefs | Global Economy | Asian Crisis | Media/IT | Editorials | Letters | Search/Archive

back to the top ©2000 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd. Asia Times Online is designed and produced by Multimedia Asia Co., Ltd.

Korea Asian Sex News | Asian Sex Gazette