美国国家公共电台 NPR For A North Korean Defector Turned Journalist, Warming Ties Are Cause For Worry

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NOEL KING, HOST:

The leaders of North and South Korea met three times in 2018. That was unprecedented¹. But during all of this diplomacy², people who have actually lived under the North Korean regime, defectors, have urged some caution. From Seoul, NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports on one of those people.

ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE³: Kim Myong Song remembers rushing to cover a high-level meeting of North and South Korean officials early one morning in October. Kim is a reporter for one of the country's biggest daily newspapers, The Chosun Ilbo. He also happens to be a defector from North Korea. On the way to the meeting, Kim says, South Korea's unification ministry⁴, which is in charge of inter-Korean relations, called and barred him from covering the event.

KIM MYONG SONG: (Through interpreter) I felt so betrayed and angry. I could understand it if I was an inexperienced newcomer, but I've been covering the ministry for six years.

KUHN: The ministry never really explained why they barred Kim. Its actions come at a time when the leaders of the two Koreas seem intent on taking unprecedented steps towards improving relations. Speaking at a cafe near the ministry, Kim says officials were apparently⁵ concerned that having a defector in the room could offend the North Korean officials and derail the talks.

KIM: (Through interpreter) North Korea considers defectors as traitors⁶ to the country and the people, and they harshly criticize their activities in South Korea.

KUHN: Other journalists, defectors and human rights activists⁷ sprang to Kim's defense⁸ and slammed the ministry's action. Among them was defector Choi Kyong Hui, president of a civic⁹ group called South and North Development. She points out that Kim was going to cover talks in South Korea, not North Korea.

CHOI KYONG HUI: (Through interpreter) In a democratic society, no individual or official has the right to restrict journalists working for the people's right to know.

KUHN: The ministry later met with defector groups, but they never apologized to Kim. Kim left North Korea in the 1990s after listening to South Korean radio broadcasts. He was amazed to learn from them that North Korea's poverty and famine were largely the result of its own policies.

KIM: (Through interpreter) Once I found the truth, I grew to hate the North Korean regime. I didn't want to sit and watch the North Korean television jabber¹⁰ every day. I felt a strong urge to experience life in the outside world.

KUHN: After years on the run in China, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, Kim finally made it to South Korea in 2002. Now, Kim says he fears that amid the diplomatic courtship between the two Koreas, defectors are being silenced, and South Korea may be falling into a trap.

KIM: (Through interpreter) Our government is betting everything on peace negotiation¹¹ with the North. I'm concerned that they're leaning too far to one side. The nature of the North Korean regime hasn't changed.

KUHN: President Moon Jae-in is himself a veteran human rights lawyer, and he's spoken up for press freedoms. But Moon Chung-in, a special adviser¹² to the president on foreign affairs and national security, says that this administration wants to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue first.

MOON CHUNG-IN: North Korean defectors might not enjoy the same benefit as they enjoyed during the previous, you know, two conservative governments, but that's a reality. Face it.

KUHN: Such talk makes Kim Myong Song apprehensive¹³ about his future as a journalist. He says before the government banned him from covering the inter-Korean meeting, the peace process had actually given him hope that someday he could report from Pyongyang as a South Korean correspondent. Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Seoul.

(SOUNDBITE OF SOULAR ORDER'S "COMING HOME")