North Korean elite unhappy with their leader Kim, says defector
SPILLING BEANS: ‘Low-level dissent or criticism of regime is becoming more frequent’
SEOUL: The North Korean elite are outwardly expressing their discontent towards young leader Kim Jong Un and his government as more outside information trickles into the isolated country, North Korea’s former deputy ambassador to London said on Wednesday.
Thae Yong Ho defected to South Korea in August last year and since December 2016 has been speaking to media and appearing on variety television shows to discuss his defection to Seoul and his life as a North Korean envoy.
“When Kim Jong Un first came to power, I was hopeful that he would make reasonable and rational decisions to save North Korea from poverty, but I soon fell into despair watching him purging officials for no proper reasons,” Thae said during his first news conference with foreign media on Wednesday.
“Low-level dissent or criticism of the regime, until recently unthinkable, is becoming more frequent,” said Thae, who spoke in fluent, British-accented English. Thae, 54, has said publicly that dissatisfaction with Kim Jong Un prompted him to flee his post. Two university-age sons living with him and his wife in London also defected with him.
North and South Korea are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict BANGKOK: The highest ranking US officer to visit Thailand since a 2014 coup will attend a military exercise next month in what the Thai army hailed on Wednesday as a sign of improving relations.
The United States scaled down its presence at Cobra Gold, Asia’s largest annual multinational military exercise, as one of the former US administration’s measures to pressure the Thai government to restore democracy.
Relations have since improved as the junta has taken steps towards holding elections — and as Thailand has grown closer to China.
The US embassy confirmed that Admiral Harry Harris, the head of Pacific Command, would open Cobra Gold on February 14. More junior officers attended the exercise in the past two years.
Harris’s attendance was planned before the inauguration of US President Donald Trump, whose policy moves on Asia are closely ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. The North, which is subject to UN sanctions over its nuclear and missile programmes, regularly threatens to destroy the South and its main ally, the United States.
Thae is the most senior official to have fled North Korea and entered public life in the South since the 1997 defection of Hwang Jang Yop, the brains behind the North’s governing ideology, “Juche”, which combines Marxism and extreme nationalism.
Today’s North Korean system had “nothing to do with true communism”, Thae said, adding that the elite, like himself, had watched with unease as countries like Cambodia, Vietnam and watched after signals of potential confrontation with China over trade, Taiwan and claims in the South China Sea.
The US embassy said Cobra Gold would only return to its original scope and scale once Thailand restores democracy.
“We are cooperation eager to fully resume see with our the the former Soviet Union economic and social reforms.
Thae has said that more North Korean diplomats are waiting in Europe to defect to South Korea.
North Korea still outwardly professes to maintain a Soviet-style command economy, but for years a thriving network of informal markets and person-to-person trading has become the main source of food and money for ordinary people.
Fully embracing these reforms would end Kim Jong Un’s rule, Thae said. Asked if Kim Jong Un’s brother, Kim Jong Chol, could run the country instead, Thae remained sceptical. embraced restoration of a democratically elected civilian government,” Melissa Sweeney, a spokeswoman at the US embassy in Bangkok, said.
The United States will send 3,500 personnel to the war games — slightly fewer than last year. Thailand’s army said that Harris’s attendance at Cobra Gold sent an important signal.
“It is not common for an officer of Admiral Harris’ rank to attend these sorts of events,” said General Thanchaiyan Srisuwan, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“It is a good signal for ThaiAmerican relations and shows that the US has given importance to this region and this exercise,” he said.
Thailand has hosted the war games since they began in 1982. This year’s event will be attended by 8,333 personnel from 29 countries. Thai officials said on Wednesday the government had approved 13.5 billion baht ($380 million) to buy a submarine from China after putting the purchase on hold last year.