Nine in 10 defectors wished for unification while living in North Korea — poll

SEOUL: Nine out of 10 North Korean defectors believed inter-Korean unification was very much needed when they lived in the North, according to a poll released yesterday, reported Yonhap news agency.

The poll, based on interviews with 87 defectors, by the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University, showed 90.8 per cent of respondents saying that they thought unification was very necessary during their stay in the North. The interviews were conducted in one-to-one meetings between June and August.

In a similar survey held last year, 95.5 per cent gave such an answer.

Factoring in that an additional 4.6 per cent said they considered unification somewhat necessary, almost all North Korean defectors wished for unification before defecting to the South, the institute said.

Asked why unification is necessary, 41.4 per cent pointed to South and North Koreans being of the same ethnicity, followed by prosperity of the North Korean people (29.9 per cent) and elimination of war threat (13.8 per cent), it said.

Ninety-three per cent of the defectors said North Korean people are very much in need of unification.

Asked to pick a system of government, 32.2 per cent supported South Korea’s current system, while 29.9 per cent favoured a compromise of the two Koreas’ systems. Only 5.7 per cent said they prefer North Korea’s current system.

Asked if they thought unification would be possible while they were in the North, 57.5 per cent said they believed unification to be impossible. In last year’s poll, 55.3 per cent gave such an answer.

Twenty-one per cent of the defectors said unification is possible within a decade, while 13.8 per cent said unification is possible within 30 years.

“The survey found that the North Korean people have high aspirations for unification. Many of them seem to prefer a mix of South and North Korean systems as the North’s economy has improved under the Kim Jong-un regime,” said a researcher at the Seoul institute.

“Watching the Kim Jong-un regime hold on to power despite various political and economic difficulties, the North Korean people seem to believe the North’s regime won’t collapse easily. More people in the North now think that unification will take time,” said the researcher.