Coworkers of recent NK defectors have interview with CNN

Seven female coworkers of the recent North Korean defectors from the Ryugyong Korean Restaurant located in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, China had an interview with the CNN on Wednesday at the lobby of Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang. In black suits and white shirts, they claimed, "The manager tricked our coworkers into believing that he was moving the restaurant to a Southeast Asian country, and made them become defectors." They used the word "kidnapping," which was used by the North Korean government earlier. Most of them appeared to be 20s and did not wear makeup. Some of them were sobbing and could not speak.

"My heart is broken, thinking about my coworkers who must have gone through severe pains in South Korea. We will never leave our parents, country, and our supreme commander Kim Jong Un," they said. Their talking like parrots made us sad. They must be in great anxiety and fear after their government dragged them back to North Korea. They must have longed for the life in the South as shown in South Korean dramas they had watched and did not try escaping from fear for their families' safety as they were still in North Korea.

Choi Hye Yong, who identified herself as the chief waitress at the restaurant, noted, "The manager said he told only me that he was leaving for South Korea." After listening to this testimony, a female North Korean defector stated, "The line must be given by the North's State Political Security Department." If what Choi said was true, she would have been taken to a prison camp for not risking her life to stop him from escaping. "Now that the fact that they have enjoyed watching Korean dramas has been known, they will be interrogated for more than one year," another female defector remarked. "After the press interview, they will most likely be stigmatized and banished to rural areas."

North Korean media has not reported the defection of the restaurant workers. The CNN press conference was kept as a secret domestically but made public internationally, which looks like a desperate measure. A defector in Seoul said, "The interview must have made by the North Korean officials, which aims to prove to Kim Jong Un that they are doing their best to keep the incident from the public in order to prevent public panic as well as to fabricate the story." The CNN press conference illustrates that North Korea is taking the recent defection case very seriously.

허문명논설위원 angelhuh@donga.com