Defector Hwang complains of gag policy

The former master ideologue in North Korea who defected to South Korea in February 1997 has issued an abrupt statement criticizing constraints placed by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) on his social activity. Hwang Jang-Yop, ex-secretary of the North Korean Workers¡¯ Party, appeared to have worn out his patience with the attitude of the Seoul government toward Pyongyang, which he found much different from his own.

Since his arrival here, Hwang has delivered open lectures explaining the reasons for his desertion of his former boss, National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong-Il, strongly denouncing the North Korean system. After the announcement April 10 of the inter-Korean accord for a summit meeting he has been out of public view. He declined to attend a National Assembly hearing to which he was summoned to testify.

Most exiles from North Korea who know him well agree that the government has come to restrict Hwang's activity because his opinion on North Korea and unification is not in accord with the sunshine policy of the Seoul government. A ranking official of the NIS said that his opposition to Kim Jong-Il regime contradicts the position of the Seoul government in favor of accepting Kim's leadership as a reality and having dialogue with the regime for detente.

It is quite probable that the incumbent government considers it undesirable to allow Hwang to antagonize Pyongyang.

South Korean government action to compel him to keep his mouth shut for too long must have humiliated Hwang's self-respect as a scholar, analysts believe. Thus, he came to make public his intention to get in touch with the South Korean people and discuss unification issues openly, free from the "protection" of the intelligence service.

The public statement made by Hwang has put the NIS into a corner because the latter claimed all along that his refusal to meet the media or former President Kim Young-Sam was of his own free will.