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Then they came for the defectors, but I said nothing: Why the UNHCR must investigate the Ningpo 13 case

Here Squealer’s demeanour suddenly changed. He fell silent for a moment, and his little eyes darted suspicious glances from side to side before he proceeded.

It had come to his knowledge, he said, that a foolish and wicked rumour had been circulated at the time of Boxer’s removal. Some of the animals had noticed that the van which took Boxer away was marked “Horse Slaughterer,” and had actually jumped to the conclusion that Boxer was being sent to the knacker’s. It was almost unbelievable, said Squealer, that any animal could be so stupid. Surely, he cried indignantly, whisking his tail and skipping from side to side, surely they knew their beloved Leader, Comrade Napoleon, better than that? But the explanation was really very simple. The van had previously been the property of the knacker, and had been bought by the veterinary surgeon, who had not yet painted the old name out. That was how the mistake had arisen.

The animals were enormously relieved to hear this. And when Squealer went on to give further graphic details of Boxer’s death-bed, the admirable care he had received, and the expensive medicines for which Napoleon had paid without a thought as to the cost, their last doubts disappeared and the sorrow that they felt for their comrade’s death was tempered by the thought that at least he had died happy.

Napoleon himself appeared at the meeting on the following Sunday morning and pronounced a short oration in Boxer’s honour. It had not been possible, he said, to bring back their lamented comrade’s remains for interment on the farm, but he had ordered a large wreath to be made from the laurels in the farmhouse garden and sent down to be placed on Boxer’s grave. And in a few days’ time the pigs intended to hold a memorial banquet in Boxer’s honour. Napoleon ended his speech with a reminder of Boxer’s two favourite maxims, “I will work harder” and “Comrade Napoleon is always right”–maxims, he said, which every animal would do well to adopt as his own. [Animal Farm, Chapter 9]

When a person flees from an oppressive regime and asks for asylum in another country, the U.N. Refugee Convention affords the refugee an inviolable right to confidentiality. The reasons for this should be obvious:

The right to privacy and its confidentiality requirements are especially important for an asylum-seeker, whose claim inherently supposes a fear of persecution by the authorities of the country of origin and whose situation can be jeopardized if protection of information is not ensured. It would be against the spirit of the 1951 Convention to share personal data or any other information relating to asylum seekers with the authorities of the country of origin until a final rejection of the asylum claim.

5. Bearing these concerns in mind, the State that receives and assesses an asylum request must refrain from sharing any information with the authorities of the country of origin and indeed from informing the authorities in the country of origin that a national has presented an asylum claim. This applies regardless of whether the country of origin is considered by the authorities of asylum as a “safe country of origin”, or whether the asylum claim is considered to be based on economic motives. Likewise, the authorities of the country of asylum may not weigh the risks involved in sharing of confidential information with the country of origin, and conclude that it will not result in human rights violations. [UNHCR]

Critically, the UNHCR adds that the unauthorized disclosure of a refugee’s information “may endanger any relatives or associates of the asylum seeker remaining in the country of origin and may lead to a risk for retaliatory or punitive measures by the national authorities against them.” Those concerns are particularly heightened for refugees from North Korea. North Korean agents in the South are suspected in the assassination of Yi Han-young in 1997, and have carried out a series of attempts to assassinate prominent defectors and activists in both China and South Korea since 2009.

Recently, Pyongyang’s modus operandi has been to coerce defectors into returning to the North and giving staged press conferences. In 2012, the Associated Press credulously covered one that featured a visibly terrified Pak Jong-suk, who claimed that South Korean spies had tricked her into defecting and thanked Kim Jong-un for forgiving her. Subsequent investigations by Donga Ilbo and the Washington Post reporters revealed that before Pak’s re-defection, someone contacted Pak and told her that unless she returned, her son and his family would be exiled from Pyongyang to starve in the outer provinces.

Re-defections are not only valuable to Pyongyang as propaganda to show to gullible reporters; they can also yield valuable intelligence about how the South questions newly arrived defectors to identify the North Korean spies among them. Re-defectors may also reveal the names of other defectors, whose families may then become victims of the state’s retribution.

One defector who escaped North Korea in 2009 told Daily NK, “I was so worried about my family after hearing the news about the leak of personal information that I couldn’t sleep. North Korea is already desperately trying to establish who has disappeared… if they work out that I am here, I don’t know what I’ll do”.

It is widely accepted that leaking information about defectors is far more serious than leaking that about anybody else because of the severe consequences it can bring for families left behind in the North. [Daily NK]

Historically, the South Korean government has had a serious leak problem. Even the current left-wing government’s Unification Minister, Cho Myoung-gyon, acknowledges it.

South Korea’s Unification Minister has confirmed North Korean spies have tried to threaten or cajole some North Korean defectors living in the South.

Cho Myoung-gyon made the disclosure during the parliamentary inspection on Tuesday, when asked by Representative Park Byeong-seug of the ruling Democratic Party to confirm Pyongyang’s suspected behavior.

The minister also agreed with Park’s criticism about a loophole in Seoul’s protection of the defectors after the lawmaker pointed out that the North’s ability to track the whereabouts or contact information of the defectors could put them at serious risk of harm.

Cho vowed to strengthen measures to protect defectors in the South, including enforcing more limits on who can access the database of the defectors’ personal information, and fortifying computer systems against North Korean hackers. [KBS]

For example, in 2005, a group of refugees accused the South Korean police of leaking “personal information of thousands of North Korean defectors living in South Korea,” raising fears of retribution against their families. The information included “detailed information about the members, including their names, dates of birth, home addresses in South Korea, contact numbers, jobs, and even their occupations before their defection.””

In 2011, a South Korean court ordered the government to pay five North Korean refugee-plaintiffs more than $100,000 for a 2006 leak of their personal information that they say the Pyongyang regime used to track down family members they left behind in the North. The plaintiffs also called on the Ministry of Unification to investigate the leaks. The Ministry claimed that it had shared the refugees’ information with a contractor to conduct a survey of defectors’ “family status, financial status and educational level.” The lead plaintiff later moved to California.

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But the most predictable and heartbreaking example is the case of the Ninpo 13, whose group defection from China was a grave embarrassment to Pyongyang and a potential threat to the cohesion of the elites. True to form, Pyongyang argued that the 13 were actually kidnapped or tricked into defecting, but the claim was preposterous on its face. First, why did seven other waitresses at the same restaurant choose not to defect? The seven admitted that they knew in advance of the manager’s plan to “move” the restaurant to Southeast Asia. Knowing this and failing to report it to their minders would surely have exposed them to severe punishment. Only by claiming that the plan was a trick could they have saved themselves. Those circumstances are consistent with all 20 women having a voluntary, if difficult, choice to defect or remain.

[Chosun Ilbo]

Then, how did the remaining 13 pass through Chinese immigration controls if they did not go freely? And while it was never controverted that South Korea’s National Intelligence Service helped the women escape, how could the NIS have expected to keep this outlandish abduction plot a secret after the 13 were released into South Korean society and enrolled in college? And if a government is willing to take the extraordinary risk of kidnapping 13 people from the territory of an unfriendly state and smuggle them through its immigration controls, why kidnap a bunch of waitresses? Why not computer hackers, money launderers, arms dealers, or diplomats?

Then, there was the fact that the voluntariness of the women’s defection was challenged in court, found credible, and then affirmed on appeal. Shortly after the women’s defection was announced, an organization of far-left lawyers known as Minbyun, which translates to “Lawyers for a Democratic Society,” intervened and sued to challenge the women’s asylum claims and the voluntariness of their defection. Minbyun claimed to represent the women’s family members back in North Korea, who were clearly acting in fear of retribution by the North Korean government. Its lawyers demanded the right to meet with and question the women. Because Minbyun’s “clients” were under Pyongyang’s direct control, granting them that access would have been a breach of the women’s confidentiality — a breach so clear and obvious to any human rights lawyer that the claim itself was a frivolous and unethical abuse of the legal process.

And of course, the 13 had a lawyer — Park Young-shik, who was recommended by the Korean Bar Association, and who fiercely (and successfully) defended them from Minbyun’s unwanted intervention at the trial court and through at least two appeals:

“None of the 13 want to return to North Korea,” said Park Young-shik.

[….]

“The workers don’t want their identities to be revealed due to concerns for the safety of their families left behind in the North,” Park said. “I can’t go into details about what we discussed.”

Asked about a report in a pro-Pyongyang media outlet that one of the women had died while on hunger strike demanding to be returned to the North, Park said, “Do you really believe that? I can definitely tell you that all 13 of are in good health. They watch South Korean news and are going on outside trips as part of their acclimation process.”

She said they are understandably reluctant to face the media here because they fear reprisal against their families in North Korea if they make a public statement.

The left-leaning group Lawyers for a Democratic Society had demanded interviews with them, but the NIS declined, saying the North Koreans are neither criminals nor refugees.

“I met each of the 13 North Koreans last weekend and asked them if they wanted speak with the LDS attorneys, but all 13 refused,” Park said. [Chosun Ilbo]

Now, the confidentiality of the Ningpo 13 has been breached, and a reporter from JTBC1 has tracked down some of them, along with the male manager who defected with them.

The man, who’s now also in South Korea, said he carried out the escape under plans arranged by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service and that the women were brought along without knowledge of where they were going. JTBC also interviewed four women who it said were among the group that arrived in the South. They said they didn’t know where they were headed to until they reached the South Korean Embassy in Malaysia and that they wish to see their parents again. [AP]

And if this isn’t enough, Yonhap is now reporting that Minbyun is trying to have former President Park Geun-hye charged with kidnapping them. Seriously. What we have here, then, is either the most improbable kidnapping plot in the 5,000-year history of Korea, or the most flagrant use of the Big Lie theory since Josef Goebbels climbed the steps of the Führerbunker for the last time.

So why would these women recant the claims they pursued through the courts now, two years after they were released into South Korean society and enrolled in college? What could possibly cause them to prefer to face North Korean “justice” over that? What else? If the women’s recantations of their claims are true, of course, their wishes should be respected, but I have grave doubts that they are. The pattern here is so predictable that I predicted it:

There will be other tests of South Korea’s commitment to its fellow Koreans who had the misfortune to be born north of the DMZ, of course. Moon may not be as helpful as Park Geun-Hye was in helping the next group of expatriated North Koreans who try to defect. He may also find more subtle ways of making refugees unwelcome, such as by breaching their confidentiality. Rather than returning the Ningpo 13 outright, someone within Moon’s administration could leak the locations of the Ningpo 13 to North Korean agents working in South Korea, and then allow one or more of them to “re-defect” through some lapse in security. There would, of course, be another sham news conference. (Will Ripley, take note.) The only real question is how complicit Moon Jae-In’s government is prepared to be in this sham. [June 12, 2017]

[Pyongyang] has already demanded that Seoul stop accepting North Korean refugees. If you’ve been paying attention, Pyongyang and the hard left have emphasized this as if Kim Jong-un’s survival depends on it. Of course, Moon Jae-in can’t go along with that openly, but if Roh Moo-hyun could find ways to do it quietly, so can Moon. Under Roh, South Korean consulates hung up on defectors who called. There have been periodic leaks of defectors’ personal information, which could make them easy prey for North Korean agents to coerce them into “re-defecting.” [Dec. 11, 2017]

Of course, I can’t know for certain what the truth is and neither can you. All I can argue is the basis for my suspicions and why the case demands a thorough, unbiased, and independent investigation. Furthermore, the South Korean government can’t be trusted to do it. It is one of the few entities that knew who the Ningpo 13 were and where they lived. It must also come under suspicion for the leak, and its objectivity is questionable. South Korea’s President is himself a member of Minbyun, after all. He has prioritized friendly relations with Pyongyang, which continues to demand the repatriation of the 13. No wonder some of them are literally losing sleep over news of the summit between Moon and Kim Jong-un and are “not sure they will be discarded in the trash bin, now that they are no longer useful to the state.”

Therefore, it must fall upon the UNHCR to conduct an independent investigation. That investigation should also inquire into the legal and ethical implications of Minbyun’s intervention into the case of the Ningpo 13.

Anyone can see the dark fate these women will face if they’re forced to “re-defect.” But the real purpose of Pyongyang’s strategy — and by extension, Minbyun’s — is to deter further defections. Refugees will now be afraid to trust the South Korean authorities to abide by the Refugee Convention and keep their information confidential. Those who are considering defection, won’t. Those already in South Korea will fall silent, fearing the exposure of their families, exposure of their personal information to North Korean agents, or assassination by them. Human rights groups must join to call for the appointment of an experienced and neutral investigator who not only understands refugee law, but also understands North Korea and its methods of coercion and control. The thorough and independent investigation of what really happened here must take the most extraordinary measures — including conducting the interviews in a safe third country if necessary — to ensure that we will arrive at the truth.

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1. The same news service that found Choi Soon-sil’s tablets in a dumpster. The evidence on the tablets triggered the scandal that brought down former President Park Geun-hye. The court later refused to admit the tablets into evidence because they could not be authenticated. To my knowledge, no forensic analysis of the tablets was ever done. Update: I was wrong. A commenter (see below) kindly provides links to forensic analysis of the tablets’ content. I still wonder why they weren’t admitted into evidence. Frankly, the fact that people provide this kind of information is why I enable comments, so thank you to “tc.”

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Update: