North Korean Guards Lure, Nab Potential Defectors

March 5, 2012—North Korean guards along the border with China are inducing citizens to defect and then catching them in a bid to secure attractive government rewards, according to sources.

Border guards who apprehend potential defectors are offered educational benefits or employment opportunities upon discharge from duty, along with membership in the powerful ruling Workers' Party of Korea, the sources said.

Several of the 40-odd North Koreans detained recently in northern Yanggang Province in their attempt to cross over to China had been lured into the "trap" set by the border guards, according to a North Korean woman defector, whose family was among those caught.

The woman, identifying herself only as Kim and who defected to South Korea five years ago, told RFA that a border guard, who was a family friend, had offered to help her family get across the North Korea border with China.

Little did she realize that the border guard, who was "like a son" to her family," would double-cross and detain them while they were attempting to cross the Yalu River, which borders China, she said.

"The idea that someone could induce them to escape [and then inform the authorities] didn’t even cross my mind," Kim said.

"[But] when I [checked with] some sources, I found out that the guards arrested them after luring them," she said.

Rewards

As North Korean authorities strengthened border security after dictator Kim Jong Il’s death in December, border guards who nabbed potential defectors were offered rewards by his successor son Kim Jong Un's regime, sources said.

They were offered a choice of receiving college recommendations or being placed at a key fruit farm upon their discharge from duty, along with from being accepted as members of the Workers Party, a source from Yanggang Province told RFA.

The farm lies along the large Taedong River, which runs through the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

Many North Korean defectors who successfully cross the border into China have been detained by Chinese security forces and deported back home by Beijing, which considers them economic migrants instead of refugees.

Nearly 40 North Koreans were detained in February as they crossed the border into China in separate incidents, according to reports. 

Executions

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR and human rights watchdog Amnesty International have called on Beijing not to send the North Koreans back. Rights groups say they face harsh punishment, including torture or even death in their homeland.

Seoul has repeatedly urged Beijing to treat fugitives from the North as refugees and not to repatriate them. China says they are economic migrants and not refugees deserving protection.

More than 21,700 North Koreans have fled to the South since the 1950-1953 Korean war, most of them in recent years. They first escape to China, hide out, and then travel to a third country to seek resettlement in the South.

Reported by Moon Sung Hwi for RFA's Korean service. Translated by Kang Min Kyung. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.

View this story online at: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/defectors-03052012095110.html

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