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The re-defector issue is not new; a year ago, Greg Scarlatoiu, Jana Johnson and Miran Song provided a useful overview of the phenomenon for The Committee on Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK). The main point of their commentary—outside the obvious point about the rarity of re-defection—was that the motives for returning were by no means uniform. Some defectors, particularly those who were older and isolated, did in fact have difficulty adjusting to life in a modern capitalist economy; the International Crisis Group's 2011 report remains one of the best treatments on the adjustment and policy challenges in the South. But the small number of re-defectors included those who were returning to find family, to proselytize, as well as those who were either bribed or blackmailed by the North Korean security apparatus. And of course, there were the small handful who were probably double agents to begin with.
The issue surfaced again over the course of 2013 with a spate of re-defections. These included the case of Kim Kwang Ho, a re-defector who subsequently made statements critical of the South but was actually captured (with his family) by North Korean security officials in the city of Yanji in China. The case opened the interesting legal and diplomatic question of what responsibility the South Korean government had for pursuing the case given that Kim was a South Korean citizen.
Kim Kwang Ho was followed by the cases of Park Jin Geun (49) and Jang Gwang Chol (33), both of whom provided testimony for the North Korean media. The most recent cases surfaced in December: 64-year-old Choe Gye Sun and 67-year-old Pak Jong Suk were both confirmed as defectors by the Ministry of Unification. In news stories carried on December 20 in the North, Choi claimed that traffickers kidnapped her when she was in China visiting her sister, that she was subsequently sent to South Korea against her will—in violation of her human rights--and that from the minute she arrived in the South, she was treated as "subhuman." In a convoluted and illogical formulation, Choi claimed that "those people who have been kidnapped and dragged to South Chosun are of course under some illusions about (the place)." Why would those who are in effect abducted have "illusions" about South Korea? Did Choi mean that they developed such "illusions" once they had seen the South?
This spate of re-defections is not random. To date, the North Korean government has highlighted a total of 13 re-defectors, the majority in 2013. Numerous reports have noted more stringent border security but also an explicit re-defection project. This last round no doubt takes on added significance—and media attention in the North—given the unsettled nature of the post-Jang Song Thaek environment.
