North Korean Defectors Talk of Harsh Repression and Hardship

As North Korea undergoes a controversial political transition, recently escaped defectors from the Communist country have reported conditions of harsh repression, rampant corruption amongst local officials, and massive unemployment in their new lives in South Korea.

According to surveys, defectors typically expect to be ultimately treated as equals when they reach the South, partly because South Korean laws stipulate it, and partly because Seoul has consistently sought to portray the notionally democratic South as better than the Communist regime in the North from which they escaped. However, typically defectors find the reality different to that portrayed in numerous K-drama propaganda DVDs which are widely watched in their former homeland.

"We are sixth-class citizens here" said one defector – referring to the increasing view in his community that North Koreans are ranked almost at the bottom of the social scale in Korea behind South Koreans, white foreigners, South Koreans who have been overseas too long, Korean Americans and migrant workers. The view is controversial since officially North Korean defectors are normally designated as fifth-class citizens in South Korea.

Controversy erupted last month after it was revealed that one defector had been sent to mental institution by a government resettlement center after he spoken back to his South Korean guards. His uncle - who lives in Seoul - was able to get him released, but it is feared that many other defectors may have been sent to psychiatric institutions never to be heard from again.

Defectors who successfully graduate from 'education programs' at the South Korea's heavily guarded Hanawon resettlement center often find obtaining work difficult, due to social discrimination and rules which prevent them from working in a number of 'sensitive' jobs. In recent years Seoul, in an effort to discourage North Koreans from settling in the South, has also has massively reduced the level of financial aid given to defectors, making their economic transition even more difficult. In a survey last year 30% of defectors surveyed said they wanted to escape to another country, with some saying they even wanted to return to North Korea.

In December, President Lee Myung-bak told North Korean defectors, foreigner laborers and multicultural families staying in South Korea to never give up hoping for a better life. He made the remarks at an expensive end-of-year dinner with a group of South Koreans who help as volunteers with society's disadvantaged. It was hoped they would pass the message on since hardly any North Koreans were invited as the event was felt to be too good for them.

Related Links
Lee advises N.K. defectors not to give up hope
24 Pct. of NK Defectors Wish to Leave S. Korea: Poll
NK defector illegally detained in mental hospital
Arrest Warrant Sought for 3 S.Koreans Who Attempted to Defect to NK
N. Korean refugees’ jobless rate hits 9.2%
Wikipedia: North Korean Defectors

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'Seollal' Wrongly Called 'Chinese New Year' in America

Korean Americans - who are not regarded as real Koreans by real Koreans, but are still as patriotic - have demanded that the U.S. media stop referring to Seollal – the Korean New Year celebration - as 'Chinese' New Year. "We are not Chinese, and the Seollal holiday shouldn't be mislabeled as Chinese, but should instead be called Lunar New Year – in other words Seollal" said the President of the New Jersey Korean Association.

To help raise awareness, Korean parents of Bergen County schools in New Jersey held an all-day protest at a local elementary school yesterday to properly educate non-Korean blooded people, who are known as 'strangers', about Korean culture. "We're not trying to pressure Americans to label the Seollal holiday as Seollal" said one protest leader, "we're just trying to set the record straight that one of Korea's biggest holidays of the year is Korean, not Chinese".

Another protest is planned for New York next week, during which Korean university students plan to properly inform strangers of the Korean origin and meaning of the holiday, which was invented by Korea 5,000 years ago and later stolen and renamed by the Chinese, who lacked a holiday of their own. "Chinese cultural sleeper cells in America known as 'Chinatowns' have been very successful at perpetuating the lie that Seollal is actually called Chinese New Year, even though Seollal is our territory" said 58-year-old Professor Kim from Korea International University’s Department of Anti-Chinese Studies.

Seollal was historically celebrated by a number of different countries in Asia, but in 1873 Japan – the only Asian country aside from China generally known about in America at the time - adopted the Gregorian calendar, making it easier for the Chinese to falsely claim the holiday was theirs despite its Korean origins. In recent years Seollal protests have been launched in several American cities, but the three big American media chaebols – which ultimately control all printed and broadcast media within the military regime, have so far refused to properly call Seollal by its real name.

Many strangers in America say that Beijing's 'Greater China Co-Prosperity Sphere Plan' is weakening Korea's claim on the naming rights for the holiday. Under the plan, North Korea has already been co-opted into becoming a Chinese client state, and Seoul's increasing reluctance to criticize China shows it is gradually losing its independence from China as well – makes the renaming of 'Chinese New Year' to Seollal pointless in America, since before long Beijing will demand Seollal be called 'Chinese New Year' in South Korea as well anyway. The left-wing Hankyoreh newspaper claims that President Lee Myung-bak is likely to give in to the China's demand to rename Seollal when it is made.

Despite this, further Seollal protests are planned in America over the next several days.

Related Links
Koreans in US reacquaint 'Seollal' to Americans

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Deutsche Bank May Face Record Fine For Selling Korean Stocks

Deutsche Bank's Korean trading arm is expected to face a record fine from Seoul's Financial Services Commission after it sold a large amount of stock on November 11th last year, pushing the KosPI – which stands for "Korea’s Pride Index" - down 53.12 points. Under Korean Market Securities Law, foreign financial firms are permitted to buy Korean stocks, but not sell them, even if the stocks are traded outside Korea, as on November 11th when the transactions were executed in Hong Kong and London by the German bank.

After the national soccer team, cheering the KosPI upwards is the second most popular activity in the sports sections of Korea’s newspapers. Under headlines such as "Pride as Korean Stock Market Rises 2 Points", "KosPI Rises to 5,000 Year High" and "KosPI Up, Inferior Japanese Nikkei Down Again", people feel a keen sense of national shame on the rare days when the index rises negatively. Indeed, the outrageous assault on Korea’s national pride by Deutsche Bank comes after almost three years of sustained negative rises in the index which have caused some to suggest that there is a German conspiracy to destabilize the Korean economy. However, German financial commentators have dismissed the notion as fanciful given that the German government and banking system has been fully occupied in the last year with trying to destroy the Euro.

But a spokesman for the FSC said that the evidence of Deutsche Bank's selling of Korean stocks – contrary to securities laws – was quite clear. The FSC emphasized that it was not trying to infringe on the workings of capitalism because foreign trading firms were free to buy Korean stocks whenever they wanted to. But what appears to have happened in the Deutsche case is that the bank profited from causing the index to decline, an activity which some foreigners call 'financial trading' but one which some politicians in Seoul have termed "economic terrorism". European financial authorities have refused to censure Deutsche Bank following the incident however, saying that all financial trading is a form of economic terrorism, which has long since been made legal in capitalist Western countries due to corporate special interests.

Two months prior to Germany's unprovoked attack on Korea, a large unnamed French bank is believed to have bought a substantial amount of Korean stock at the close of business, suddenly pushing the KosPI up 55 points in a move celebrated in the media and by the Seoul Metropolitan Government - which in response launched the start of a 'French Culture Week' two days later. At the time the Financial Services Commission claimed the move was a vote of confidence in the Korean stock market, expressing the expectation that other large global financial institutions would follow suit. Deutsche Bank's reckless decision to sell obviously undervalued Korean stocks seems to have now dashed these hopes.

Related Links
Deutsche may face record fine
Deutsche Bank faces fraud probe
FSC hikes controls on trading in options
Soros says Germany could cause euro collapse

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