No bed of roses for refugees in
South By Ahn Mi-young
SEOUL -
"False expectations - that's how I put my life in South
Korea, now," said North Korean defector Lee Min-sun, who
works in a restaurant here. "It's like a marriage to a
lover who makes false promises," recalled Lee (asking
that her real name not be used), who made her way to
South Korea in 2001.
Admitting that North Korean
refugees - more than 460 last week - may have been a
humanitarian act, but it was cloaked in secrecy lest the
North be offended - and it was. It could have adverse
consequences for the six-party talks aimed at defusing
the North Korean nuclear crisis. North Korea has already
denounced South Korea's "terrorist" crime in admitting
the refugees/defectors and said Seoul would bear the
consequences. And it said it would not attend talks in
Beijing this week involving both Koreas, China, Japan,
Russia and the United States.
Meanwhile, it's
tough for the North Koreans living in the South. The
cultural adjustment to a capitalist society is a shock,
many are unemployed, and many say they are discriminated
against by their Southern brethren.
"It started
with a sweetheart who promised a decent house with a
fountain spring. But in reality the lover could only
give me a hut without even a bathtub," said Lee, 35.
"Life's so hard in South. I'm discriminated against
because I'm from the North and I can't even get a decent
job."
Adapting to life in the capitalist South
is a challenge for North Korean refugees. Their
difficulties, however, may pale against Seoul's task of
balancing its delicate regional diplomacy - warming to
North Korea and encouraging it to reciprocate, while not
offending Pyongyang by publicizing the 460 refugees who
made their way to Seoul last week. They came from an
unidentified Southeast Asian country believed to be
Vietnam.
North Korea already has accused the
South of committing "a terrorist crime" for granting
asylum to the North Koreans. Seoul has cloaked the
exodus in secrecy partly to avoid provoking Pyongyang.
"South Korea will be held responsible for the
aftermath of the operation, and all forces that
cooperated with it will pay a high price," the South's
Yonhap news agency quoted the North Korean Committee for
the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland as saying.
For South Korean and Western activists, the
suffering of North Koreans in their famine-stricken
communist country justifies the dicey diplomacy on the
Korean Peninsula.
Seoul fears exodus could
mean Pyongyang's collapse But the South Korean
government has a different set of concerns. Topping
Seoul's fears are that an exodus of defectors will spark
a chaotic Albanian-style collapse of North Korea,
bringing hungry refugees southward by the millions.
"We obviously want to take them for humanitarian
reasons, but we can't overly or unnecessarily provoke
North Korea," a senior South Korean official said.
For Lee, the escape to South Korea began at the
Tumen River at the North Korea-China border. She bribed
border guards to allow her to cross into China and then
paid a contact to take her to the South Korean Embassy
in Beijing, where she sought asylum. She then flew to
Seoul.
Lee's dramatic journey is typical of the
more than 5,000 North Koreans who have risked their
lives to reach capitalist South Korea since the Korean
War ended in 1953.
North Koreans have defected
in growing numbers over the past decade, fleeing poverty
and oppression. Most have escaped across the country's
long and porous border with China rather than the more
heavily fortified frontier with South Korea. However,
China, a North Korean ally, has refused to accept them
as refugees and the defectors risk being sent back home
if caught by Chinese authorities. China doesn't want a
flood of poor refugees fleeing into its territory.
But the promise of better life outside tightly
sealed communist North Korea isn't always the hoped-for
bed of roses.
Having lived in a country where
they have little personal freedom, the transition for
North Koreans can be overwhelming. One of the biggest
problems is unemployment. As many as 50% of defectors
have no job, or only part-time work. Many quit their
jobs, unable to cope with the competitive atmosphere in
the workplace, says Chung Sung-im, a researcher at the
Center for North Korean Studies at the Seoul-based
Sejong Institute.
"Of the 5,000 or so North
Koreans in South Korea, some are leading good lives as
successful businessmen, entertainers or journalists,"
Chung said. "But there are many North Koreans in the
South who are struggling to cope with the harsh
realities in the capitalist world that seem to confound
them."
Capitalist culture shock and
discrimination Chung said many of the refugees
feel they are being treated as second-class citizens and
also suffer from culture shock.
Kim Mi-ran (not
her real name) was a herbalist in North Korea, when she
defected to the South in 2001. She was lucky enough to
get a job as an herbalist in a small town in her adopted
home. But Kim, 37, feels her clients treat her
differently when they discover she's from the North.
"I feel miserable when my clients cancel their
appointments or switch to another herbalist when they
find out I'm from North Korea," she said.
Joon
Soon-young remembers the difficult transition she faced
when she left North Korea in January 2003. Joon was an
actress in Pyongyang and is now a restaurant owner in
Seoul, employing with 15 North Korean defectors as
workers.
"Of course, I have never regretted
leaving the North; and I appreciate the attention and
financial support I've received, both from the
government and by private donors," she said in an
interview. "Despite all the hardship that I have got
through, the bottom line is that South Korea is still a
better place to live.
"I did not give up. I rose
again, and now I love what I am doing. You have to
endure hardship if you want to win here," said the
former actress. "I had a dream to be free and I wanted
it to work."
Last week's cooperation among
nations to enable the refugees to reach Seoul has been
hailed as a sign that Asian countries are starting to
address the defector issue after years of inaction. But
the intense secrecy surrounding the operation - Hanoi
refused to acknowledge its role and Seoul would not
confirm the defectors' arrival - showed regional
sensitivities to the issue.
"The massive arrival
of Northern defectors is generally expected to compound
(and complicate) a peaceful resolution to the nuclear
standoff between Pyongyang and Washington, which has
kept the Korean Peninsula in the grip of tension since
October 2002," said a July 31 editorial in the Korea
Times daily newspaper.
