Politician tells N. Korean defector he betrayed his country

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The Korean netisphere has been a buzz over the weekend as revelations emerge that a Korean politician, Lim Soo-kyung,

told a North Korean defector who happened to be dining in the same restaurant as her that he was a “son of a bitch,” a “senseless North Korean defector” and a “bastard betrayer.”

Lim, the so-called “flower of unification,” illegally entered North Korea in August 1989 during her student years to participate in the “World Festival of Youth and Students.” Upon arriving back into the South through the truce village of Panmunjeom, she was arrested. She’s long been considered a symbol of North-South Korean unification, so publicly defaming her (or her public defamation of others) will come as a confusing surprise to many Koreans.

According to Paek Yosep, the North Korean defector-turned-human rights advocate that was dining at the same restaurant as Lim, he simply wanted to take a photo with her, whom he regarded highly as a fellow Hankuk University of Foreign Studies alumni and whom he remembered from her trip to North Korea. However, when he revealed his North Korean identity, she burst out into a fit of swearing, dubbing him a “betrayer.” He subsequently decided to upload an account of the incident onto his Facebook page that has since gone viral attracting hundreds of shares and comments.

The scandal is sending shock-waves across the Internet and comes at a time when the heated debate on expelling lawmakers who harbor pro-North Korean sentiment is at its height (much to the discontent of North Korea) ― which has even led one conservative to go as far as swearing on live television to express his feelings against the North. In a country where the slightest suggestion of being pro-North Korean is a highly sensitive social taboo, this will come as a blow to the more liberal Democratic United Party (Lim’s party) who lost against the conservative Saenuri Party (the party of choice for many defectors who are anti-North Korean) in the last parliamentary elections.

As the scandal developed on Sunday, she tweeted that Paek had used the words “execution by firing squad” which had hit her nerves and had led her to act so aggressively. She claimed she would personally explain what she meant later ― and that her remarks do not mean she that is a “commie.“

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