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| A group of 13 North Korean defectors who worked at a North Korean restaurant in a foreign country arrived in Korea, Thursday, according to the unification ministry, Friday. / Yonhap |
By Yi Whan-woo
Thirteen North Koreans from a Pyongyang-owned restaurant abroad have defected to South Korea, the government said Friday.
The Ministry of Unification said one male manager and 12 waitresses arrived in Seoul, Thursday, after escaping from one of the chain of eateries operated worldwide by the repressive state.
This is the first time that North Korean employees from a state-run restaurant overseas defected en masse, according to the ministry. Citing security reasons, the government did not disclose where they were employed.
"We've seen cases of one or a couple of employees working at North Korean restaurants coming here but not this many," spokesman Jeong Joon-hee said. "They said they had a chance to learn about the true aspects of South Korea through South Korean TV news, soap operas and movies as well as via the Internet while living outside their country. They also realized the truth about Pyongyang's false propaganda."
Jeong added the government "respected the defectors' determination" and decided to accept them all on a humanitarian level.
The 13 are middle-class people back in their country with "good educational backgrounds" according to officials.
They said the defectors underwent a medical examination and all seem to be in good health.
The revelation comes amid speculation that the number of guests at the North Korean eateries abroad has dramatically decreased following Seoul's independent sanctions imposed against Pyongyang on March 8.
South Korea urged its citizens to refrain from dining at Pyongyang-owned restaurants in line with the U.N. Security Council's (UNSC) latest resolution aimed at cutting flow of hard currency into the Kim Jong-un regime and prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.
There are an estimated 130 Pyongyang-owned restaurants in 12 countries. They are mostly in former communist states such as China, Russia, Cambodia and Mongolia but also there is one in the Netherlands.
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, speculated that the defectors feared being held responsible for a fall in revenue and getting punished.
The UNSC unanimously adopted the Resolution 2270 on March 2 in response to Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test, Jan. 6 and a subsequent long-range rocket launch using ballistic missile technology, Feb. 7.
The number of restaurants surged since Kim Jong-un seized power in December 2011.
Intelligence officials claimed that all such restaurants are owned by Office 39, a secretive branch of the cash-strapped regime that directly reports to Kim Jong-un concerning its use of money.
In an interview with Voice of America this week, a former North Korean waitress who recently defected to Seoul said South Koreans account for up to 80 percent of the guests at Pyongyang-owned restaurants.
The waitresses are among 100,000 North Korean "slave workers" who are believed to be forcibly mobilized by their authoritarian regime to work abroad.
An estimated $300 million or 90 percent of the combined wages earned annually by the North Korean migrant workers are directly funneled into Pyongyang's leadership for development of weapons of mass destruction.
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