NK defectors vow to fight Seoul’s control on remittances

By Kim Young-jin

North Korean defectors vowed Sunday to fight the government if its plan to regulate remittances to the North made it harder for them to help their loved ones back home.

Announced last week, the move aims at legalizing the sending of cash across the border by requiring defectors to receive government approval first.

“It is getting much, much harder for my parents back home to live,” said Kim, a defector who asked that his full name not be used. “I’m ready to fight this if it makes sending money more difficult.”

Defectors have long transferred funds, through expensive brokers here, to their impoverished communist homeland, where an estimated 6 million people are in need of emergency food aid.

Surveys show that over half of the defectors here send money back home.

But now they worry that by giving up personal information on the remittances to the government, they put their loved ones at risk. They also say the plan could drive up brokers’ fees, whose jobs would become harder under government oversight.

The brokers are mostly ethnic Chinese residing here whose contacts around the China-North Korea border smuggle money. They typically charge a 30 percent middle-man fee.

The Unification Ministry said the plan “is not trying to regulate humanitarian money remittance” and that defectors supporting relatives seeking medical treatment would be exempted.

The measure is expected to be implemented in the second half of next year after consultations with experts and taking into consideration the amount of money for which approval is required.

Some said the sending of cash played an important role aside from the financial aid.

“It sends them a positive message about the conditions here, contrary to what the regime tells them. Now my family is preparing to come to the South,” a female defector said, adding she was willing to protest if “worse comes to worst.”

Some said they were even prepared to duck the procedure.

One graduate student with a young son in the North held a slightly more positive view, hoping the measures would bring the process out of the shadows. But she too had her limits.

“If it means being able to send money without paying brokers an arm and a leg, then I’m all for it,” she said.

“But if the plan makes sending money too hard, I’m willing to pay the brokers $80 in order to get $20 to my boy.”

Over 21,000 North Koreans have defected here since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, risking harsh punishment including death to arrive in the affluent South.