N. Korea defectors want to set up government-in-exile

By Yi Whan-woo

Some North Korean defectors living in South Korea and other countries are considering setting up a government-in-exile in the United States with the goal of overthrowing the Kim Jong-un regime, sources here said Wednesday.

The group, mainly part of the political elite in North Korea and who are now leaders of anti-Pyongyang organizations, wants to establish the interim government by early next year.

However, the Ministry of Unification downplayed this as an unrealistic idea,” saying “Our Constitution only recognizes a single government on the Korean Peninsula under the Republic of Korea and therefore we can’t accept such a form of government.”

The defectors have requested the Constitutional Court to judge whether it is against the Constitution to establish a government-in-exile against North Korea.

“We’re awaiting interpretations from legal authorities,” said An Chan-il, a defector-turned researcher who heads the World Institute for North Korea Studies in Seoul. “We could have begun the government-in-exile before 2017 but decided to take our time in line with a legal judgment.”

An said the defectors decided to found the interim government amid a growing number of middle- and upper-class people fleeing North Korea and other signs of increased instability in the Kim regime.

“The political situation is rapidly changing and you can’t predict what will happen in the next few years,” An said.

“And it needs to be made clear that the purpose of the government-in-exile is to help South Korea cope with the possible fall of the North, not to confront the Park administration.

“In this climate, I’d say those who are against our plan are acting too sensitively,” he added.

If set up, the interim government is likely to adopt liberal democracy while pursuing China’s socialist market economy.

The defectors decided to go for Chinese-style economic liberalization to win support from Beijing, the sources said.

A former senior official of the ruling Workers’ Party is being talked of as a potential representative for the interim government. The official, who was only identified as the “highest-ranking” defector, escaped from North Korea last year and lives in Washington D.C.

The proposal for the government-in-exile first came up in the 1990s when Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il were alive. But it did not win much support back then because the North Korean regime was relatively stable compared to the present, according to An.

Hwang Jang-yop, the architect of North Korea’s official state ideology, reportedly planned to found a North Korean government-in-exile after defecting to South Korea in 1997. He died in 2010.

There are four governments-in-exile in the U.S., including one for Tibet, according to An.