Send her back

By Casey Lartigue, Jr.

The North Korean refugee who says she was "tricked" into escaping to South Korea should be returned to North Korea ASAP.

Kim Ryen-hi's misadventure began four years ago when she left North Korea seeking medical treatment. In China, she signed on with a broker who allegedly told Kim that she could briefly visit South Korea to make money. In Thailand, she submitted a handwritten statement stating her desire to defect (a requirement for North Korean refugees to be allowed to enter the South). In South Korea, she signed a document disavowing communism and agreed to become a law-abiding citizen of the South.

Her collaboration and participation were required to evade police across China, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. She had several chances to turn back from South Korea, but continued stumbling and bumbling in this direction. An unidentified unification ministry official says that upon her arrival in South Korea, Kim repeatedly confirmed her desire to defect.

After she was released into South Korean society, she began trying to get deported. She testified in court and has reportedly told media that she called the North Korean consulate in China asking for help (she said they advised her to spy), tried forging a passport, and even reported her own spying to the police. She previously said she had collected information on refugees and reported that information to a Communist agent (that would have put refugees and their families in North Korea at risk).

But wait. She later said she only pretended to be a spy, that she had not turned over information about other refugees, and that she had falsely confessed in order to receive a shorter sentence. It is hard to keep up, please excuse me if I have mixed up her misstatements and reversals.

She continues blaming others, most recently telling the New York Times: "I had never imagined that my initial bad judgment in trusting the broker would lead to so much trouble."

I hope South Korean law enforcement can overlook all of that. Kim has performed a public service by publicly announcing in numerous places and even on a Website that she wants to return to North Korea. A country rarely has such gift-wrapped opportunities to deport people who publicly demonstrate such a lack of personal responsibility and threaten the safety of others. Don't miss the chance to send her back before she harms someone other than herself in her desperate attempts to return.

The two Koreas have an ongoing slow-motion battle, it is a shame they can't trade people who want to be elsewhere. The South Korean government won't let Kim return because 1) she is now a South Korean citizen, therefore subject to South Korean law 2) she's now a convict on parole as a result of her acknowledged (but denied, at the moment) spying, therefore she's not entitled to a passport.

"Her conduct is too absurd to be a spy's," said Jang Kyung-uk, a human rights lawyer helping her. "It's time for South Korea to discuss a way for people like her to return home."

Other convicted North Korean spies more threatening than such a bumbling woman have been allowed to return to North Korea. Kim would be sure to receive a heroine's welcome in North Korea. According to Andrei Lankov in his book "The Real North Korea," about 100 North Koreans are known to have returned to North Korea.

Let them return. Many people come to South Korea, attracted by the glitz of South Korean dramas and the booty shaking of the pretty boys and girls in K-pop videos. Once here, many bump into the reality of uninspiring South Korean shopkeepers and apathetic citizens just trying to make it through another holiday without committing suicide. South Korea is not for everyone — and that includes many native-born South Koreans.

After failure or success, we can remain, move on to another country, or return home without it being part of a larger political battle. For North Koreans, however, North Korea makes it an all-or-nothing decision to leave North Korea and South Korea shuts the door back to North Korea after refugees arrive. As much as I enjoy being in South Korea, you could expect a change in my sunny attitude if I couldn't return home--and might be reading about my desperate attempts to flee.

I would love to see Kim on the reverse Underground Railroad to North Korea, but she'd probably blame others if she got delayed in China. She needs an express ticket back home. As North Korean refugee Aeran Lee suggested to me: Send Kim through the DMZ. North Korea can decide yes or no if it wants her back.

Based on Kim's track record, it wouldn't be long before she would be blaming South Korea — for allowing her to return to North Korea.

The writer is the director for International Relations at Freedom Factory in Seoul and the Asia Outreach Fellow with the Atlas Network in Washington, D.C. Reach him at CJL@post.harvard.edu.

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