By Markus Bell and Sarah Chee 

In every way, Yu Woo-seong was a model defector. In his early 30s, he was smart, friendly, ambitious and well-liked. Although trained as a doctor in North Korea, upon arrival in the South he eschewed the competitive South Korean medical school system and instead pursued a bachelor’s degree in business and Chinese at a prominent Seoul university.

Despite the fact that he had been in South Korea for less than six years, Yu managed to work through his university studies while adapting remarkably well to his new environment, finishing his bachelor’s degree in 2011.

While taking on organizing roles in a number of Seoul-based clubs and organizations created by North Korean defectors to help new arrivals, Yu gained entry into a master’s degree program, majoring in education in social welfare. Less than one year into his graduate studies he was hired by Seoul City Hall as a special attaché for North Korean defector projects. This demanding, he balanced this full-time role with being president of a North-South Youth organization. In addition to his study and work commitments, Yu was in high demand as a “reunification lecturer,” providing South Korean government departments and schools with information about life in North Korea.

Physically and linguistically there were little, if any traces of his “North Koreanness.” Although his accent would, on occasion, hint at his foreign origins, he seemed comfortable in North Korean, South Korean and Western social circles. In every way, he was a model assimilation case – until early this year, when he was arrested as a North Korean spy.

The evidence against him was based on testimony from his sister, who attempted to defect in October 2012. During an intense and highly secretive interrogation by the National Information Service (NIS) that all defectors are subject to upon entering the country, Yu’s sister, Yu Ga-ryeo, “confessed” her brother was a spy. In January 2013, Yu was accused of giving a list with the names of defectors residing in South Korea – information he was privy to through his work at City Hall – and other vital information to North Korean authorities in China.

The plot took a further twist when, on March 5, after 179 days in detention, his sister retracted her accusations against her brother, claiming that she had been subject to physical and psychological abuse at the hands of NIS agents and deceived into making the confession.

After Yu’s sister was released, she spoke out against the abuses she claimed she had suffered, including reportedly being kicked and hit in the head by NIS agents. According to a recent report in the Washington Post, Yu’s sister explained: “I copied (the confession) with my own handwriting and signed it. I’m really sorry for what I have done to my brother, I made him suffer.”

She was released last month and returned to China, where she maintains her brother’s innocence. A recent news report from News Tapa investigated the details of the case, alleging that the evidence against Yu was fabricated under circumstances of torture. The NIS maintains that violence was not used to extract the confession from Yu’s sister.

The details of this case have remained sketchy at best, as both sides have levied accusations of deception and lawsuits against and to the government to Yu’s legal representatives are mounting. A number of facts continue to be shrouded in secrecy; one detail, however, emerged as incontrovertible fact – Yu and his family are Chinese nationals who were born in North Korea.

The media and government prosecutors reasoned that because Yu’s grandfather originally came from China and his family had not relinquished Chinese nationality, Yu is “Hwa-gyo,” an overseas Chinese – not North Korean. Resultantly, according to the case against Yu, he fraudulently, and with prior knowledge, gained the benefits of being a North Korean defector. Benefits including years of government financial support payments, access to accommodation and discounted study fees for his tertiary education. According to defectors, the presence of Chinese who lived in North Korea and came to South Korea posing as North Korean is an open secret in the North Korean migrant community, but also one that engenders a great deal of anger.

The Chinese community in North Korea is noted for being a privileged group; with an unstable infrastructure “overseas Chinese” have a central role within the informal economy in North Korea. The Chinese import most of the goods and foodstuffs sold in black markets, and have relatively greater freedom of movement across the Sino-North Korean border. It is likely the privilege of Yu’s Chinese nationality made him a target by those who felt the injustice of his benefiting from defector status. It is further rumored that Yu’s status as a Chinese national was reported by more than one defector, but not acted upon by the NIS, who did not want to deal with the legal and political consequences of their initial mistake of letting him into South Korea.

Further to the ambiguity regarding the significance of Yu’s ethnic background and the difficulties of potentially unraveling the twine of blood and nationhood that marks the socio-political fabric of both Koreas, are basic questions of human rights.

In the modern, robust democracy that is South Korea, is it right – both morally and in the eyes of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – that a person arriving and claiming asylum can be detained for up to 180 days (the maximum allowed by law is 180 days, prior to 2010 this was limited to 90 days)? During this time an individual is subject to round-the-clock interrogation without legal representation. Questions including but not limited to place of origin, their motivation and method of escape, their political sympathies, their family networks, their day-to-day life in North Korea, their movements and activities since they were born, their medical history and much more are asked at all times of day and night while detainees (prisoners?) are expected to write between 50 and 100 pages each day documenting their past.

Perhaps the question is not one of whether or not the government should be permitted to take the appropriate means necessary to defend its borders and citizens. Rather, it is a question of accountability. The period of time during which agents of the state interrogate asylum seekers continues to be cloistered from the gaze of the public in every way possible – a mysterious process through which it is ascertained – to some vague degree – that an individual is, or is not, an enemy agent and a genuine asylum-seeking North Korean.

During this time the individual spends long periods of time in isolation, is subject to varying forms of intensive interrogation and comes out at the other end feeling as if things in South Korea are very much the same as they were in the North. The general public seems at best oblivious to this process that is carried out in its name, and to some degree the absence of public discussion on this subject approaches the tacit condoning of these practices. It must be asked, given the potential physical and psychological harm a process like this can cause, whether it is any surprise that thousands of North Koreans are re-migrating to third countries as soon as they can muster enough funds.

Perhaps this is all possible because, on many levels, aspects of the Cold War linger on in Northeast Asia and cries of “spy” and “communist” still bring to attention (and to heel) the general public in passions which are only matched by their complete apathy towards matters pertaining to reunification or human rights.

Perhaps more important than whether Yu shares “our blood” is that his case reveals the weaknesses of the vetting system used to separate genuine North Korean refugees from others. Without accountability, without a more transparent process in which the human rights of these persons are respected, it is likely that we will see more bungled cases such as Yu’s. This case further highlights the need for media reporting that questions, rather than parrots the government announcements and that still values the old legal maxim “innocent until proven guilty.”

On another level, Yu’s case has underlined the apathy that is endemic in South Korean society, towards human rights and towards issues pertaining to that whose name cannot be spoken – North Korea. This disheartening fact is only compounded when we are faced with a North Korean defector community incapable or ill-prepared to fight for the human rights of defectors in South Korea (that is saying nothing about the human rights of North Koreans in North Korea), a divided leftist activist community, and questions about what constitutes a defector.

On August 22, after eight months in solitary confinement, during which the highlight of each day was a one hour exercise period – time also passed alone – Yu Woo-seong walked out of the In-deok detention center in south Seoul a free man. In his verdict reading earlier that day, the judge ruled Yu innocent of all charges. As he was led out of the courtroom, this time unshackled, supporters applauded the verdict and called out, “Meet you outside Woo-seong.”

That afternoon, over his first meal as a free man, Woo-seong had one question: “What was the last eight months for?” This is a question many people involved in this case will be asking themselves. The question of Yu’s future remains up in the air as the government has declared it will appeal the court’s decision and press for a retrial. If Yu is eventually found not guilty as a South Korean citizen – which he is – it is likely his citizenship will be revoked and he will be deported to China, a country in which he has never lived.

As the dust settles and the media loses interest in the latest spy scandal to capture its interest it is worth considering that perhaps Yu’s greatest crime was simply that he was more successful than other North Koreans at being a model defector.

Markus Bell and Sarah Chee

Picture: NK News