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Top NORK General's son defects to US Base in Japan
From East Asia Intel, subscription requiredSEOUL — The only son of one of North Korea's top generals has defected with his family and is in the hands of U.S. intelligence officials, according to secret reports from the Japan Defense Agency. The elite see the handwriting on the wall in North Korea so they are abandoning ship. A Japan Defense Agency operative in the North Korean industrial port of Chongjin reportedly saw Oh Se-Uk, who holds the rank of brigadier general, board a speedboat with a group of Koreans of Japanese ancestry who had earned the trust of North Korean authorities. Planing hull, don't fail me now! According to the report from the Japan Defense Agency, Oh, his wife and other family members were transferred in international waters to another boat that took them to the huge U.S. Navy base at Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, the center of U.S. naval activity in Asia. We're outa here. Don't look back, or you'll turn into a pillar of salt. The report was corroborated by contacts at Chosen Soren, the organization controlled by North Korea that represents Koreans living in Japan. Korean sources say Oh, 43, was spirited out of North Korea at the end of last year. It was not clear, however, if he remained at Yokosuka, was installed in a CIA "safe house" in Japan or was sent to the United States. Japanese sources say Oh may have been sent the U.S. for interrogation by CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officials. Japanese officials, however, have been hunting for Oh near Yokohama amid reports that he may be living in a safe house run by the CIA's Unit 500. "The Japanese police now are looking for everything," said a source with close ties to the North Koreans. "The Americans are not cooperating. They are silent about him." ***silence*** Both the State Department and the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, Chris Hill, have denied any knowledge of Oh's defection. "We don't know nuthin'." Oh, whose 73-year-old father, Gen. Oh Keuk-Ryul, is head of the operations department of the Korea Workers' Party, had risen to the rank of brigadier general before deciding to defect. He had been investigating the internal affairs of the North Korean armed forces and may have encountered severe opposition from within the military establishment, the center of power. His defection assumes heightened significance in view of his family's background. His father was an important official in the Workers' Party inside South Korea after World War II and graduated in 1949 from the Soviet Air Force. Oh Keuk-Ryul escaped a purge in the 1980s of graduates of the Soviet Air Force Academy after it was discovered that the KGB had bribed some of them to serve as spies. Oh Keuk-Ryul lost out to Oh Jin-U for the top post of minister of the People's Armed Forces. But he recovered from that blow and was given other top posts. Oh Keuk-Ryul owes his high standing in the North Korean power structure in part to the role of his legendary uncle, Oh Joong-Heup, a guerrilla fighter against the Japanese in Manchuria. Oh's unit was said to have rescued Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il's father, on a number of occasions. Analysts here view the younger Oh's defection as a sign of the gradual weakening of Kim Jong-Il's regime. Sons and other relatives of Kim Jong-Il have been engaged in a power struggle in which relatives have reportedly been purged. Faster, please. The sooner the NORK regime falls, the sooner the general populace can be saved. Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-12-15 |
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