Dear Leader Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Map

  Title Page

  Translator’s Preface

  Prologue: May 1999

  PART ONE: DICTATOR

  1 Psychological Warfare

  2 Going Home

  3 My Hometown Transformed

  4 The Crime of Peering Over the Border

  5 A Farewell Sin

  6 In the Rifle Sight

  PART TWO: FUGITIVE

  1 ‘Yanbian Looks to the World, the World to Yanbian!’

  2 Framed for Murder

  3 Annals of the Kim Dynasty

  4 Criminal Operations

  5 North Korean Women Sold as ‘Pigs’

  6 At a Loss

  7 Farewell, Young-min

  PART THREE: FREEDOM

  1 From Yanji to Shenyang

  2 A Fateful Meeting with Wang Cho-rin

  3 Becoming a Piano Teacher

  4 The Kim Jong-il Strategy

  5 Meeting Cho-rin’s ‘Intended’

  6 A Murderous Regime

  7 Long Live Freedom!

  Epilogue

  Afterword: The Future of North Korea

  Glossary

  Index

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Dear Leader contains astonishing revelations about North Korea that could only be disclosed by a regime insider.

  Jang Jin-sung worked at the heart of North Korea’s propaganda machine. Young and ambitious, he had access to state secrets, including information about military and diplomatic policies, and the distribution of power. He was also one of the Hermit Kingdom’s leading poets, whose work secured him an audience with Kim Jong-il himself. As one of the ‘Admitted’, he had every reason to feel satisfied with his lot.

  Yet he could not ignore his conscience, or the contrast between his life and that of those he saw starving on the street. After breaking security rules, he and a friend were forced to flee for their lives.

  This is the gripping true story of Jang Jin-sung’s escape to freedom, and a shocking exposé of the world’s most secretive totalitarian state.

  About the Author

  Jang Jin-sung is a former court poet, and propagandist, for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Since leaving the country he has become a bestselling author and media sensation. He has been awarded the Rex Warner Literary Prize and read his poetry at London’s Cultural Olympiad in 2012. He now lives in South Korea and is Editor-in-Chief of New Focus International, an authoritative website reporting on North Korea (http://newfocusintl.com).

  TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

  I FIRST MET Mr Jang in June 2012. He had come to London to take part in Poetry Parnassus, hosted by the Southbank Centre as part of the summer Olympic Games. A Korean studying in England, I had been asked to interpret for both North and South Korean representatives. As I waited for him to come through at the arrivals hall at Heathrow Airport, I looked at my phone to check the photograph of him I had found on the Internet: in it, he was dressed in a dark suit, smiling a little and looking up at the camera under the curls of his black hair.

  When he walked into the arrivals hall pushing a luggage trolley, his hair was dishevelled and he looked half-submerged in his navy blue suit. His white cuffs poked unevenly from his jacket sleeves and his light pink tie did not sit quite straight. We exchanged greetings in Korean, bowed and shook hands. As we walked to the car I pushed the trolley. He opened the door of the black van for me and held out his hand to steady me as I climbed the steps.

  When we set off for the Southbank Centre, he hung a camera around his neck, while I prepared myself to make conversation. I pointed out London’s sights for him as he snapped shots and admired the landmarks. Among those buildings I pointed out was the MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, and I took my chance to break the ice between us: ‘Apparently, this is where women who want to snag a James Bond type hang out.’ Suddenly, the rather formal atmosphere between us evaporated and he burst into laughter. He said that if those women ever found out that real spies were just people like him, they might stop waiting and go find themselves a proper man.

  By the end of his stay, we had become friends, talking easily instead of in the formal manner of those from neighbouring nations who had become distant strangers after half a century without contact. Even today, North Koreans are not permitted to communicate freely with anyone from the outside world – not by email, not by phone, not in person.

  It doesn’t help that media portrayals of North Korea, based on an outsider’s perspective, focus on the inscrutability of its system: the strange dynasty of Kims, the endless heavy boots marching in line or the uneasy prospect of its nuclear arsenal. There is far more to its people than the public shows of mass obedience and hysterical tears – the North Korean experience is a complex and dysfunctional relationship between a system and the people ensnared by it, of which Mr Jang is a unique witness. Not only did he live at its heart, but he escaped from it.

  In this book, he ends his account in 2004, and some things have changed in North Korea since then. Informal and illegal marketisation from below, rising from the ashes of North Korea’s economic collapse in the mid 1990s, has continued to impact significantly on the nature of social transactions conducted between individual and state. The purge and execution in December 2013 of Jang Song-thaek, uncle to the current ruler Kim Jong-un, made headlines across the world. The graphic accusations against him were published in a very public manner by being broadcast on state television and released quickly to a foreign audience; and the incident was noted for breaking from the past in many ways.

  But these events did not occur in a historical vacuum and, in order to make sense of North Korea’s present, you have to know its past. Particularly, you have to recognise its persistent dualities – between words and deeds, propaganda and reality, and the manner in which these dualities work for the outsider versus the insider. Without an appreciation of this, North Korea will remain inscrutable and our exchanges cyclical.

  Mr Jang was not a politician but a poet, and this is precisely why he is intimately familiar with the regime’s myth-making, and why his memoir is about the dismantling of façades. The outside world’s approach to North Korea is based on many deceptions, for which all sides are responsible, and on which the status quo depends; Mr Jang’s escape from North Korea really began when he realised: ‘I was restless with yearning to write realist poetry based on what I saw, and not loyalist poetry based on what we were all told to see.’

  It remains impossible for an outsider to gain access to the state’s internal workings by doing business with or making trips to North Korea. Not only are there strict layers of control and hidden power structures in place, but proxies and agents are deliberately disguised as prominent insiders whenever North Korea deals with foreigners and presents itself to the world. It has also long been thought that no defector can speak with authority on the workings of the system, due to its highly compartmentalised nature. In this respect, Mr Jang is a clear exception.

  At first, I was suspicious rather than sceptical. I asked how it was that the outside world still did not know the things he knew, and he replied that it was in order to address this that he had decided to leave the sphere of intelligence just over a year before our meeting. We both recognised the need for his knowledge to reach a wider audience. As he says: ‘If North Korea has lies and nukes, I have the truth and the written word.’

  Mr Jang has never overplayed his knowledge or experiences. If anything, he has been too modest, and it was only through writing this book that he realised how many essential insights he had to share. I admit to feeling frustrated by how often he underplayed or was required to underplay his knowledge. I respect his decisions and understand the circumstances, but that did
not stop me from wishing he could reveal more of the truth.

  There is much that is not and cannot be said in this book. The passage of time will allow for more light to be thrown; in the meantime, I hope this account can serve as a basis on which to reassess our understanding of North Korea.

  The North Korean regime’s doublespeak and opacity are two of its crucial pillars of power. Regardless of whether the world could not see through those façades, or was reluctant to do so, Mr Jang’s memoir reveals that understanding North Korea’s past and its persistent dualities is the key both to clarifying its present and to unlocking changes to come.

  SHIRLEY LEE

  PROLOGUE

  May 1999

  A LITTLE AFTER midnight, just as I’m settling into bed, the phone begins to ring. I decide not to answer before the fifth ring, and hope it will stop before then. When it rings a sixth time, I imagine my parents waking up, annoyed, and I pick up. I am ready to give whoever is on the other end a good telling-off.

  ‘Hello?’ In the silent house my voice sounds more intrusive than the ringing phone.

  ‘This is the First Party Secretary.’

  At these words, I involuntarily jerk upright and jar my skull against the headboard.

  ‘I am issuing an Extraordinary Summons. Report to work by 1 a.m. Wear a suit. You are not to notify anyone else.’

  Although in this country we are accustomed to obeying even the strangest command as a matter of course, it’s disconcerting that the First Party Secretary himself has just given me an order. He is the Central Party liaison for our department. Under normal circumstances, I would expect to receive orders from the Party Secretary of Division 19 or Section 5, in keeping with my position in the Party’s organisational hierarchy. On top of that, he has used the term ‘Extraordinary Summons’.

  This usually refers to the mobilisation of troops. When the United States and South Korea perform joint military exercises on the Korean peninsula, our nation responds by conducting nationwide mobilisation drills. The call to take part in these is referred to as an ‘Extraordinary Summons’. But we are usually notified through deliberate leaks in advance of such a call. Individual Workers’ Party units and sections, under fierce pressure to outperform their rivals, are always seeking to gain an edge: employees of those well connected enough to be in the know remain at work on the specified day, reporting for duty ahead of those who have unwittingly gone home for the evening.

  However, if this were a standard military mobilisation summons, I would not have been asked to wear a suit. We cadres who belong to the Central Party, unlike ordinary North Koreans attached to regional or departmental Party branches, know that an ‘Extraordinary Summons’ can also lead to an encounter with Kim Jong-il, our Dear Leader.

  When someone is summoned to meet him, there is no advance notification. Not even the highest-ranking generals are made aware of the operational details of these meetings. An invitation to meet Kim is relayed through a First Party Secretary, who is summoned to a Party Committee room that has been placed under lockdown by Dear Leader’s personal bodyguards. Under their close surveillance, the First Party Secretary receives a list of names and issues the individual summons for each cadre, with the logistics of the encounter carried out in strict secrecy. In this situation, the term ‘Extraordinary Summons’ is the code phrase that sets this clandestine process in motion.

  But the same phrase can have a third, more perturbing meaning. The Ministry of State Security uses it when carrying out secret purges of high-ranking officials. On receiving an Extraordinary Summons at night, a cadre might leave his house alone, taking care not to wake his family, before disappearing into a prison camp or being executed.

  Thankfully, I am confident that the third scenario will not apply to me. In fact, I can’t wait to leave the house. Only a few days ago, the First Party Secretary had dropped a subtle hint of glory to come.

  As instructed, I put on my best suit and tie. In Pyongyang, there are no taxis available after midnight, and motor vehicles must have a special night licence to travel after this time. So although it is pitch dark outside, I hop on my bicycle and pedal to work. Bicycles are one of the main forms of transport, but unlike most bikes, mine is brand new and has been specially shipped to me by a relative stationed overseas.

  Outside, there are no streetlights lit. The silence of the capital city is so absolute that I can only sense the presence of passers-by before their dark shapes loom into my vision. The electricity supply is in a perpetual state of emergency, even though there are two power stations serving the city. The ageing Pyongyang Thermoelectric Plant was built with Soviet support in 1961, and the East Pyongyang Thermoelectric Plant was built in 1989, but neither produces enough power to supply more than one district of the city at a time. So, like a roaming ghost, power settles in rotation on sections of Pyongyang for about four hours a day.

  One area of the city is always bright, though: the Joong-gu Area, which lies at the heart of Pyongyang. This is where Central Party offices, senior cadres’ residential areas and buildings for foreigners, such as the Koryo Hotel, are located. My workplace, Office 101 of the United Front Department (UFD), lies at the heart of this bright central district. Nearing the compound, I notice that it is more brightly lit than usual, with the grounds as well as the usual guard posts lit up. As I enter the gates, I exclaim to myself, ‘Yes! I am going to meet the General!’

  In the courtyard stand thirty or more soldiers dressed in the dark mustard-coloured uniform of Dear Leader’s personal guards. They wear the characteristic X-shaped leather harness that supports a pistol on each side. Three beige Nissan vans with curtained windows are parked one behind the other, each big enough for a dozen passengers. The Party Secretary for South Korean Affairs greets me in person, beside whom the prestige of the First Party Secretary, who phoned me earlier, pales in comparison. He leads me towards a two-star general with a clipboard, who seems to be supervising the operation. The other soldiers refer to the man as Comrade Deputy Director.

  After briefly looking me up and down, the general barks, ‘Stand him over there!’ I look over to where he is pointing and see the nation’s most senior cadres in the sphere of inter-Korean relations standing in line: the Party Secretary for South Korean Affairs Kim Yong-sun, UFD First Deputy Director Im Tong-ok, UFD Policy Director Chae Chang-guk, UFD Policy Deputy Director Park Young-su, and two other cadres from the Department for the Peaceful Unification of the Homeland. The atmosphere is tense, and with six powerful men standing in line like schoolchildren, I feel uncomfortable about greeting them. I go to stand at the end of the line.

  ‘Are we meeting the General?’ As I whisper to the man in front of me, a voice yells, ‘Don’t talk! Understand?’

  I look indignantly at the soldier, about to demand that he speak to me in a more respectful way, but the vicious light in his eyes quickly puts me in my place.

  One by one, Comrade Deputy Director checks our identification documents against his list. We climb in silence into the middle vehicle according to our position on the list. We take our assigned seats. The soldier who yelled at me for whispering is the last to step into the van. I’d thought he had treated me condescendingly because I am only in my twenties, but now I hear him speaking in a rude, officious manner even to Central Party cadres who are twice his age.

  ‘Don’t open the curtains! Don’t get out of your seat! Don’t talk!’ he barks. Even more alarming than his insolence is the fact that my comrades meekly reply, ‘Yes, sir.’ Even Kim Yong-sun and Im Tong-ok, two of the most senior cadres in the country, are lowly men in the presence of Dear Leader’s personal guards.

  Through the open door of the van, I watch the remaining soldiers scramble into the other two vehicles. Soon, the door is pulled shut and the engine starts. As the van begins its journey, my stomach churns with anxiety, but I know that an encounter with Dear Leader is a wondrously momentous event.

  Thick brown curtains seal off the windows and separate us from the
driver. Unable to see out of the van, I begin to feel a little car-sick. After a two-hour journey in silence, and much to my relief, we finally arrive at a railway station. It is around 4 a.m. We climb out of the van and as I regain my bearings I realise we have come to Yongsung, a First Class Station. In a population of over 20 million, there have only been two First Class Citizens: Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. First Class Stations are reserved exclusively for their use, and there are dozens of these stations scattered across the country. The station roofs are camouflaged in green to make them difficult to spot through satellite imagery. At ground level, the buildings are unmarked, but heavily armed guards patrol them and they are enclosed by high walls.

  Yongsung Station is in the northern outskirts of Pyongyang, usually less than half an hour away from where we began our journey. I recognise my surroundings because I have passed by the place on several occasions. At first, I’m puzzled that it has taken so long to get here, but I can’t suppress a grin when I realise that the vans have tried to confuse us by taking a deliberately circuitous route. As we move from the van to a train, we go through another series of identity checks.

  The special train reserved for this occasion is different from ordinary trains. The sides of the carriage are painted grass-green and the roof is white. From the outside, the markings suggest that it was made in China: above the door handles the word ‘Beijing’ is painted in bright red Chinese characters. But when I step into the carriage, I spot prominent Mitsubishi logos that betray its true origin in Japan. The seats in the carriage have been replaced by single beds and everything is arranged open-plan, presumably so that the guards can keep watch over us.

  As at the start of the journey, the rules are barked out: ‘Don’t touch the curtains. There are blankets under the beds. Remain in your bed throughout the journey. Sleep until the train comes to a stop. Notify us if you wish to use the toilet. Break any of these rules and you’ll be removed from the train – immediately.’