Fall of N.Korean dictatorship 'unthinkable': defector
VIENNA — North Korea's dictatorial regime is unlikely to fall anytime soon, a defector who once worked for leader Kim Jong Il and his father Kim Il Sung, said here Thursday."It's…
VIENNA — North Korea's dictatorial regime is unlikely to fall anytime soon, a defector who once worked for leader Kim Jong Il and his father Kim Il Sung, said here Thursday."It's unthinkable," said Kim Jong Ryul, a former colonel on Kim Jong Il's personal security detail, told AFP.Ryul, who has lived underground in Austria for 15 years after fleeing his country in 1994, reemerged briefly on Thursday to talk to the press on the publication of a book about his life, "Im Dienst des Diktators" ("At the dictator's service").For 20 years, the now 75-year-old Kim procured the regime with spy technology, weapons and luxurious carpets, side-stepping the strict economic embargo against the North Korean regime.On one such shopping trip to Europe however, he turned his back on his country and family."Now, just like when I fled, North Korea is a horrible, false, two-faced dictatorship," according to Kim Jong Ryul."I thought after the death of the great dictator Kim (Il Sung), this regime wouldn't last long.""I waited two-three years, then it was five years. What is it now? 15-16 years. So I was mistaken, I was gravely mistaken," he told journalists.Able to flee the regime's grip -- and protect his family back home -- by faking his own death on October 18, 1994 in Bratislava, he said he was ready to come out of hiding now to expose Kim Jong Il's shameless regime."I don't want to go quietly. I want, before I die, to finally tell the truth," he said."I want to report on the cruelty and the brutality... on the shamelessness of the 'little dictator', who collects all the world's luxuries while people are starving.""I was very close to them (the rulers), but it didn't change anything: I still ran away. Indeed because I was so close to them, there was even more reason to run away."Now that he had given a sign he was alive, Kim said he expected North Korean agents to knock on his door and arrest him any day."I will die eventually anyway. Why die without having some meaning?""Im Dienst des Diktators", by authors Ingrid Steiner
last modification 2010-03-04 21:30:07
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