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North Korea crisis: Kim's former propaganda henchman reveals truth about living in the grip of evil regime

North Korea crisis: Kim's former propaganda henchman reveals truth about living in the grip of evil regime

He witnessed executions over the smallest of crimes then defected after finding a South Korean magazine showing a life away from the terror
Exclusive Mirror picture of workers in the grim North


As a trusted henchman of the most secretive regime in the world he knew his ­actions could result in a long and painful death. North Korean Jang Jin Seong had witnessed street executions for ­insanely small crimes. He once saw a starving man shot dead for stealing a piece of wire to swap for a slice of bread. But when he stumbled across a South Korean magazine he was filled with ­wonder by its pictures of people looking happy and having fun. Risking his life, he hid it under his shirt and slipped out of his office deep within Pyongyang’s secretive propaganda unit. Within days North Korean spooks were on to him after realising the glossy mag had been stolen from the unit, where it was used to understand the thinking of the democratic neighbour. Welcome to the paranoid world of Pyongyang... where the world outside is portrayed as an evil threat. Jang, 43, says: “The temptation was unbearable. I saw all these wonderful pictures of happy lives in South Korea and wanted to show my friends. I should have known better. “When the files revealed that a glossy magazine was missing they knew the secret could get out of our office. It was contagious, this thing that could show that South Koreans weren’t ­miserable, evil-looking and starving. “I knew I was in grave danger. For some time the truth had been dawning on me about Pyongyang and the regime. I had to flee North Korea and defect. I had to risk everything to get away.”

Jang Jin Seong defected from the terror in the North
Ian Vogler

He knew security guards would be afraid to arrest him for a few days because he was known as “the one who has met Kim Jong-il”, the North ­Korean leader who died in 2011. Jang was presented to the leader in 1999 because he had been chosen to write celebratory propaganda poems about him. They would, of course, make no mention of the three million of Jong-il’s subjects who had starved to death in the previous five years. He says: “It was like meeting God. I’d been told not to look him in the eye but to focus on the second button of his shirt to show I was just a mortal.” ong-il gave Jang a Rolex watch and told underlings to look after him. He was given extra food and privileges. But, he says: “When I met him the second time it was at a musical performance and he started crying as he was listening to Russian music. It was as if he was weeping because he wanted to be human like the rest of us. “When he cried all his followers started crying as well. It was one of the strangest and saddest things I have ever seen. I started to have less respect for him and therefore the regime.” Sitting in the quiet Seoul office, where he now runs New Focus, an internet magazine set up to reveal the truth about North Korea, Jang’s eyes dart nervously around the room. In whispers he struggles to explain the work of his propaganda unit, known as “Seoul” after the southern capital. He says: “They wanted us to get into the minds of the South Koreans.” Anywhere else, his 2004 theft of the magazine would have earned him no more than a slap on the wrist. But after he took it, he felt he was being watched by security men. Fearing execution or – at best – life in one of North Korea’s hellish gulags, he put on his coat and fled as Jong-Il’s thugs pulled up outside his shabby apartment. He caught a train for the three-day journey to the border with China.

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