*** TOPIC OF THE WEEK (Part 2)

Seoul Commemorates 1st Anniversary of High-ranking N. Korean Defector's Death

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- South Korea observed the first anniversary of the death of Hwang Jang-yop, the highest-ranking North Korean defector, in a humble memorial service on Oct. 10 with some 300 people, mostly from the conservative circles, attending.

   The first anniversary drew special attention as his defection to South Korea in 1997 was a signal of the demise of the impoverished North and the most powerful blow to the North Korean dictatorship. Hwang had been a main critic of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, and a symbol of hope for the unification of divided Koreas.
Attending the memorial service in a Seoul building were former President Kim Young-sam, politicians such as Lee Hoi-chang, Kim Su-hwan, former Unification Minister Hyun In-taek and former head of national security planning Kwon Young-hae.
The 87-year-old passed away last year from what appeared to be heart failure. The most virulent critic of Pyongyang was found naked and deceased in a bathtub at his home in Seoul last October just as the communist dynasty celebrated the rise of its next leader Kim Jong-un, the son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

   In a separate event, a group of North Korean defectors visited the national cemetery in Daejeon on the same day where Hwang is buried and paid homage to the deceased defector.

   Hwang, the key architecture of North Korea's guiding "juche" philosophy of self-reliance, defected to South Korea in 1997, when South Korea was under the administration of Kim Young-sam.

   Since his high-profile defection that sympathizers hailed as the beginning of the demise of the impoverished North, he had been a main critic of leader Kim Jong-il, drawing a series of death threats and assassination attempts.

   On the very first anniversary of his death, several dozens of North Korean defectors floated tens of thousands of anti-Pyongyang leaflets from the South Korean side of the heavily fortified border with North Korea on Oct. 10
Members of the Fighters for Free North Korea gathered together on the Imjin Pavillion in Paju, Gyeonggi Province in commemoration of the first anniversary of Hwang's death.
With 10 large vinyl balloons, they floated a portrait of Hwang, 20,000 anti-North Korea propaganda leaflets, a thousand 1,000 won notes, 200 books on South Korean economic development and 100 radios over the Demilitarized Military Zone into North Korea.

   On Oct. 8 North Korea reproached the civic group for intentionally trying to provoke it, but the balloon floating event passed without any mishaps.

   The civic group said that despite North Korean threats, they will continue their activities to strive for the freedom of North Korean citizens.

   For years, the defectors and other South Korean activists have frequently sent leaflets condemning North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and calling for an uprising against him.

   The latest campaign came as North Korea celebrated its 66th anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party.

   Just a day before, North Korea threatened to launch "direct fire" against South Korea over its propaganda leaflets, calling their release "an undisguised war action."

   "I will keep sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets to help promote democracy and human rights of North Koreans," Park Sang-hak, the civic group's head, said after sending some 200,000 leaflets.

   South Korean conservative group leaders have said that Hwang's defection was the most powerful blow to the North Korean dictatorship. They said often that Hwang's presence in South Korea was "the symbol and hope of our determination to reunify" the two Koreas, which remain divided by a heavily armed border after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce,
Hwang, who once served as dean of the North's top Kim Il-sung University, at which a young Kim Jong-il studied, deplored his ideas being tainted by the Kim dynasty and used to justify its hereditary power succession and suppressive rule.

   Kim Jong-il reportedly ordered the killing and persecution of Hwang's family left in the North following the defection. Uriminzokkiri, the North's official Web site, called Hwang's death "a scourge from the skies," calling the late defector "a deserter who fled to the South and abandoned his family and our party and system to escape hard times."

   In his will written after he defected during a trip to Japan, Hwang pleaded with his wife to "curse him harshly for I have betrayed you, my beloved son and daughters, and their children."

   Hwang had three daughters and one son, who reportedly married a woman from the family of Jang Song-thaek, now a vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, the highest seat of power.

   Hwang was born in the northwestern region of the peninsula. He joined the Workers' Party in 1946, a year after the nation was liberated from Japan's decades-long colonial domination.

   Following his study on Marxism-Leninism in Moscow, Hwang was appointed as dean of Kim Il-sung University in 1954. His career culminated when he assumed the highest parliamentary post in 1972.

   Hwang traveled to the United States in 2003 for the first time, testifying to the totalitarian nature of the leadership in Pyongyang. In 2006, he was denied a passport by the Seoul government. His last trip to Washington came in March of last year, during which he mocked Kim Jong-un as "that little bastard."

   Meanwhile, Hwang's adopted daughter said on Oct. 6 that his father had sought to create North Korea's interim government before he died last year.

   Hwang drafted a plan on how to set up the organization as part of efforts to prepare for the potential unification with North Korea, Kim Suk-hyang said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency.

   Hwang also thought of creating a political party to help democracy in his former communist homeland in case the interim government failed to materialize, the daughter said.

   South Korea's previous liberal governments had restricted his public activities out of concerns that his harsh criticism of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il could undermine fledging reconciliation with the North.

   The move prompted Hwang to seek to defect to the United States, though his plan never took off because it was compromised by security officials, his daughter said.

   North Korea denounced Hwang as "human scum" and later made botched assassination attempts before he died last October.

  (END)