Defector
Ji Seong Ho raises his crutches as Trump acknowledges him during
the State of the Union address.
Thomson Reuters
President Donald Trump will meet with North Korean
defectors in the Oval Office on Friday, and it could be a
powerful new attack on Kim Jong Un.
By reaching out to North Koreans who have abandoned
Kim, he puts the North Korean leader in an odd spot.
Experts have said that a powerful media campaign
against Kim Jong Un could topple his regime in North Korea
without a shot fired.
President Donald Trump will meet with North Korean defectors in
the Oval Office on Friday, the latest in a new possible vein of
attack on Kim Jong Un.
Though Trump has made news repeatedly with bellicose language
threatening war with North Korea, his State of the Union address
advanced another offensive against Pyongyang — raising the issue
of human rights.
"No regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or
brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea," Trump said
on Tuesday. "We need only look at the depraved character of the
North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear
threat it could pose to America and our allies."
Perhaps the most powerful moment of the hour-long address came
not from Trump, but from Ji Seong Ho, a North Korean defector and
double-amputee who raised his crutches, celebrating his freedom
and escape from oppression.
"I was moved to tears," Ji told Voice of America's Korean
service. "I have never felt more honored in my life."
But beyond establishing the US's moral high ground in the North
Korean crisis, or simply making a point in a speech, Ji said that
Trump standing up for those oppressed by the Kim regime could
have a powerful effect on politics in Pyongyang.
Trump's expressed concern for human rights "will be meaningful to
the people of North Korea," Ji said. "It probably will come as a
big threat to the North Korean regime."
Kim's power in question
Kim
Jong Un applauds during a military parade marking the 105th birth
anniversary of the country's founding father, Kim Il Sung, in
Pyongyang.
REUTERS/Damir
Sagolj
In written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on
Tuesday, former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair
said that outside information
would be Kim's "kryptonite," a weapon that could collapse the
brutal regime without a shot.
Blair advocated a barrage of information from nearby cell towers
in China, CDs, USB drives, and other forms of media to inform the
public and to "separate the Kim family from its
primary support — the secret police, the army, and the propaganda
ministry."
Experts routinely point out that Kim's regime survives on
its control of people and information, which it enforces brutally
with prison camps and death sentences for citizens found with
outside media.
But outside media does get into North Korea. South Korean
pop music and dramas have become popular among North Korea's
elite, but to truly weaponize the trend, the right information
needs to get in. That's where Trump reaching out to defectors
could play in.
Does Trump have the right message?
NBC
North Korea inculcates its citizens with propaganda from
birth. They are taught that the US is the enemy, that Kim is
their savior, and that there can be no way other than what the
state allows.
But North Korean' media is littered with tales of North
Korean citizens and their achievements being recognized abroad.
North Koreans are conditioned to celebrate the limited world
recognition they and their country gets. When North Korean
defectors visit the Oval Office, the seat of the greatest
political power in the world, and Kim's sworn enemy, how will the
citizens at home feel?
Trump has a talent for making news. Defectors shaking hands
and speaking with a sitting US president in the White House is
huge news for North Korea, but totally contradicts its
narratives. The most powerful man in the world is welcoming and
honoring North Koreans and standing up for their rights as
people.
Kim Jong Un can muster up some more anti-US propaganda, or
issue another paper on how Trump
tweeting mean things about CNN is a human rights violation,
or sentence yet more of his own people to prison camps where tens
of thousands already languish in holocaust-level conditions,
but he can't change the fact that his citizens live in poor
conditions while the world around him thrives.
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