North Korea's puppet show

By Casey Lartigue Jr.

North Korea's slow-motion hijacking of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics wasn't the usual North Korean hijacking of airplanes and abductions of people. Dictatorship 2.0 was a puppet show of cheerleaders, musicians, dancers, and athletes as part of North Korea's so-called "charm offensive."

The offensive thing is that anyone could see anything charming about a dictatorship that continues destroying lives and families. The wife of Lee Tae-won, captured in China in November along with her son and eight other refugees after they had escaped from North Korea, will reportedly learn in March if she will be transferred to a prison camp.

Hwang In-cheol, the son of a man abducted to North Korea when one of its agents hijacked an airplane in 1969, held a human rights forum at the National Assembly on Feb. 13 calling once again for North Korea to release his father (and for the South Korean government to act with more urgency).

There are countless North Korean refugees I have met the last few years who were tortured, repatriated back to and victims of forced abortions by the North Korean regime. Others have had their hearts broken by North Korea, have given up, moved on or died. Charming?

Please excuse me for violating discussion protocol by mentioning Hitler ― but yes, it would have been idiotic at the I936 Olympics to discuss Hitler's "charm offensive" or for international reporters to have been mesmerized by Hitler's sister or wife.

For all I know, it may have happened, but I haven't seen a TED Talk about it. If anyone watching a future Olympics is wondering, the answer is yes, the media reporting on the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics was charmed by the dictator's sister and other agents of the regime.

Kim Yo-jong, a top director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of North Korea's Workers' Party, charmed the media even as her agents monitored her puppets visiting Seoul and the people-destroying machine in the North continued operations.

Thankfully for the media charmed by North Korea's show, the North Korean representatives washed their hands and cleaned their uniforms so we couldn't see bloodstains from North Koreans chopped up by the regime.

The only thing that could have made the Olympics even better for media would have been North Korean soldiers high-stepping in Seoul. If that came up during negotiations, I suppose even the South Korean government would have seen the folly.

While the puppets from North Korea were controlled to keep them from stepping out of line, North Korean refugees who escaped to South Korea were protesting by burning effigies of North Korean leaders, the North Korean flag and the reunification flag. They had not fallen for the charm offensive.

Some of them are hardcore activists who call for Kim Jong-un's assassination and have even collected money to put a bounty on his head. But it isn't just activists who dispute the charm offensive.

On Saturday, I was one of the organizers of an English speech contest for North Korean refugees. Seven refugees who are not activists and aren't seeking the public spotlight gave speeches addressing the theme "My Little Big Heroes."

Seven speakers named various heroes ― mothers, grandparents, school leaders, siblings. One refugee even named me and TNKR co-founder Eun-koo Lee as her heroes. Yes, I was keeping score: TNKR 1, North Korean regime 0.

None of those refugees named any of the Kim family as heroes.

How disappointing it would have been for the dashing young dictator and his sister to learn seven decades of propaganda had failed beyond the North Korea border.

It isn't just the refugees who spoke Saturday. For the last few months as we had been preparing for the speech contest, we began asking refugees to tell us about their heroes.

They've named South Korean teachers, professors, CEOs, athletes, former supervisors, activists, missionaries in China and TNKR. They've named their parents, grandparents and siblings. Some even named President Donald Trump, former U.N. ambassador Samantha Power and opera singer Maria Callas.

How many named Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un and other members of their murderous gang? None. Apparently, the charm of dictators only works on media rushing to file stories, sympathizers of the regime, and hostages kidnapped at birth still in North Korea.

It is understandable because refugees victimized by the regime risked their lives to get to freedom. It hasn't always been easy for North Korean refugees adjusting to the outside world, as the North Korean regime tried to dumb them down so they would be little more than puppets mouthing the words of people like Kim Jong-un's sister at the Propaganda and Agitation Department.

While North Korean cheerleaders, musicians, dancers and athletes dazzled the international media with the world looking on, the refugees spoke before an audience of more than 100 people cheering them on, proving they had their own thoughts and weren't puppets of the regime.

Casey Lartigue Jr. (CJL@alumni.harvard.edu) is co-founder of the Teach North Korean Refugees Global Education Center (TNKR) in Seoul. He blogs at "Voices from the North."