North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly convened its first session on April 9 and reappointed Kim Jong-il as chairman of the National Defense Commission, marking the official launch of Kim’s third term. During the meeting held at the Mansudae Hall in Pyongyang, assembly president Kim Yong-nam introduced the bill concerning Kim’s reelection and the 663 assembly members unanimously approved it. This is Kim’s fourth election since he was first appointed chief of the National Defense Commission in April of 1993 when former North Korean leader Kim Il-sung was still alive. Kim was reelected to the post in 1998 and 2003. Diplomatic experts are paying attention to the reinforced role of the defense commission in Kim’s renewed term. There are three vice chairmen in the commission now, compared to two in the past, and the number of members has increased to eight from the previous four. The members include not only soldiers but also officials in the war industry who have contributed to the nation’s recent rocket launch and high-ranking personnel from national security agencies. The National Defense Commission has therefore taken root as the most powerful organ in the communist country, both in name and reality. Kim Yeon-cheol, head of the Hankyoreh Peace Institute, explains the backdrop for the North’s efforts to strengthen the defense commission.

The Supreme People’s Assembly is North Korea’s legislative body, which also approves personnel appointments in the Cabinet. The National Defense Commission has been bolstered by additional members, and this suggests the commission will play a central role in managing state affairs. It is also expected to concentrate on regime stability and internal unity, since its new members include key officials from the military and security agencies. Also notably, there were signs, before and after the parliamentary session, indicating that the nation was once again underlining its military-first politics.

Particularly significant is the appointment of Kim Jong-il’s brother-in law, Jang Song-taek, who is also the administrative executive to the head of the Workers’ Party, as a member of the National Defense Commission. As the husband of Kim’s favorite sister, Kim Kyong-hui, Jang is known to have a close, personal connection with Kim Jong-il and is said to be in tune with the leader’s true intentions. Experts are interested in Jang’s potential role in Kim’s third term.

There may be various changes during another five-year term of the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly. As the Workers’ Party administrative executive and new member of the reinforced National Defense Commission, Jang Song-taek is expected to play a key role in laying the groundwork for power succession and the post-Kim Jong-il era, which is the most important concern. It is assumed that Jang will coordinate relations between the Party and the military, those between the military and the Cabinet, and those between the authorities and ordinary citizens.

North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported that the parliament had decided to revise and supplement the nation’s socialist constitution. North Korea watchers speculate the constitutional revision, which is the first in 11 years, is aimed at a possible power transfer. Meanwhile, North Korea has not announced a personnel shake-up for the National Economic Cooperation Federation, a North Korean agency in charge of inter-Korean economic cooperation. The post for the federation’s chairman had been vacant, but North Korea didn’t appoint a successor and excluded the post in the recent personnel reshuffle. This demonstrates the North’s waning interest in economic cooperation with South Korea, boding ill for future inter-Korean ties.

Inter-Korean relations continue to deteriorate, and the prolonged deadlock in bilateral ties could discourage South Korea from resolving impending inter-Korean matters, including the separated family issue. And that may cause Seoul to have a diminished role in international diplomacy. It’s time to mend ties with Pyongyang, so South Korea can more properly cope with the ever-changing international politics. Seoul needs to send consistent messages to North Korea in an effort to ease mutual distrust. The government is considering dispatching a special envoy to the North, which may be one effective way to overcome distrust and confrontation.

With North Korea’s recent rocket launch disturbing the international community, North Korea-U.S. relations have shown no signs of improving. Mr. Kim explains how relations may evolve, following the launch of Kim Jong-il’s renewed term.

The U.S. has sought to resume the stalled six-party talks and end the North Korean nuclear crisis through dialogue, and the current Obama administration holds the same view. I think the U.S. will now start trying to make direct contact with North Korea. Of course, it’s hard to be optimistic about the result of their bilateral dialogue, if it even takes place, since they will have to tackle a variety of tricky issues. But for now, it’s important for the two sides to start dialogue, which has been delayed since the inauguration of the Obama administration, and then coordinate their views on impending issues.

The goal of Kim Jong-il’s third term is summarized as “regime stability” through the bolstered authority of the National Defense Commission. North Korea went ahead with a rocket launch and boycotted the six-party talks. The international community is carefully watching what other wild cards North Korea may play down the road.
[Interview]Community Center for Supporting N. Korean Defectors
The government has recently opened three community centers to help North Korean defectors resettle here in South Korea. Today, we’ll introduce the Northern Hana Center, located in the Gongreung Social Welfare Center in Nowon district in northern Seoul. It opened on March 27, followed by the establishment of two other adaptation centers in Bucheon and Daegu. Kim Seon-hwa is in charge of support programs for North Korean defectors at the Seoul-based institute. Here’s Kim now.

The Northern Hana Center in Seoul provides services not only to North Korean defectors who have already resettled in the Nowon district and other northern regions in Seoul, but also to the newcomers who will move to this region. The most important task is to help them adapt themselves to a new environment here. The government has already been operating a rehabilitation center for North Korean defectors, called “Hanawon” where defectors receive basic training as soon as they arrive in South Korea. We named this new facility “Hana Center,” in the hope of continuing to provide services with the same purpose of Hanawon. The word “hana” means “one” in Korean, and the name also contains our wish that North and South Korean citizens will become one. Some of our programs are similar to those offered by Hanawon, but mostly, our programs are different. For example, a large number of trainees receive education in one place in Hanawon, while we provide each trainee with different programs tailored for their desires and needs.

The Hana Center’s three-week training program is focused on tailored education for each newcomer, in accordance with his or her age and career goals. The center’s job-searching program is most popular with the trainees. They participate in role-playing games in which they learn effective ways to handle particular situations. They visit various workplaces, too. In addition, the newcomers receive basic education about South Korea’s market economy, which differs greatly from North Korea’s communist regime. The center concentrates on providing professional education through qualified instructors, including lawyers, doctors and representatives of companies, who mostly work one-on-one with trainees. Also, some fifty volunteers are on hand to help the defectors with simple administrative affairs in their daily lives. The trainees can use the volunteer service for up to one year after they complete the training course. Ms. Kim has been working with the North Korean defectors for nine years and says she has noticed great progress in the newcomers through the counseling.

While engaging in this job, I find immense changes in the newcomers. They appear to be strong and brave on the surface, and they look comfortable after going through all the difficulties. But inside their minds, that’s not the case. Actually, they’ve suffered from a lot of stress. They didn’t believe the benefit of counseling at first, so they were reluctant to talk about themselves. But they began to open their minds gradually. Nowadays, they receive counseling once or twice a week and really work hard to resolve their problems, which I think is a remarkable development.

In 2000, the Social Welfare Department of Seoul Women’s University teamed up with the Gongreung Social Welfare Center to create programs to help North Korean defectors accommodate to South Korean society. The center has since developed a variety of such programs, and was asked to oversee the Hana Center beginning this year. The center provides diverse programs that have proven helpful to trainees. Each month, a group of course graduates leave Hanawon to set out on their own. Some of them enter the Hana Center afterwards, and the center is always busy accommodating the new trainees and preparing them for life in the South. The staff at the Hana Center has been impressed by the enthusiastic newcomers from the North, who make the utmost effort to learn. And the center continues to devise new programs to give more support to the defectors.

It’s important to help the defectors resettle here as residents of the Nowon district, Seoul citizens and then responsible members of South Korean society. We try to elicit participation from local residents in order to help the newcomers mingle with them. We also plan to encourage defectors who have already resettled successfully to take part in our new programs as advisers or planners.

Here’s hoping more adaptation centers for North Korean defectors will be set up across the country so many more newcomers can assimilate to South Korean society with ease.