Death threats to exiled men

While Leon Trotsky was in exile in Mexico, he did not stop denouncing Stalin. Double concrete walls were set up around his house, with armed supporters guarding the residence around the clock. Stalin made several attempts to assassinate Trotsky to no avail. However, a Stalinist from Spain approached a sister of Trotsky’s female secretary by pretending to be a millionaire’s son, successfully entering Trotsky’s “fortress.” In August 1940, the exiled Bolshevik leader was killed by the man who wielded an ice axe.

Kim Ok-gyun, a reformist during the late Joseon Dynasty of Korea, went into exile in Japan after failing in his 1884 coup against the Joseon government, which was controlled by Empress Myeongseong. The empress made several attempts to kill Kim by sending assassins. He hid himself in Japan for 10 years before traveling to Shanghai in 1894 to ask Chinese politician Li Hongzhang for help. In December of the same year, Hong Jong-u, a Joseon assassin who had studied in France, approached Kim and won Kim’s favor with his skills in French cuisine, before shooting him to death with a handgun.

Hwang Jang-yop, a powerful North Korean official who defected to South Korea in 1997, was a pain in the neck for the North Korean regime. In April 2010, South Korea arrested two North Korean agents who had been sent with a view to murdering Hwang. The two came to the South under the disguise as North Korean refugees in the previous year, only to be discovered by the South Korean intelligence agency just before they carried out their assassination plan. Hwang, who died in October 2010, lived in a house with bullet-proof window panes under the police protection. He is said to have slept with a 30-centimeter-long knife at his bedside.

Thae Yong-ho, once North Korea’s No. 2 diplomat in London who defected to the South in July, is the most senior North Korean official to come to the South following Hwang. He told a National Assembly hearing on December 19, saying he would be engaged in public activities. On Tuesday, he had a news conference in Seoul, saying that North Korean officials know Yi Han-yong, the nephew of a mistress of the late North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, was assassinated in the South. Thae stressed that reunification would not come without the sacrifice of an individual or group. We applaud his courage but also feel sorry for him as he will likely be dogged by threats to his life for the rest of his life.