Hoping to Lure High-Level Defectors, South Korea Increases Rewards
By CHOE SANG-HUNMARCH 5, 2017
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea said on Sunday that it would quadruple the cash reward it provides for North Korean defectors arriving
with sensitive information to 1 billion won, or $860,000, in an effort to encourage more elite members from the North to flee.
But it has also offered extra cash rewards for those who defected with important information on the North Korean military or the
inner workings of the secretive North Korean government, as well as for those who fled with military planes or other weapons.
As it became more risky to cross the border into China, North Korean border guards demanded bigger bribes
in return for letting people slip through, according to human rights activists who help defectors.
On Sunday, the Unification Ministry, a South Korean government agency in charge of North Korea policies, said
that it plans to increase the cash bonus for a defector with such information to $860,000 from $217,000.
Today, almost all defectors from the totalitarian North flee through its border with China, though
Mr. Kim has taken steps to tighten that border in the five years since he took power.
The number of North Korean defectors arriving in the South, which peaked with 2,914 in 2009, has since dropped to 1,418 last year.
They come at a time when South Korean officials say
that more elite members from North Korea, deeply disappointed with their leader Kim Jong-un and fearful of his "reign of terror," are trying to defect to the South.