Hwang Jang-yop, the senior-most North Korean official to defect to South Korea, died on Sunday at the age of 87. Hwang, who defected in February 1997, did not get to realize his dream of witnessing freedom for the North Korean people and an end to the hereditary transfer of power in the North.
Hwang had been North Korea's chief ideologue who infused North Korean founder Kim Il-sung's "Juche" ideology of self-reliance with philosophical depth and turned it into the communist country's guiding policy. Before Hwang's efforts, the Juche ideology was merely a diplomatic line the North towed to avoid getting mired in ideological disputes between the Soviet Union and China. He also taught the Juche ideology to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Hwang served in key positions. From 1965, he was the president of North Korea's prestigious Kim Il Sung University for 14 years. He served as chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly for 11 years and was the secretary of the Workers Party for 18 years.
Hwang said that the motive for his defection was his "duty to save 23 million fellow North Koreans suffering under an unprecedented dictatorship." After arriving in South Korea, Hwang devoted himself to spreading the word about the deceit and cruelty of the North Korean dictatorship and the pains suffered by North Koreans.
In a speech early this year, Hwang said Kim Jong-il must be evaluated not based on his personal life or his personality but by his achievements. "Who is responsible for causing three million people to starve to death?" he asked. "North Korea calls me a traitor, but the real traitor is Kim Jong-il, who caused his own people to starve to death."
After Hwang's defection, Kim Jong-il purged around 2,000 people who had official or personal ties with him, including his family. Kim also publicly criticized Hwang as being "worse than an animal" for abandoning his own son, daughter and grandchildren. North Korean agents arrested in South Korea in April after being dispatched to assassinate Hwang told investigators that Kim Yong-chol, the director of the General Reconnaissance Bureau at the North Korean People's Armed Forces, had ordered them to kill Hwang saying that he must not be allowed to die of natural causes.
Hwang also played a major role in shattering fantasies about North Korea among some South Koreans. A large number of radical South Korean university students during the 1980s who espoused goals of inciting a Juche revolution in the South gave up their beliefs after Hwang's defection and helped him try to democratize North Korea.
"Who other than Kim Jong-il would commit a horrific act like sinking the [South Korean Navy corvette] Cheonan?" Hwang said in an interview earlier this year. "I know Kim Jong-il was behind it and I don't need an investigation to prove it. I think there are too many foolish people in the South." Hwang added, "The South Korean public is the problem rather than North Koreans."
Regarding the succession of Kim Jong-il's 27-year-old son Jong-un, Hwang said, "Of what use will such a young boy be? The third generation of power succession will trigger a power struggle and the Kim dynasty will end up being ruined."
On Sunday, the day Hwang died, Kim Jong-un attended a military parade with his father to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Workers Party. Hwang was unable to realize his dream of seeing North Koreans live in freedom from the tyranny of the Kim dynasty. It is now up to the government and the South Korean public to make sure that his dream comes true.
