SEOUL, June 6, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Park Choong-kwon was once a member of an
elite North Korean unit that developed long-range missiles. Now, as a
lawmaker in the South, he is sounding the alarm over Kim Jong Un's weapons.

As a teenager in the North, Park was plucked from his regular classroom and
sent to a school for gifted kids, from where he quickly progressed to the
country's National Defense University.

But he disliked the military discipline and was disillusioned by high-level
corruption, eventually deciding to defect to the South, where the 38-year-old
was sworn in as a lawmaker last month.

Set up in the 1960s, Park's alma mater is a key part of the nuclear-armed
North's banned weapons programmes -- it takes the country's top brains and
uses them to further Kim's quest for bigger and better missiles, satellites
and nuclear warheads.

The university "was created with the main goal of making intercontinental
ballistic missiles", said Park, who studied there from 2003 to 2007.

Under Kim Jong Un -- who took over from his late father in 2011 -- the
university has been expanded, with new departments for hypersonics,
satellites and nuclear, and the pace of weapons development is more advanced
than many outsiders understand, he said.

"The North started publicly rolling out its new weapons lineups in 2017,
including hypersonic missiles, strategic surface to surface missiles... and
hydrogen bombs," he said.

"But the development of these weapons was already 80 to 90 percent complete
when I escaped in 2009."

North Korea's attempt to put a second spy satellite into orbit last week may
have ended in a mid-air explosion, but Park says even failure shows how
advanced the country's programmes really are.

"They are trying a new engine test even when they are capable of putting one
satellite into orbit with an existing engine," said Park, who was born and
raised in the eastern coastal city of Hamhung, and is the fourth defector to
become an MP in the South.

- Hacking unit -

The only institution in North Korea that got to choose its students ahead of
the National Defense University was the hacking unit, Park told AFP.

"The top two students in my class were recruited to the hacking unit," he
said.

North Korea's cyber-programme dates back to at least the mid-1990s, but has
grown to a 6,000-strong cyberwarfare unit, known as Bureau 121, that operates
from several countries including Belarus, China, India, Malaysia and Russia,
according to a 2020 US military report.

Park told AFP the North puts meticulous care into nurturing hackers, who have
stolen hundreds of millions of dollars of cryptocurrencies and other digital
assets in recent years, industry data shows. They are a key source of revenue
for Kim's government as sanctions continue to bite.

Park himself majored in chemical engineering, and quickly became involved in
making long-range missiles designed to hit targets on the US mainland.

But despite his elite status within North Korean society, he became
disillusioned with the system.

Forced to study key texts in which former leader Kim Jong Il refuted attacks
on Korean-style socialism, Park found "the criticisms made more sense to me".

Then, in his final year at the university, he discovered that to get a good
work placement after graduation, he would need to pay.

"Bribing officials $3,000 would land you a job in Pyongyang," he said, adding
that the country's ruling Rodong party was "corrupt to its core".

"After that I began to see the suffering of the people. The last hopes and
dreams I had for the system all faded away. There was nothing I could do to
change from within," he said.

"So I decided to defect."

In 2009, after meticulously planning his escape so as not to put his
remaining family at risk, he crossed the Tumen river to China, and then made
his way to the South.

- Forever enemy -
Once safely in Seoul, Park decided to study for his doctorate at the top
Seoul National University, before going to work at Hyundai Steel.

Last year, the ruling People Power Party, which advocates a tough line on
North Korea, recruited him to run for parliament -- and he won office in
April legislative elections.

Park says he plans to work on North Korea issues during his term, but not
exclusively, as he has other interests and areas of expertise, as an engineer
for example.

Getting information from the outside world to people in tightly controlled
North Korea is key to changing the situation, he said.

"North Korea employs a two-track strategy of maintaining the regime's power:
designating an outside enemy to stir a sense of crisis among its people and
showcasing new weapons to give a sense of pride," Park told AFP.

But if the North Korean public "awaken", this strategy will stop working, he
said, meaning that the endless cycle of "provocation" can end.