N. Korea detains S. Korean worker for criticizing Pyongyang

SEOUL, March 30 (Yonhap) -- North Korea is holding a South Korean worker for allegedly criticizing its political system and instigating a North Korean female worker to consider defection to the South, officials said Monday.

North Korea sent a fax message to South Korea at 11:50 a.m. on Monday, saying
that a South Korean worker at a joint industrial complex in its territory was put
under detention for "denouncing our political system," Unification Ministry
spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo said.
According to another ministry official who requested anonymity, the North Korean
notice also said the worker "degenerated and spoiled our female employee to
instigate defection." The North Korean worker did not defect.
The officials declined to identify the name or the company of the detained
worker, citing the sensitivity of the issue, but Hyundai Asan Corp. a unit of the
South's Hyundai Group that developed the joint complex, said the individual is
one of its contract workers.
"Internal discussions are ongoing at Hyundai Asan, and we are closely watching
the situation," Park Sung-wook, the firm's spokesman, said.
In the North's border town of Kaesong, just an hour's drive from Seoul, 101 small
garment and other labor-intensive South Korean firms are currently operating at
the South Korean-funded industrial complex, with 39,000 North Korean workers
employed there.
The incident comes amid rising inter-Korean tension ahead of the North's planned
rocket launch slated for early April. The North claims that its rocket launch is
to put a communications satellite into orbit but many outside experts suspect it
is a cover for test-launching a long-range missile.
There have been several cases in which South Korean workers or managers were
investigated for allegedly violating North Korean law, but the latest case raises
concern as it comes amid frozen political relations and heightened tensions on
the peninsula.
In one case, a South Korean female tourist was held for five days in 1999 for
telling a North Korean guard in the North's scenic Mount Kumgang that North
Korean defectors are living well in the South. In 2005, a South Korean worker was
detained for 45 days at Mount Kumgang after killing one North Korean soldier and
injuring two others while driving under the influence of alcohol, for which his
company paid US$400,000 to the North in compensation.
According to an inter-Korean accord governing the joint industrial complex, South
Koreans breaching North Korean law are suspended from work, investigated and may
be fined or expelled depending on the severity of their violations.
North Korea said in the message that it will "ensure the safety of the worker,"
the ministry spokeswoman said.
The other ministry official said the worker is believed to have been detained
from his residence in the morning and was being questioned in the absence of a
lawyer.
The case comes as North Korea is also holding two U.S. journalists for entering
its territory through the country's shared border with China.
The Kaesong venture is the only major cross-border project that remains intact
between the two divided Koreas. Other visible projects, including tours to Mount
Kumgang and historic sites in Kaesong, an ancient Korean capital, have all been
suspended.
North Korea shunned South Korean border crossings to the joint complex several
times earlier this month in protest against an annual U.S.-South Korean joint
military exercise.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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