Former N. Korean party secretary makes rare outing

GOYANG, South Korea, Dec. 19 (Yonhap) -- Hwang Jang-yop, the highest-ranking
North Korean official ever to defect to South Korea, made a rare personal outing
on Saturday to a newly-built apartment complex that offers a view of his former
country.
Hwang, a former international secretary of the North's ruling Workers' Party and
close aide to leader Kim Jong-il, rarely makes public excursions apart from
attending small organized lectures.
"Former Secretary Hwang came to make this visit after he heard that there are
apartments being built that offer a view of North Korea when the weather is
good," An Hyeok, vice chief of the Committee for the Democratization of North
Korea, a Seoul-based group of North Korean defectors headed by Hwang, said.
The apartment complex in Goyang, west of Seoul, is just 35 kilometers from the
North Korean border town of Kaesong, according to its developer, Doosan
Engineering & Construction Co. With its top floors at about 230 meters above sea
level, Doosan says the high-rise apartments offer a view of Kaesong and other
western border regions in the North when the sky is clear.
Doosan CEO Kim Ki-dong, who led Hwang on a tour of a model house, quoted him as
saying, "May unification come and fashionable and excellent apartments be built
also in North Korea."
Hwang, 86, defected to the South in 1997 and currently lives under police
protection in an unknown location. A murder threat -- an axe and a photo of Hwang
painted in red -- was delivered to the Committee for the Democratization of North
Korea in 2006. A South Korean man in September was sentenced to a 10-month jail
term and fined for making the threat.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)