AMBASSADOR'S TRIP TO HANAWON AND HANGYERAE

UNCLAS SEOUL 000179


SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

C O R R E C T E D COPY CAPTION
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PHUM SREF PGOV PROP PREL KS KN
SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR'S TRIP TO HANAWON AND HANGYERAE
RESETTLEMENT SUPPORT INSTITUTIONS -- EFFECTIVE FIRST STEPS
FOR NORTH KOREAN DEFECTORS

REF: A. 2008 SEOUL 02305

B. 2008 SEOUL 00129


1. (SBU) Summary: The Ambassador's January 29 visit to
Hanawon Resettlement Center and Hangyerae Middle and High
School revealed clean and modern facilities that show
effective ROKG support for North Korean defectors on arrival
in the ROK. During 2008, Hanawon's main campus for female
defectors doubled its maximum capacity from 300 to 600
(partly by shortening training time),preparing to
accommodate 3,600 women trainees per year; men are trained at
another center. Meanwhile, the Hangyerae School, an
interagency effort to bridge defectors' educational gap, is
overcrowded with 280 students and is seeking additional
funding. Recently arrived North Korean defectors told the
Ambassador that they were in touch with family in North Korea
and planned to bring children and other family members to the
ROK, though they lamented that life in the ROK was more alien
and required a bigger adjustment than living in China. End
Summary.

-------------- --------------
Hanawon Expansion: Well-funded; Ready To Receive More
-------------- --------------


2. (SBU) To accommodate the increasing number of North Korean
defectors each year (2,018 in 2006; 2,544 in 2007; and 2,809
in 2008),the Ministry of Unification continues to spend
close to one-half of the ministry's entire budget on Hanawon
(USD 67 million in 2009). During 2008, Hanawon's main campus
for female defectors doubled its maximum capacity from 300 to
600, preparing to accommodate 3,600 women trainees per year.
The recent expansion and added employment training at Hanawon
and the existence of Hangyerae School, targeted to assist
North Korean defector teenagers, affirm a renewed ROKG
commitment to provide a strong resettlement program. Hanawon
and Hangyerae are located in isolated rural surroundings near
Ansung City, about an hour away from Seoul, but facilities
are clean and modern.


3. (SBU) Of the 2,809 North Korean defectors who arrived in
the ROK in 2008, 2,197 (78 percent) were women in their
twenties to forties. About 17 percent were teenagers in need
of middle or high school education. The overall number of
North Korean defectors in South Korea crossed the 15,000
threshold in 2008. The number is expected to continue to
rise in the coming year.


4. (SBU) Hanawon is the first stop for virtually all North
Korean defectors after initial screening by the ROKG
intelligence services upon arrival. The main campus in
Ansung City opened in July 1999, two years after the
Settlement Support for Dislocated North Korea Act passed.
The center at first trained about 900 defectors per year, but
the need for an expansion came only a few years later. The
first expansion of the main campus in 2003 doubled its
maximum capacity from 150 to 300 and allowed for 1,800
trainees per year. In 2006, a separate, smaller facility for
adult males opened in Si-heung City, where 93 male defectors
currently receive training. To accommodate an influx of
female defectors, who have outnumbered male defectors more
than three to one since 2006, Hanawon's main campus took on a
second expansion, completed in December 2008. The center now
stands ready to receive up to 600 students at a time for
two-month orientation sessions; 3,600 per year. Currently,
Hanawon's main complex is half full, occupied by 304 female
defectors, but Hanawon Director Ko Gyoung-bin seemed
confident that the new dorms would not remain empty for long.
Hanawon begins a new training class every three weeks and
three classes overlap during the 8-week period.


5. (SBU) Similar to previous years, about 44 percent of
MOU's entire budget, or USD 67 million, is earmarked for
Hanawon in 2009. Hanawon's facility was modern and
impressive, fully equipped with a dental clinic, internal
medicine and traditional Eastern medicine unit, nursery (as a
baby is born to a mother in training every twenty days),
cafeteria, computer labs, dormitories, library and an indoor
gym as well as a new outdoor soccer field. According to Ko,
about 50 percent of Hanawon's medical budget (approximately
USD 150,000) was spent on dental work. The rest allowed the



upkeep of the new and existing facilities, implementation of
a mandatory training program for virtually all North Korean
defectors arriving in South Korea and payment of 57 faculty
members' salaries.

-------------- --------------
Hangyerae: New, but Already Crowded; Useful Stepping Stone
for North Korean Youth
-------------- --------------


6. (SBU) The Ministries of Unification and Education fund a
school for defector teenagers, who in recent times have
accounted for about 17 percent of the overall defectors.
Unable to open as planned in 2003 because of opposition of
residents at various locations considered for the school,
Hangyerae finally opened in 2006 in Ansung -- already home to
Hanawon resettlement center. The school was completed in
2007, fully equipped with a media room, computer lab, bakery,
auditorium, English Village, dance studio, cafeteria, and
apartment-style dorms on the top floor -- modern and
high-tech, even by South Korean standards.


7. (SBU) Hangyerae now provides room and board for 280 North
Korean defector youth, who are without immediate adult family
members in South Korea. Fourteen faculty members assist the
students round-the-clock, in classrooms during the day and in
dorm rooms in the evening. On average, students spend about
a year at Hangyerae, but are permitted to stay up to two
years, as needed. According to Principal Kwak Jong-moon,
most of the students did not receive formal schooling while
en route to South Korea, often for four to five years or
longer. This prolonged period without education, coupled
with South Korean passion for academic success, meant that
North Korean teenagers faced enormous difficulty
transitioning successfully into South Korean schools.


8. (SBU) Kwak emphasized that Hangyerae was a crucial
stepping stone, adding that almost all former Hangyerae
students graduate from South Korean schools, compared with a
90 percent drop-out rate for North Korean teenagers who do
not complete the Hangyerae curriculum. National Assembly
member Kim Hack-yong (Grand National Party) whose district
included Hanawon and Hangyerae, attended the briefing at
Hangyerae School when he heard the Ambassador was visiting,
and thanked the Ambassador for her interest. Representative
Kim also noted the high quality of the facilities and
curriculum at the school.


9. (SBU) Despite the school's impressive success rate, Kwak
said Hangyerae would soon have to turn away students if
additional funding is not available. The school is at twice
its maximum capacity and teachers' overtime was not being
compensated. Kwak believed the students were motivated to
succeed in South Korea and this could become reality, if
given proper education and guidance.

-------------- --------------
ROKG Financial Support: Revised, but Still Generous
-------------- --------------


10. (SBU) While ROKG financial support for resettlement and
housing assistance remained generous, the ROKG has made
several revisions since 2006:

-- Installments: Instead of a lump sum settlement allowance
of USD 20,000, Hanawon graduates now receive a decreased,
quarterly allowance of KRW 6 million, or about USD 4,500, for
eight quarters.

-- Security Deposit: USD 10,000 security deposit for a
subsidized rental unit is no longer paid to the defector, but
deposited directly on behalf of the new resident to prevent
payment to brokers or misspending.

(NOTE: About 10,000 out of 300,000 government subsidized
units are occupied by North Korean defectors. While
localized housing provides assistance and convenience to
recent arrivals, it also causes tension between South and
North Korean residents. END NOTE.)

-- Employment Bonus: This added incentive was designed to


encourage Hanawon graduates to seek employment opportunities
instead of relying on government subsidies. Free training
and monthly allowance of KWR 200,000, or approximately USD
150, is available for participants in employment training for
six months or longer. The ROKG also subsidizes companies
employing Hanawon graduates by paying 50 percent of the
wages.

-------------- --------------
Defector Trend: More Female Defectors; No Longer Looking for
Food but Better Life with Freedom
-------------- --------------

11. (SBU) The number of female defectors exceeded males in
2002 (625 females to 513 males),almost doubled in 2003 (813
to 468),and more than tripled after that (1,533 to 485 in
2006; 1,975 to 569 in 2007; and 2,197 to 612 in 2008). Asked
why so many more female defectors arrived in South Korea than
male defectors, Hanawon Director Ko explained that women were
able to live in hiding better and longer in China, and when
caught, escaped more easily from the authorities.
Trafficking was not unusual in the ethnic-Korean Chinese
concentrated areas because many women had already left these
regions to make a better living in the ROK. North Korean
females filled a large vacuum in the marriage pool for
ethnic-Korean Chinese males, Ko said.


12. (SBU) In addition to a surge of female defectors, Ko
noted a shift toward differing motivations for defectors
starting a few years ago, in contrast to ten years ago when
defectors escaped primarily to find food. Since a few years
ago, defector groups arrived in larger numbers and most left
North Korea to seek a better, freer life in the ROK. Many
also arranged, and raised funds for, remaining family members
in North Korea to defect. Ko said that recent arrivals were
politically better informed and eager to engage in
discussions about the future of KJI and North Korea.

-------------- --------------
Defector Views: Life in China Easier than in the ROK; North
Korea as an Infected Wound
-------------- --------------


13. (SBU) During a roundtable discussion over lunch, five
Hanawon trainees, all women in their 30s and early 40s with
family members and children in China or North Korea, shared
their thoughts with the Ambassador, whom they said they felt
familiar with from seeing her on television speaking Korean.
Most women had spent significant amounts of time in China
before reaching the ROK, and noted that in many ways adapting
to China, with a level of development more similar to the
DPRK, was easier than adjusting to the fast-paced,
competitive life of the ROK. Several trainees added that if
there were no danger of repatriation to the DPRK by Chinese
authorities, they would have preferred to stay in China. One
said only half-jokingly that life was easier in China because
people could smoke and spit anywhere they wanted, just like
in North Korea. Others hoped for a day that North Korea
would become more like China, allowing people to keep what
they earn.


14. (SBU) The top priority for the trainees was employment,
so that they could save money, pay brokers and bring family
members out of North Korea. They were in contact with their
children in China and North Korea by phone. When asked, the
trainees spoke of hopes to become a nursery teacher, business
student, hair dresser, fashion designer and driver, some
through Hanawon employment training.



15. (SBU) Hanawon trainees who left North Korea between 2004
and 2007 said that they left North Korea not because of lack
of food, but for a better future because "there is no future
under Kim Jong-il." They described North Korea as an
infected internal wound about to burst where "anything is
possible with money." Hanawon residents kept up with North
Korean news through TV and other sources and believed that
access to internet would undercut the regime the fastest.
Most had heard about KJI's children and other aspects of his
private life for the first time after their arrival in South
Korea, as such topics were prohibited in North Korea.




16. (SBU) Four high school students who currently enrolled
in Hangyerae used to study medicine at Kim Il-sung
University. Ko interpreted this as a sign that problems
within North Korea are far more severe than anticipated. A
graduate of Kim Il-Sung University and a Hangyerae teacher,
Ko Seun-ah (protect),said separately that more students are
now coming from southern provinces in North Korea and
belonged to a higher socio-economic class.


17. (SBU) Another sign of ailing North Korea was a sharp
rise in the price of rice which had increased from NKW 700
per kg at the time of her departure in 2005 to NKW 3,000 in

2008. Even at such a high price, nothing was available to
buy, Ko Seun-ah explained. According to regular North Korea
travelers from the diplomatic and NGO groups in Seoul, 1 kg
of rice is sold for NKW 5,000 and NKW 5,500 when grain is
available in the black market.


18. (SBU) At a separate event at Hangyerae School, about 30
high school students participated in a discussion with the
Ambassador where, in addition to asking about U.S. views on
Korean reunification and Kim Jong Il, they showed much
interest in her experience as a Korean-speaking woman
diplomat, and in opportunities to study in the United States.
The students demonstrated a high-level of political interest
and were keen to hear about opportunities to travel and/or
study in the United States.

--------------
Comment
--------------


19. (SBU) The ROKG continues to provide generous financial
and institutional support for defectors, as evidenced by
Hanawon and Hangyereh, despite a considerable downsizing last
year of the Ministry of Unification, which manages most of
the defector-related programs. Still resettlement is not
easy. It was clear that most of those we spoke to find life
after Hanawon competitive and challenging, and sometimes long
for the safe zone of Hanawon or life in China before arrival
in South Korea, where they feel alienated. As the ROKG
continues to gear up for more defectors in coming years,
genuine integration of former North Korean residents in South
Korea will require more confidence by North Korean defectors
and less social discrimination by South Korean brethren.
Above all, real integration will require time.
STEPHENS