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Authorities are said to have found a memo containing details of a plot to threaten Hwang Jang-yop, a former secretary for international affairs of the North Korean Workers' Party who defected to the South. The memo was discovered in the house of a high-ranking official of a pro-North Korean group. The memo said Hwang's activities must be stopped, that the threat must have no link to North Korea and that the letter containing the threat must be signed under a phantom name. This high-level official is presently in police custody after posting a message on the website of conservative presidential candidate Lee Hoi-chang, a month before December's presidential election, threatening to shoot him in the head if he ran for the top office.
In 2004, Hwang received a package containing his photo, pierced by a knife, with the words "I'm going to kill you" written on it. In 2006, Hwang received another package with a photo of him splattered with red paint. The package also contained a hatchet. Those two incidents resemble the details contained in the latest memo found in the house of the pro-North Korean group official. Letters have been delivered containing threats by a fictitious character attempting to stop Hwang's activities, yet having no connections to North Korea.
The threats against Hwang began in June 2003 after reports were issued by North Korea's Chosun Shinbo and the Korean Central News Agency urging severe punishment of the former North Korean official. And the pro-North Korean group official posted the threat on Lee Hoi-chang's website after the agency in the communist country in charge of inciting revolution in South Korea made an announcement on Nov. 19 last year urging Lee's elimination, calling him a "waste product of history." The timing of the threats and the North Korean announcements cannot be mere coincidence.
Shortly after North Korea's missile launch in July 2006, the pro-North Korean group in question issued a statement saying Washington's indiscretion in its actions prompted a radical step by the communist country. Until recently, visitors to the website of that group could see a message lauding North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as being the bravest of generals, the master of the country's "military first" policy who is guiding the Korean people into the era of independence and unification.
When he defected to South Korea in 1997, Hwang said he would expose the reality of North Korea, which is filled with a fake version of socialism and a bogus ideology of self-reliance. But left-wing factions have ended up gaining tremendous influence in South Korea. During a trial in South Korea involving a group of people accused of spying for the North, members of the organization the defendants were part of shouted at the prosecutor, calling him "trash" that is sucking the blood out of the masses. We must find the culprit behind the threats against Hwang.
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