South Korea prosecutors announced on August 27 that they had arrested a North Korean female spy by the name of Won Jeong-Hwa. Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office in South Korea released Won’s passport and evidence of her spying activities, including photo albums, a computer hard drive, CD’s containing North Korean propaganda songs, and male health supplements. A South Korean military information officer was also arrested for collaborating with Won.
Military on High Alert
South Korea’s National Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee held an emergency meeting of top military brass on the morning of August 28 to discuss countermeasures following the announcement of the arrests.
South Korea’s Defense Department said that the “2008 Defense White Paper” will include a phrase emphasizing that the North Korea remains a substantial threat.
Active Military Officer Involved
An army officer was also arrested in this case. Thus far it is still unknown how much classified military information he had leaked and what impact this will have on South Korea’s military and national security.
Won Jeong-Hwa, 34, is an intelligence operative working for North Korea’s Ministry of Public Security and the State Security Department. According to South Korea’s media report, Won is a distant relative of North Korea’s second highest leader, Kim Yong-Nam, president of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) Supreme People’s Assembly.
South Korea’s investigators said that Won posed as a North Korean refugee and used sex as a tool to facilitate her espionage activities. This was considered possible because of South Korea’s lack of a need of vigilance in matters regarding North Korea. She traveled many times to South Korea, China, and Japan over the past 10 years.
Won received instructions to acquire information on South Korea’s intelligence activities about North Korea and lured those agents to China, where she arranged to have them assassinated. Furthermore, in order to carry out the assassinations, she even received poisonous drugs and needles from North Korean intelligence.
“Sunshine Policy” Again Criticized
South Korea’s newspaper Chosun Daily commented on August 28 that South Korea’s 10-year “Sunshine Policy” led to a weakening and numbing of its national security apparatus. “The incident completely exposed the fact that South Korean society has totally lost the necessary vigilance due to the peaceful atmosphere between the North and South.”
It was reported that between the time of Won’s infiltration into South Korea in October 2001, to when the National Intelligence Service starting the secret investigation of her in May 2005, Won’s activities had been considered suspicious. Despite all of this, no one reported her to the authorities and no monitoring procedures were implemented. In addition, the center stage of Won’s spying activities was South Korea’s military. This demonstrates the seriousness of this incident.
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