North Korea marked the birthday Wednesday of its founder, Kim Il Sung, worshiped at home as a virtual deity for laying the foundation for a five-decade-old dictatorship capable of threatening superpowers such as the U.S.
For Kim Young-hwan, a one-time pro-unification activist from South Korea who once revered the Great Leader, Kim became a tyrant who betrayed the country's socialist dream. A fugitive when he boarded a North Korea submarine in 1991 for Pyongyang, Kim found a power-obsessed despot, rather than the highly intelligent revolutionary he expected.
"There was no socialism, but only a monarchy in North Korea," Kim said at a lecture in Seoul last week. "It still is, with all resources funneled into keeping his grandson Kim Jong Un in power."