Top N.K. defector Hwang laid to rest

Hwang Jang-yop, a top North Korean ideologue who defected to South Korea 13 years ago and died here earlier this week, was laid to rest Thursday at the National Cemetery in Daejeon, south of Seoul. 

His funeral, held at Asan Medical Center in Seoul earlier in the day, was attended by about 300 people, including former President Kim Young-sam, Unification Minister Hyun In-taek, leaders of the ruling Grand National Party and his fellow exiles. 

“It is with great sorrow to have to let him go when North Korea’s totalitarian regime, which has made its 23 million people slaves, is still intact and is now even attempting a hereditary dynastic succession for three generations,” Park Gwan-yong, a former speaker of South Korea’s National Assembly, said in his funeral address. 

Hwang, before he defected to Seoul via Beijing in 1997, was the chief ideologue of communist North Korea, having crafted North Korea’s isolationist state policy of Juche. He also held ranking positions in the communist country, such as secretary of its ruling Workers’ Party in charge of foreign affairs.

“His coming to South Korea itself was the severest blow to North Korea,” Park recalled. 

After taking asylum here, Hwang became an acerbic critic of the North and its current leader Kim Jong-il, whom he once taught. 

Hwang was found dead Sunday morning at his home in Seoul, where he lived under around-the-clock police protection against a possible attempt at retaliation by North Korea. Police said it was a natural death associated with heart failure. He was 87.