Propaganda coup, information flop

Hwang Jang-yop is outspoken in his apparent hatred of the Pyongyang regime he served for so long. Hwang, the most senior North Korean official to ever defect to the South, says the communist state's preparation for war is beyond imagination. The regime is a one-man dictatorship, and the one man -- Kim Jong-Il -- is unstable. Kim, he says, dreams of annihilating the South with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and is developing all three. North Korean missiles will soon rain on Japan and even the United States.

Hwang has now had his first major press conference since his defection from the north earlier this year. His charges against North Korea remain stark, even terrifying. His criticism of Kim and the Pyongyang regime are far stronger than the propaganda broadcasts these days. But pressed for details, Hwang was about as informative as any ordinary man in the street.

Hwang, in short, has turned out, so far, to be the nightmare of both military planners and diplomats. His defection was a coup for propagandists but a flop for giving any useful information. The disappointment surrounding his lack of information is now widespread. Whether he will not or cannot provide the information is a matter of intense speculation among his interrogators. In the end, it hardly matters. The fact is that the U.S., which stations 37,000 troops on the North-South Korean border, has detected no change in the positioning of the North's 1.1 million- man army -- changes that would need to occur if war was imminent.

South Korea has maintained its reputation as a reliable asylum for North Korean defectors. That is about the best that can be said of the Hwang defection. The great disappointment over his lack of information must not poison the slow, but steady, moves toward peace on the Korean peninsula.

-- The Bangkok Post