RP strives to protect North Korean defector

RP strives to protect North Korean defector

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (DPA): Police at air and sea ports in the southern Philippines boosted security yesterday to prevent the assassination of a visiting North Korean defector by foreign agents trying to enter the country through its south.

Since North Korean defector Hwang Jang Yop, 73, landed in the Philippines Tuesday, Immigration has sent out a nationwide alert on the possible entry of foreign assassins, said Police Superintendent Ybbar Paddao, chief of the Aviation Security Command in the south.

Paddao said his group had been coordinating with immigration officials to monitor the possible entry of North Korean agents, hitmen from the Japanese Red Army or other foreign agents who might be trying to kill Hwang, once a top communist ideologue in Pyongyang.

"It's very possible that assassins may have used other countries such as Malaysia or Indonesia because we have one airport in Davao City operating international flights," Paddao said. Davao is the largest city in the southern Philippines.

The government has confirmed that Hwang arrived in the Philippines Tuesday after he left Beijing. The defector reportedly was on an unscheduled Air China flight that landed at Clark International Airport, 90 kilometers north of Manila.

Philippine officials, who asked not to be named, said Hwang, an aide who also defected and three other men who were on the plane were met at Clark by a South Korean group.

Reports said Hwang was then taken by military helicopter to the northern city of Baguio. But government officials, including Philippine President Fidel Ramos, have refused to confirm Hwang's whereabouts for security reasons.

Meanwhile, foreign affairs officials in Manila denied reports Friday that Hwang was staying in an American facility in Baguio and that the United States was involved in transporting the North Korean defector to South Korea, where he is seeking asylum.

Hwang was on a trade mission for North Korea in Beijing when he took refuge in the tightly secured South Korean embassy for a month while officials from China and the two Koreas negotiated a solution to the tense situation.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Domingo Siazon earlier said the Philippines had agreed to provide a transit point for Hwang to help avoid any potential conflict in the Korean Peninsula.