On the 100th annual anniversary of the Koreas’ March 1st anti-colonial resistance movement, a North Korean underground resistance organization called Free Joseon (formally known as Cheollima Civil Defense [CCD]) declared the country’s provisional “government-in-exile” with their adamant self-determination to “dedicate themselves to abolish the ‘Great Evil.’”
An anonymous young woman wearing Hanbok solemnly read aloud the declaration in the venue, alleged to be Topkol park: “We declare on this day the establishment of Free Joseon, a provisional government preparing the foundations for a future nation built upon respect for principles of human rights and humanitarianism, holding sacred a manifest dignity for every woman, man, and child.” A century ago, it was Seoul’s epicenter of the March 1st movement during which tens of thousands of Korean youths dauntlessly shouted ‘Manse (Korea Forever)’ in protest against the Japanese colonial rule under the principle of non-violent civil disobedience. Free Joseon’s choice of venue resonates with the impression that their declaration is the zeitgeist sublimation of the March 1st movement’s resistance spirit that once solidarized marginalized Pan-Korean voices for the purpose of obliterating Japan’s, then, imperial and oppressive disciplinary power. The March 1st movement was partly inspired by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s “self-determination” doctrine under the 14-point statement. On a global scale, this contributed to kindling the global wave of national resistance against the Fascist top-down, realpolitik collusion for totalitarian oppression.
Carrying the torch of the March 1st spirit, the woman attested to the Kim dynasty’s “Great Evil.” “On this very day, tens of millions of our fellow Koreans remain enslaved by a depraved power, ruled by a corrupt few, made wealthy by the toils of many.” She then, in the name of the organization, indicted the actual crimes conducted by the Kim dynasty; they include, but are not limited to, “the devastating starvation of millions to government-sponsored murder, torture, and imprisonment, ” “overwhelming surveillance and thought-control”, “systemic rape, enslavement, and forced abortions, ” “political assassinations and acts of terror around the world, ” “the forced labor and stifled potential of our children,” “the enforced poverty of body, mind, and opportunity,” and “the development and distribution of modern weapons of great destruction, shared and sold to others who would also use them towards cruel ends.”
The “thaw” spectacles of the already year-long inter-Korean rapprochement have so far flash-blinded the global civil society of these miserable realities of the North Korean people. Nevertheless, South Korean pro-Kim apologists have adulterated these truths through their baroque dramatization of the country’s hegemony of ethnic nationalism. Such fabrication, which myopically conceptualizes the Pan-Korean diaspora, narrowly based on their subconscious cultural elitism and selective bias, have, consequently, silenced the agonies of the North Korean people. Frustrated by the South Korean Pan-Korean leaderships’ political unwillingness to fulfill the diasporic responsibility of emancipation, civil organizations, formed by North Korean defectors and refugees such as New Joseon, now resort to the principle of self-determination to help themselves. “We gazed at incredible feats of prosperity and developments to the south, hoping that, with their rising strength, they would remember their sisters and brothers left behind by history. But liberation did not come.” This declaration points out the political unwillingness.
New Joseon first appeared on the news using its former name, CCD, when the group posted a YouTube clip claiming that they were protecting Kim Han-sol, after his father and Kim Jung-un’s half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, was assassinated in the XY nerve agent attack in 2017.
New Joseon is the North Korean version of the national liberation front organization that has been conducting secretive activities to realize their mission goals, “If you want to escape or share information, we will protect you. This would be possible no matter what country you are in. We will safely escort you to wherever you want. We, who have already helped several North Koreans, do not expect any payment.” At the apex of the 2017 presidential race in South Korea, for instance, CCD posted on their website an open letter questioning presidential candidates, “Will you embrace and defend each and every defector who is looking for shelter?”
One of the alleged episodes regarding the CCD’s plan for government-in-exile dates back to decades ago. CCD once contacted Hwang Jang-yeop (a high-rank party secretary and the father of Juche ideology who defected to South Korea in 1998 and passed away in 2010) to nominate him for the first premier of the provisional government. However, Hwang refused the offer to keep his faith in the rule-based democracy, saying “My homeland is now South Korea and the coexistence of two governments is unconstitutional in the country.”
