Assassination Plot Stopped

Two North Koreans posing as defectors were yesterday for being connected to a plot to assassinate a former high-ranking North Korean official who had also defected to the South.

Here's the scoop on that former official:

'The defector, Hwang Jang-yop, a former North Korean Workers’ Party secretary, has bitterly criticized the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, since his defection in 1997. Mr. Hwang tutored Mr. Kim and helped create the country’s ruling philosophy of juche, or national self-reliance.

Mr. Hwang, now 87, lives at a secret site in South Korea under police protection. He occasionally emerges to give a speech or a lecture, as he did recently in Washington and Tokyo, and his talks are typically replete with biting assessments of Mr. Kim and the North Korean government.'

North Korean officials hate Hwang and have threatened him in the past. This time, two army officers posed as defectors in order to find Hwang and "slit his throat."

It's just another chapter in this bitter rivalry. But Hwang has dodged the bullet this time.