Former North Korean Spy Cast Doubts On Kim Jong Un's Olympic Motives
A former North Korean spy cautions the world not to trust Kim Jong Un ahead of the Winter Olympic Games set to be held in PyeongChang. Her dire warnings come as North Korea announced their intention to send athletes to participate in the games.
Kim Hyon-hui, a mass murderer and former spy for rogue state believes that its current leader is seeking to use the sporting event to his own advantage. Speaking with NBC News, Kim said that the North is trying to escape the sanctions imposed against it and break free from international isolation by holding hands with South Korea.
She also believes that the North will use the games to separate South Korea from the United States, paving the way for unification of the Korean peninsula under Communist rule. She also dismissed the North Korean Olympic team as well as their accompanying delegates are nothing more than "a publicity stunt for Kim Jong Un."
Kim is one of the agents responsible for the 1987 bombing of the Korean Air flight 858 that killed all 115 people on board. While her colleague killed himself to avoid capture, she was arrested in Bahrain and was put to trial in South Korea. Sentenced to death, she was pardoned and freed, now living under protection in the country.
"When I was given the mission, my role was to disrupt the Seoul Olympics," she said in a recent interview with CNN. "As a living witness to North Korea's terror, I tell the truth and I am on the front line to prevent this kind of attack. Korea is still at war when it comes to ideology and thoughts."
Kim's warnings are being echoed by international experts and U.S. military officials, who also believe North Korea's recent overture to the South is a facade for hidden motives such as to drive a wedge between them and their allies.
"The North's bigger objective would also be to use the international platform to raise its profile," Duyeon Kim, visiting senior research fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum think tank told Newsweek. "Kim Jong Un's North Korea is much more image-conscious than the North under his father. That image is to be perceived as a strong yet peace-loving nuclear power."