To Adrian Hong’s supporters, his takeover of the North Korean Embassy was an extension of a lifetime’s work on behalf of oppressed North Koreans, a worthy cause taken perhaps too far. But the U.S. government isn’t seeing it that way.
“The State Department wants to send a message to the North Koreans that the U.S. government was not behind the Madrid incident … and that message has bloomed into a full-throttled effort to placate Kim Jong Un,” said Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
When Hong returned to the embassy just past the 5 p.m. closing time, he was admitted into the gated compound by a gardener. Hong was instructed to wait on a bench, but instead he opened the gate to let in his accomplices, about eight people in all, according to a Spanish court order. At one point, according to court records, they took the North Korean charge d’affaires to a basement room and tried to persuade him to defect, which he refused. His wife and 8-year-old son locked themselves in another room.
Some of Hong’s old compatriots in the human rights struggle said they are not surprised that he turned rogue. “There are 20 million people in North Korea. Most people didn’t really care and that’s what really lit a fire under him,” said Paul “PK” Kim, a Los Angeles comedian and cofounder of LiNK, who recalls dreaming up the idea during long conversations at a Koreatown cafe and in Hong’s dorm at Yale.
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