The North Korean elite are outwardly expressing their discontent towards young leader Kim Jong-un and his government as more outside information trickles into the isolated country, North Korea’s former deputy ambassador to London said on Wednesday. Thae Yong-ho and since December 2016 has been speaking to media and appearing on variety television shows to discuss his defection to Seoul and his life as a North Korean envoy. “When Kim Jong-un first came to power, I was hopeful that he would make reasonable and rational decisions to save North Korea from poverty, but I soon fell into despair watching him purging officials for no proper reasons,” Thae said during his first news conference with foreign media on Wednesday. “Low-level dissent or criticism of the regime, until recently unthinkable, is becoming more frequent,” said Thae, who spoke in fluent, British-accented English. “We have to spray gasoline on North Korea, and let the North Korean people set fire to it.” Thae, 54, has said publicly that dissatisfaction with Kim Jong-un prompted him to flee his post. Prior to his defection, Thae had worked at the embassy for 10 years – an unusually lengthy period of time in such a high-profile posting. Overseas diplomats are generally recalled to Pyongyang every three or four years and undergo a period of “re-education” before being posted abroad again.
