WHADDOES HE KNOW...:

Mentor of strongman urges his ouster (KWANG-TAE KIM, 10/18/06, ASSOCIATED PRESS)

The man once considered the mentor of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il said yesterday the reclusive country's nuclear weapons program cannot be stopped unless the strongman is ousted.

But Kim's total grip on the communist society makes that a remote possibility, said Hwang Jang-yop, the highest-ranking North Korean government official ever to defect to South Korea. Hwang, 83, wearing a lapel badge in the shape of the South Korean national flag, is also skeptical United Nations sanctions imposed on the North for a nuclear test explosion will hurt Kim's rule. [...]

He said South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan should not bargain with the North.

They should instead isolate the regime, he said, calling it an "international criminal organization and the enemy of democracy."