The latest North Korean diplomat to defect to South Korea paints a grim picture of hopelessness among North Koreans fed up with the country’s dictatorial Kim dynasty rule as perpetuated by third-generation leader, Kim Jong-un. 

In an interview with South Korea’s biggest newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, 52-year-old Ri Il-gyu said bluntly the North “has no hope under Kim Jong-un’s regime” while its citizens “live in poverty” and see “reunification with the South as the only way to secure a better future for their children.” 

They think “if South Korean conglomerates were to invest and create jobs, their living conditions would improve significantly,” said Mr. Ri, who was counselor at North Korea’s embassy in Cuba when he flew out of Havana and fled to South Korea with his wife and child.

“The one hour I waited at the airport gate felt like years,” he told Chosun Ilbo. “For the first time, I prayed earnestly for God to protect my family, understanding why people believe in religion.”

Mr. Ri gave a sense of the extreme hardships endured by North Koreans at a session of the Global Korea Forum staged in Seoul by South Korea’s unification ministry, responsible for the South’s relationships with the North.

“Perception by the North’s elite group toward the regime has changed a lot,” the South’s Yonhap News quoted him as telling the Forum. “They are disillusioned with Kim’s impromptu behaviors. Even with doing something wrong a little bit, North Korea shoots them to death.”

North Koreans “do not have any expectations for the regime,” he said. “They believe that what enables them to survive is markets” — that is free markets where food and other necessities are bought and sold beyond the control of the failing Communist state system.

Mr. Ri joins a succession of North Korean diplomats who have defected in recent years, most prominently, the deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom, Thae Yong-ho, flew from London to Seoul with his wife and two kids in 2016.

Unlike the others, Mr. Ri has actually sipped tea with Kim Jong-un, who bestowed a medal on him for his success in negotiating with Panama the release in 2013 of a North Korean ship carrying missiles and aircraft parts though the Panama Canal.

“In person, Kim Jong-un is just an ordinary human,” Mr. Ri told Chosun Ilbo, describing the leader, who weighs upwards of 300 pounds. “Up close, you can’t help but think his blood pressure must be extremely high; his face is always red like he’s been drinking, even redder than on screen. He looks almost like a Native American.”

Mr. Ri also had some pointed observations to make about Mr  Kim’s daughter, Ju-ae, about 12 years old, who frequently accompanies him on public appearances, including missile launches.

 “They lived in an apartment in Pyongyang’s Second Academy of Natural Sciences, where over 80 percent of residents work on nuclear and missile development,” he said. “According to them, since she was a toddler, whenever Kim Jong-un was in a good mood, he would bring her out, saying, ‘I will show you my princess.’ “

Mr. Ri was not so impressed. Initially, he said, it was intriguing when she was first brought out, “but as she appeared in official state events like military parades, it became increasingly uncomfortable,” Chosun Ilbo quoted him as saying. “After enduring all sorts of humiliation under these people, the thought of my children bowing to that little girl was unbearable. Many North Koreans probably felt the same.”

He doubted, however, that Ju-ae would some day succeed Mr. Kim. “Personally, I find it unlikely,” he said. “Absolute authority and worship require an aura of mystery. With her being so exposed, how can there be any mystery or reverence?”

Most horrifically, Mr. Ri. recalled the execution of a top foreign ministry official, Han Song-ryol, “on charges of being a U.S. spy” two weeks before the failed summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un at Hanoi in February 2019.

Senior officials “were gathered near Pyongyang Sunan Airport at the Kang Kon Military Academy to witness the execution,” he said. “I could not attend as I was being assigned to Cuba at the time. Those who witnessed the execution reported being unable to eat for several days afterward.”