Author Archives for Grant Montgomery

Why do tourists continue to travel to North Korea?

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Otto Frederick Warmbier, a 21-year-old student from the University of Virginia, has been detained in North Korea for the past two months … for trying to steal a propaganda banner from a Pyongyang hotel. Since March 2009, 12 Americans have been detained in North Korea, accused of crimes ranging from illegally crossing Chinese borders to leaving a Bible in a bin at a health club. That raises the question: why do tourists continue to travel there?

I spent 10 days in North Korea, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), last year. It was purely out of curiosity that I chose to visit. Our world is a small place. Every sea has been crossed, every mountain has been climbed and every jungle explored. Even the closed-off, secretive North Korea has been filmed, photographed and written about–but I don’t believe everything I watch, read or hear, and as a travel writer I couldn’t ignore this anomalous pocket in the heart of east Asia existing with such shocking defiance. I wanted to witness firsthand what North Korea was like.

Since the 1980s, North Korea has been admitting foreign tourists through organized, supervised tour groups. I booked myself on a chartered train tour along with 15 other tourists, including two Americans. We never felt unsafe. Not once. Not one of us ever questioned our security, largely because we abided by the rules which are few and simple: don’t deface photos of the Kims; don’t fold a magazine in half if Kim Jong-un’s face is on the front; include the whole body when photographing the Kims; wear a tie to the mausoleum; don’t take photos of the public without asking; and don’t leave Bibles behind in the country. This last rule exists as the regime believes that Kim Il-sung is still the supreme leader, and leaving behind a Bible is considered an attempt to influence the people’s beliefs.

[As for the North Koreans themselves:] After an initial blank stare, people smile and wave, whether it’s from fear, nervousness or simply a case of being unsure of tourists’ intentions. But it’s wrong to project a prescribed image on to an entire country.

Having traveled at the same time as the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Workers’ party, we were invited to join in dance rehearsals in the town square, holding hands and partnering with students who welcomed us without question. We shared earphones with our guides, showed photos of our families and had short, but sweet, exchanges with shop girls, museum guides and bellboys.

At the end of our trip one of the North Korean guides said quietly: “We are 20 million people. We are not to blame. We would like to be a member of world society. We are not perfect, but then no country is. Don’t make us suffer for what is not our fault.”

[The Guardian]

North Koreans have “nothing to envy”?!

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As a 17-year-old, Hyeonseo Lee’s childhood home in North Korea overlooked the border with China. Each night as North Korea plunged into darkness because of electricity shortages, she could see the twinkling lights across the border, a consistent puzzle without an answer.

“I think that because of the environment I grew up in … it raised a lot of questions, especially living on the border with China,” she told news.com.au. While Lee had been raised to believe that North Korea was the best country on the planet and even grew up singing the song Nothing to Envy, she gradually she started to think, “their life (in China) looks superior”.

“In the daytime I saw people die on the street, there were a lot of beggars on the street in my hometown,” she said. Lee saw her first execution at just seven years of age, and was shocked when she learned that people around her were dying of starvation.

Because her hometown was so close to the border, Lee’s home was able to receive Chinese television signals and this also raised questions. “It was illegal to watch … but I did my best to watch, it completely transformed my thought at the time.”

Lee decided to see for herself what life in China was like and made the dangerous journey across the frozen Yalu River, which separated the two countries. She also had the help of a border guard. At the time she innocently thought she would just make a quick visit and then return.

“But the moment I crossed the border, everything changed, after that moment, I couldn’t go back,” she said. Complications with the North Korean security police meant she was forced to live with relatives in China as an illegal immigrant.

She lived in fear that she would be discovered and sent back to North Korea, where torture for defectors was normal. At one point Lee was interrogated by police but they released her because her Chinese speaking skills convinced them that she was not North Korean.

[News.com.au]

Why Australia is special to this North Korean activist

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This weekend North Korean activist Hyeonseo Lee will speak at the Opera House in Sydney, Australia, two years after visiting the iconic venue as a tourist. “I never thought I would give a speech there,” she said.

She’s also keen to point out that Australia holds a particular place in her heart.

An Australian named Dick Stolp literally changed her family’s life when he withdrew US$981 from an ATM and paid for them to be released from a Laos jail, a short distance from the South Korean embassy. Lee had already spent everything she had to get her family across the border and had lost all hope of freeing them when Stolp spotted her and asked her what was wrong. He unhesitatingly paid the fines.

“His behavior changed me a lot. I didn’t believe angels existed in this world,” she said.

“Australia is a very special country, it’s the country where my hero is from. He paid all the penalties to get them out of jail, that’s why my family has freedom, I feel very happy to be here again.

Now 35 years old, Lee continues to be optimistic about her future and about the future of North Korea. “History proves that dictators can’t last forever,” she said.

[News.com.au]

North Korea leader orders military to be ready to use nuclear weapons at any time

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his country to be ready to use its nuclear weapons at any time and to turn its military posture to “pre-emptive attack” mode in the face of growing threats from its enemies, north Korea’s official KCNA news agency said on Friday.

The comments come after the U.N. Security Council imposed harsh new sanctions against the isolated state for its nuclear program.

North Korea has previously threatened pre-emptive attacks on its enemies including South Korea, Japan and the United States. Military experts doubt it has developed the capability to fire a long-range missile with a miniaturized warhead to deliver a nuclear weapon as far as the United States yet.

[Reuters]

UN Security Council approves new sanctions on North Korea

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The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved new sanctions on North Korea on Wednesday, in response to a recent nuclear test and rocket launch that violated U.N. resolutions on the country’s military activities. The new sanctions require, among other things, inspection of all cargo heading in and out of North Korea, a ban on the sale of valuable minerals by North Korea and a blockade on the sale or supply of jet fuel to the isolated nation.

The newly announced sanctions are tougher than previous resolutions targeting North Korea — part of a trend, NPR’s Elise Hu reports from Seoul, of incrementally tougher penalties placed on North Korea.

In an interview on All Things Considered last week, U.N. Ambassador Samantha Powers called the package of sanctions “nearly unprecedented in many respects” and “the toughest sanctions resolution that has been put forward in more than two decades.”

But as Elise told Morning Edition, the sanctions announced Wednesday aren’t expected to have a large impact on the lives of everyday North Koreans, thanks to the intervention of North Korea’s biggest ally. “China has been stern about saying that any new sanctions shouldn’t trigger a humanitarian disaster. So this set of sanctions is designed not to disrupt the general North Korean economy, which is based primarily on China and North Korea and their economic cooperation,” Elise says.

“The sanctions also don’t target one of North Korea’s big sources of hard currency, and that’s North Koreans who work overseas. So in general these are intended to weaken Pyongyang’s weapons systems and the elite members of the regime.”

China’s cooperation was pivotal to approving Wednesday’s new sanctions: disagreement between Beijing and Washington had prevented the Security Council from announcing new restrictions on North Korea back in January. Now, Elise says, “even China seems to be sort of running out of patience with North Korea and its young leader.”

[NPR]

North Korea’s recipe for bargaining: Detainee, script, TV cameras

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The Westerners who find themselves detained in North Korea–and there have been a fair few of them in recent years–invariably end up in front of television cameras making full-throated confessions, Otto Warmbier being the latest.

North Korea has a history of using American detainees as bargaining chips with the United States, its avowed enemy. These are some of the previous cases of strange confessions by detained Americans–which have been explained after their release.

“Put some emotion into it.” Jeffrey Fowle of Ohio spent almost six months in detention in North Korea in 2014 after leaving a Bible in a bathroom stall at a seaman’s club in Chongjin, a city on the northeast coast. Before his first appearance, in front of North Korean journalists from Associated Press Television News, Fowle’s minder told him to “put some emotion into it.” He suggested that it might be good if Fowle cried.

“The words were not mine.” Merrill Newman, an 85-year-old Californian man held in 2013 after mentioning to his tour guide that he fought in the Korean War. He later said, ‘Anyone who has read the text of it or who has seen the video of me reading it knows that the words were not mine and were not delivered voluntarily. “

“Long and grueling investigation.” John Short, an Australian, was arrested in North Korea in 2014 and held for almost a month after he left pamphlets about Christianity at a Buddhist temple. After his release, Short told the Australian Associated Press that he underwent a “long and grueling investigation.” “There were two-hour sessions each morning, which were repeated again in the afternoons,” he said.

“Regrettable.” Lim Hyeon-soo, a 60-year-old Korean-Canadian pastor who confessed last year to attempting to overthrow North Korea, was forced to make the claim, his friends say.

[Washington Post]

North Korean spy chief says Pyongyang unfazed by sanctions

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The head of North Korea’s General Bureau of Reconnaissance has said that the regime will survive regardless of international sanctions. Kim Yong-chol, who has headed the bureau since 2009, also serves as head of the United Front Department, which deals with South Korea.

Kim Yong-chol said North Korea “has not lived a single day without sanctions and will not die from them.”

Kim also insisted that the North’s latest nuclear test was only aimed at defending the isolated state against a U.S. threat, while North Korean leader Kim Jong-un intends to continue testing long-range rockets until the international community is convinced of their peaceful purpose.

[Chosun Ilbo]

American student held in North Korea “confesses”

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Otto Frederick Warmbier, a student at the University of Virginia who has been detained in North Korea for the past two months,  is accused of trying to steal a North Korean banner, containing a political slogan that was hanging from the walls of his Pyongyang hotel.

A North Korean official says the 21-year-old held a news conference “at his own request” Monday morning at the People’s Palace of Culture in Pyongyang. The event provided insight into the bizarre charges he is facing, including allegations that he was encouraged to commit the “hostile act” by a purported member of an Ohio church, a secretive university organization and even the CIA.

In a video supplied to CNN, North Korean guards escorted Warmbier into the room. He was not restrained and was wearing dark trousers, a light-colored blazer, shirt and tie. Appearing to read from a statement, Warmbier said: “I committed the crime of taking down a political slogan from the staff holding area of the Yanggakdo International Hotel.”

Warmbier is also seen in the video sobbing and pleading for forgiveness, and bowing deeply to apologize, and stating, “I never, never should have allowed myself to be lured by the United States administration to commit a crime in this country. I wish that the United States administration never manipulate people like myself in the future to commit crimes against foreign countries. I entirely beg you, the people and government of the DPRK, for your forgiveness. Please! I made the worst mistake of my life!”

Warmbier, a third-year business major at the University of Virginia, originally was detained on January 2 as he was about to board a plane and leave the country, according to Young Pioneer Tours, the China-based travel company that organized his trip.

[CNN]

Kim Jong Il’s bodyguard

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Once the bodyguard of  Kim Jong Il, Lee Young Guk today is a human rights advocate for the people of North Korea.

Last week, Lee was in Geneva at the Human Rights Summit. The 54-year-old has a clear mission: to draw attention to the grave human rights violations in North Korea and get current leader Kim Jong Un in front of the International Criminal Court. He wants a conviction for the son of the man he used to protect with his life.

Lee was a high school student when he got the prestigious summons to become Kim Jong Il’s bodyguard. All candidates had to go through extensive tests of their bodies, as well their characters. “The most important factor was your family background,” Lee said. “They focused on the question of whether one of your relatives was a political prisoner or had defected to South Korea.”

Before he started, he had to go through training and was somewhat brainwashed, Lee said. “They told us again and again what a godlike being Kim Jong Il was,” Lee said. “In my mind, he was this great person.”

Lee said that impression was quickly corrected when he began working for Kim. “His language was vulgar,” Lee said. “He wasn’t the man I had expected at all.” Lee added. Kim was a very moody person.

Despite the preferential treatment the bodyguards enjoyed, they were always scared. They were afraid of making a mistake and falling out of favor.

Even small mishaps could have grave consequences for their entire families. “He was cruel and had no mercy,” Lee said. “If people talked about him behind his back or laughed at him, he had them ‘disappear’ in the dark of night. Even his close confidants.”          Continued

Kim Jong Il’s bodyguard now a human rights advocate

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Lee Young Guk’s time as bodyguard came to an end in 1988. He had to leave – not because he didn’t do a good job, but because his cousin got the job of Kim Jong Il’s personal driver. It was prohibited for two members of the same family to work directly for the Kims.

For the first time in over a decade, Lee left Pyongyang, and was shocked by the poverty in the rest of North Korea. “I saw that basically nothing had changed in the outside world while I was gone,” Lee said. “People were still doing as badly as they were before: They were still going hungry or even starving.”

That’s when Lee first started doubting the regime. He used his professional past to get out of the country.. In 1994 Lee got a visa to China, from where he intended to flee to South Korea. His plan did not work, as he was sold out by a man who had promised to help him. He was returned to North Korea and sent to the Yodok camp: the infamous penal labor colony No. 15.

“Prisoners were treated like animals,” Lee said. “No – worse than animals.” Lee said he ate mice and snakes to survive; there was hardly any other food. “Every two weeks, many prisoners were selected and executed,” Lee said. “The rest of us had to watch, from maybe 10 meters away.”

Lee spent four years and seven months at the camp before he was released. When security forces tried to arrest him again, he managed to get away and flee across the river that marks the border with China.

[Deutsche Welle]