Category: China

A stark reality of life inside North Korea

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As North Korea embarks on its first party congress in 36 years, ‘supreme leader’ Kim Jong-Un is set to announce a number of economic reforms and tighten his iron-clad grip on power. It is likely to be accompanied by mass choreographed fist-pumping rallies and spectacles.

Jihyun Park has firsthand experience of the “hermit kingdom”. Born in North Korea, she lived through the famine of the late 1990s. “Three and a half million North Koreans died of famine in this period.” she tells The Independent. “I lived only worrying about what I would eat that day, and then the next day. My family died from starvation. My uncle lived alone in a rural area and because of food shortage and problems with food distribution he starved.”

Unable to afford a coffin, Ms Jihyun says her family wrapped his corpse with rice straws and carried him on an ox cart to be buried. According to Ms Jihyun, stories such as these are common in North Korea.

Education in the totalitarian state was wholeheartedly centred around and devoted towards the Kim dynasty . “The words of the Kims – both father and son – are on the walls of the classroom and we have to memorize them. Such mantras are repeated by every teacher, every hour,” she explains.

This indoctrination transcends the classroom. Jihyun says that in the 1990s, a poem written about former leader Kim Il Sung was ordered to be hung on the walls of every single home. “Everyone, man, woman and child, had to learn the poem by heart,” she recalls.

At the age of 30, Ms Jihyun and her brother escaped to China from her hometown Chongjin by the border to China. Although she had been promised a well-paid job once there, she was instead brought to a trafficking establishment. “Between 1998-2004, I spent six years in northeast China as a slave to a Chinese man. I gave birth to a son”.

But everything suddenly changed when she was arrested and repatriated back to North Korea and her son remained in China. There she spent a year in one of the country’s most harrowing detention camps. “Although I fled the North due to economic reasons, my crime was considered political betrayal,” she said. “I was imprisoned, tortured, and re-educated for six months, after which I could no longer work because of severe malnutrition, and an injury in my leg was so bad that I was released on sick bail to have it amputated.”

After a year she escaped yet again to China and there she took her son from the father’s family. She then traveled to Mongolia, and against all odds, arrived in Manchester England with her son in 2008. On the way she met her husband, a fellow North Korean defector, in China.

[The Independent]

Obama says US prepping shield to counter North Korea

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The United States is readying a “shield” to protect itself from “low-level” threats from North Korea, which has conducted multiple nuclear and ballistic missile tests this year, according to President Obama.

“One of the things that we have been doing is spending a lot more time positioning our missile development systems, so that even as we try to resolve the underlying problem of nuclear development inside of North Korea, we’re also setting up a shield that can at least block the relatively low-level threats that they’re posing now,” Obama said in an interview with “CBS News” that aired Tuesday.

The comments suggest the U.S. is moving ahead with plans to deploy a new missile defense system in South Korea.

American diplomats have tried to assuage Chinese concerns about the system. South Korea is a regional rival and Beijing is worried it would pose a threat to Chinese national security.

But Obama said the U.S. does not want to take any chances with “erratic” North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong-un, whom he described as “personally irresponsible.”

“North Korea is a massive challenge,” Obama said. “They are erratic enough — their leader is personally irresponsible enough — that we don’t want them getting close,” he continued. “But it’s not something that lends itself toward an easy solution.”

[The Hill]

Commentary on Chinese–North Korean relations

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The recent mass defection of 13 North Korean restaurant workers is a humiliating blow to the Pyongyang leadership. Especially because it was apparently allowed by China, North Korea’s most powerful ally and trading partner. In the past, China has sent defectors back to North Korea.

In an April 11 press conference, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang made the unusual move of commenting publicly about the case. “After an investigation, 13 [North Korean] citizens were found exiting the Chinese border with valid passports on the early morning of April 6. It is worth noting that these people all had valid identity documents with them and exited the Chinese border in accordance with law,” he said.

Many analysts believe China’s actions could be a sign of increased tension between Pyongyang and Beijing. Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un’s government faces growing isolation and heightened sanctions over its nuclear and missile programs. Ongoing allegations of widespread human rights abuse made by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights continue to infuriate North Korean leadership.

Pyongyang has responded to mounting global pressure with a series of provocative shows of force. Observers believe Kim is trying to project strength, both domestically and internationally, ahead of the crucial Worker’s Party Congress next month, when the young leader is expected to consolidate his power. South Korean government intelligence indicates a fifth North Korean nuclear test could be in the works ahead of that major political gathering.

[CNN]

Pyongyang wants Seoul to return 12 ‘abducted’ defectors

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North Korea on Thursday issued two reports through its official media calling on South Korea to return a group of 13 defectors who fled from a North Korean restaurant in China earlier this month.

The Korean Central News Agency quoted an unnamed spokesman from North Korea’s Red Cross Society as saying the families of the 12 women from the group “are earnestly asking for direct contact with them as early as possible,” adding that “what we want is to let the daughters meet their parents and directly clarify their stand.”

The report from KCNA described the incident as “abduction,” and demanded an apology from South Korea. China confirmed that the group had left China legally and with valid passports.

A second report, issued by KCNA the same day, carried a statement from a spokesman, again unnamed, from the Central Committee of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League, which claimed the case of the defectors was engineered for political purposes ahead of that country’s general election days later. (President Park Geun-hye’s Saenuri Party lost its majority in the April 13 poll.)

 [Kyodo]

LiNK and liberty for North Koreans

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Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) is a Los Angeles-based NGO that works with North Korean refugees. Since it was founded in 2004, LiNK has shepherded more than 400 North Koreans through China and Southeast Asia to South Korea and the United States, where defectors can claim political asylum.

Sokeel Park, LiNK‘s director of research and strategy, makes it clear that his organization does not do “extractions” — meaning they don’t arrange for people inside North Korea to make it out. Instead, LiNK works with refugees who have already fled, or gets “referrals” from defectors who have kept in contact with relatives via smuggled cellphones or other means and know an escape is coming.

With China and North Korea both seeking to arrest defectors — and potentially the people who aid in their escapes — Park says “operational security” is crucial, so the first step upon meeting refugees is vetting. After LiNK feels comfortable the defector is not an agent of the North Korean regime, the organization makes arrangements to smuggle the person from China’s northeastern frontier to a third country, typically in Southeast Asia.

In years past, defectors could simply enter a US embassy or consulate in China and be guaranteed protection. Getting out of the diplomatic outpost and moving on to the next destination required approval from the Chinese government, however, and Beijing began forcing refugees to wait months or years before allowing them to continue on their way. China also cracked down by beefing up security outside the compounds to make it more difficult to get inside.

LiNK has a history of success when it comes to helping defectors escape — Park says their success rate is over 95 percent — but there are no guarantees.

[Vice News]

North Korean refugees settled in America

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Former North Korean refugees are scattered throughout the US in more than three dozen cities, from Los Angeles and Chicago to smaller towns in Idaho, Virginia, and Kentucky.

Daniel. a pseudonym he chose to protect the family he left in North Korea, is one of the 186 refugees who have settled in cities across the US since the passage of the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, which established a path for people fleeing the country to gain asylum in America.

Going from the isolated Hermit Kingdom to the land of fast food, consumer culture, and individual freedom is about as close to falling into an alternate universe as reality allows. Yet Daniel can’t help but wax nostalgic about his old life. He lives alone, and it’s been more than five years since he spoke to his family. “I miss everything,” he says in Korean. “The smell of the ground. The dirt. Everything. I didn’t really see how precious it was to be able to live with my family. I don’t have that now.”

Daniel spent time in China at an underground Christian church, where he came in contact with a Christian missionary who was knowledgeable about helping refugees escape to South Korea and the United States. The missionary connected Daniel with a representative of Liberty in North Korea (LINK), a Los Angeles-based NGO that works with North Korean refugees. LINK arranged for him to take trains and buses through China — a journey of some 3,000 miles — to a country in Southeast Asia that he does not name in order to protect LINK’s staff and other defectors still using the same route.

Daniel first found work in the most American of places: a shopping mall, where he worked in a restaurant bakery from 6am until noon, then served as a busboy at another food court eatery from 12:30pm to 5pm. He then found work in the kitchen at the Korean-owned sushi restaurant where he now works as a chef. He clearly takes pride in his craft, describing how the rice has to be “perfect” and the fish must be cut to just the right thickness, but it’s also clear his life is missing something. When asked what he does for fun, he says, “Clean the house.”

“Financial stability, I used to think that was the most important thing, but not anymore, Relationships, I think that’s the most important thing in your life. … I had to become self-sufficient, and I did it,” he says. “Sometimes I do feel miserable, but when I look back, I survived. I made it.”

[Vice News]

North Korean defector speaks out … in Beijing!

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The Chinese government doesn’t take well to those who criticize its complicity in North Korea’s human-rights abuses. So it took some courage for native North Korean Hyeonseo Lee to take the stage at a recent public event in Beijing and blast China for sending thousands of refugees back into the grip of the Kim regime, where they face prison or worse.

Ms. Lee knows the risks well. After escaping North Korea in 1997, she spent 11 years on the run in China, hiding from authorities and using multiple aliases, before making it to freedom in South Korea.

“I want to tell the very basic things about what is happening to North Koreans here,” Ms. Lee told the Beijing audience. “China is the place we have to cross .. There are many evils living in China, human traffickers, but at the same time many good people. I’m grateful to those good people, but not the Chinese government.”

China has signed the international Refugee Convention banning “refoulement” of refugees to countries where they face persecution. Yet it denies North Korean refugees access to consulates and embassies, detains them in abusive conditions and repatriates them. Such conduct “could amount to aiding and abetting” North Korean “crimes against humanity,” a United Nations panel found in 2014.

Beijing tried to stymie the U.N. inquiry at every turn, but its report makes for bracing reading. Investigators found that when refugees “are apprehended or forcibly repatriated,” North Korean authorities “systematically subject them to persecution, torture, prolonged arbitrary detention and, in some cases, sexual violence.” Refugees “found to have been in contact with officials or nationals from [South Korea] or with Christian churches may be forcibly ‘disappeared’ into political prison camps, imprisoned in ordinary prisons or even summarily executed.”

Escape has been particularly perilous since Kim Jong Un took power in 2011 and issued shoot-to-kill orders to border guards. Successful defections are down more than half from their peak in 2009. Brokers along the underground railroad demand up to $12,000 per passage, while Chinese authorities offer rewards for turning in North Koreans on the run.

Chinese policy toward North Korea clearly still prioritizes “stability” and repression above all, motivated especially by the fear of heavy refugee flows. But doing the Kim regime’s dirty work hurts Beijing’s reputation overseas and at home, where many young Chinese see ties with North Korea as a shameful relic of Maoism.

Part of Ms. Lee’s motivation to speak out in Beijing, she says, was knowing that an earlier speech of hers was viewed more than 110,000 times on Chinese video sites. Here’s hoping her latest message earns wide notice.

[Wall Street Journal]

Further mass North Korean defections to follow – Part 1

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Individual defections from the North Korea are common. Mass defections, however, are not.

13 North Koreans—one male and 12 females—recently defected en masse. The arrival of so many North Koreans in Seoul is stunning. First, they had all worked at the same location, and this fact indicates a breakdown in Pyongyang’s overlapping system of controls on its workers. Moreover, the defections hint at the effectiveness of the U.N. sanctions imposed at the beginning of last month. And, most strikingly, Beijing did not stop the North Koreans from escaping.

The defectors had all worked in one of the 100 or so restaurants Pyongyang operates in China, this one in the eastern port city of Ningbo, just south of Shanghai. The North has opened about 130 eateries in China and a couple dozen other countries. The establishments are money spinners for the regime, producing about $10 million annually in cash according to a recent estimate.

The South Korean government hinted, in Yonhap’s words, that “defectors were fearful that they would be punished if they were unable to send back money to North Korea.” The concern is real. “The latest defections are probably related to this kind of pressure felt by the workers,” a source told the Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s most popular news source.

The new UN sanctions look like they already have had some effect. Some restaurants have been forced to close due to a recent drop in business, and there are indications that now about half of them are not breaking even. Another reason: the South Korean government has been urging its citizens, a main source of revenue, to stay away.     
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More on further mass North Korean defections to follow – Part 2

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And what has to be of special concern to Chairman Kim, however, is that Beijing did not stop the defections. The workers did not smuggle themselves out of China, as many had done in the past. On the contrary, they openly left the People’s Republic with their passports, traveling to Thailand before arriving in South Korea.

In the past, Pyongyang could count on Beijing to do almost anything to capture defectors and hand them over to North Korean border guards. This time, however, Chinese customs officials just waved the fleeing workers across the Thai border, a clear indication China was sending an unfriendly message to the Kim regime.

And there is another wrinkle. Offshore restaurant workers generally come from the higher classes and are chosen for their loyalty, so the mass defection from the Ningbo restaurant must now be having a psychological impact on regime elements back home.

Perhaps more escapes are on the way. Seoul expects additional mass defections from the 50,000 to 100,000 North Koreans working outside the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

North Korea appears very far from regime collapse at the moment, but the defection of a senior colonel, a diplomat, and the Restaurant 13 are tremors that could foreshadow quakes to come.

[Read full article at The Daily Beast]

North Korea sanctions pose human rights dilemma

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Human rights organizations are supporting the new international sanctions imposed on North Korea to restrict its nuclear program, even though the economic measures could make life more difficult for many people in the country who already live on the margins of poverty.

The United States and China collaborated on developing the international sanctions, and Beijing most likely opposed any focus on human rights violations, given its own record of, according to critics, unlawful harassment, imprisonment and torture.

Workers in the mining industry will likely suffer from the U.N. ban on the export of North Korean minerals. The U.S. unilateral sanctions could also target anyone connected to the North Korean labor export program that earns billions of dollars, most of which goes to the state.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a February report that the North Korean people are already suffering a significant food shortage. Human rights advocates support providing aid and assistance to innocent people in North Korea caught in the middle of this international standoff.

But the tighter sanctions are enforced, the more likely it is that ordinary North Koreans will experience greater economic pain than will Kim Jong Un or the well-to-do elites in Pyongyang. But that is a risk that even some human rights advocates are willing to take to end repression in North Korea and to make its leaders accountable.

[VoA]