Category: Humanitarian Aid and Relief

Information to the most information-starved nation on earth

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The theory of Jung Gwang Il’s work is essentially this: Tiny packets of information just might bring an end to decades of tyranny in his homeland. From his base in South Korea, he sends USB drives, SD cards, and other devices—loaded with Hollywood movies, South Korean television shows, and testimonials from North Korean defectors—across North Korea’s borders.

Jung runs No Chain, one of several defector-led organizations trying to pump data into North Korea through helium balloons, human smugglers, and even helicopter drones. The idea is that the contraband flash drives and memory cards will then make their way to North Korea’s black market, where they can be sold and plugged into a computer or the Chinese-made portable media player known as a “notel.” By some rough estimates, 10 percent of North Korean households have a computer at home, and up to half of urban households own a notel.

In conversations with Jung, I’ve asked the 53-year-old activist many questions in hopes of answering only one: Why has he decided to do what he does? What I’ve come to understand is that the trajectory of Jung’s life as he relayed it to me—from his immigration to North Korea as a child to his military service as a young man to his nightmarish ordeals as a political prisoner—is, at its core, a story about the power of information.

With all the focus on North Korea’s nuclear weapons and various provocations, people don’t always recognize “how powerful information can be,” Jung told me. He argues that it’s this information  that Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s 32-year-old leader, fears most.

[The Atlantic]

North Korean women in China ‘sold without their knowledge’

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See-Yeon Kim defected to China and was repatriated back to North Korea.  She escaped again in 2008 and settled in South Korea. She shares the following insight:

Human trafficking smugglers [have existed] ever since traders along the China-North Korean border area requested North Korean women in return for money.

Women who [defected] were able to settle down if they met good people amongst the many Korean-Chinese living along the frontier. However, there were also a lot of North Korean smugglers living near the frontier who knew the situation of these women very well.

Many times, women defectors were [enticed for meals, drugged and] sold without their knowledge [to] ignorant, old men whom these women had no interest in. These unmarried old men would buy North Korean women and force them to bear children.  At first, women denied and complained but they had no idea how to escape and nowhere to run to. They didn’t even know how to speak Chinese so they had no choice but to stay.

There are still North Koreans out there who either defected or were sold, living in this condition. These North Koreans who are still living in Chinese households do not know anything about the outside world. They don’t know how the country is run, and they don’t know how to get out of their situation right now or where to go. They are unsure if their lives will be any better. They have no choice but to live their lives like this.

Many of these people are still indicated as ‘missing’ or ‘dead’ back home in North Korea. However, the families still have hopes that they are alive.

[Radio Free Asia]

American student held in North Korea goes six months without consular access

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An American man sentenced to 15 years hard labor in North Korea for attempting to steal a propaganda poster has not been permitted consular access in nearly six months, the U.S. State Department confirmed Wednesday.

Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old college student at the University of Virginia, was detained in January as he prepared to leave North Korea at the end of a tour. He was sentenced in March for swiping the poster and for other unspecified “crimes against the state.” Washington has criticized the sentence as “unduly harsh.”

In a statement, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said that an official from the Swedish Embassy, which represents American interests in the country, last visited Warmbier nearly six months ago. “Even when requested by the Swedish Embassy, … the DPRK still routinely delays or denies consular access to U.S. citizens,” the statement, released Tuesday, said. “Representatives from the Swedish Embassy have not been granted consular access to Mr. Warmbier since the visit on March 2.”

“Three months without consular access is a violation of the right to equality before the law,” Arnold Fang, a Hong Kong-based researcher with Amnesty International said. “Despite official claims that U.S. citizens arrested in the DPRK are not used for political purposes, it’s increasingly clear from its very public treatment of these cases that the DPRK does just that,” he said.

[Japan Times]

North Korean math whiz defector now in South Korea

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The North Korean defector who sought refuge in Hong Kong last month left the city for South Korea about a week ago. A source told the South China Morning Post that the youth, identified as Jong Yol-ri, was accompanied by staff from the South Korean consulate and the Hong Kong government to the city’s airport where he boarded a flight for Seoul about a week ago. “It was a night flight,” the source said.

According to YTN, 18-year-old Jong – who defected while in Hong Kong to attend a math competition – intends to further his studies outside South Korea. The Post was told the student was likely to settle in the United States after a couple of months.

Jong, a two-time silver medalist who had just picked up a third at this year’s math contest, was staying at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where the annual Olympiad was held, before he left his five teammates and fled.

The South Korean consulate, where Jong sought refuge after sneaking away from the 57th International Mathematical Olympiad on July 16, did not respond to the Post’s inquiries.

Jong is the first known North Korean to defect in Hong Kong since the city’s handover to China in 1997. Security around the South Korean Consulate was visibly stepped up after he sought refuge there. It was understood that uniformed and plainclothes officers from the counter-terrorism unit were deployed there.

Steve Chung Lok-wai, an ­expert in Korean affairs at Chinese University, said the defector’s departure was likely to have been ­endorsed by the Beijing ­government.

[South China Morning Post]

North Korean fishermen defect

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Three North Korean fishermen have defected to South Korea after going adrift in the West Sea in a wooden boat on August 7, the Unification Ministry said Tuesday.

The fisherman told investigators they had gone out to sea to fish but drifted south due to engine trouble. One was the captain of the boat and the two others are crew.

“Once the boat started drifting south they decided to defect,” a security official said. “Their life was getting more difficult because the North is selling fishing rights to Chinese trawlermen.”

The fishermen are now at a facility run by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service in Gyeonggi Province.

[Chosun Ilbo]

Senior North Korean diplomat’s defection a ‘unique situation’

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South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joo-hee said on Wednesday North Korean diplomat Thae Yong Ho defected for the sake of his family and because he was “tired of Kim Jong Un’s regime.”

Liberty in North Korea (LINK) Director of Research and Strategy Sokeel Park said the defection of the senior North Korean diplomat  was a “unique situation,” and could lead to threats of retaliation from North Korea.

“There’s been those kind of things that have happened in the past for very high level defectors: assassination attempts, death threats … there will be protection from the South Korean authorities around this person, especially [in] the short term,” Park said.

Park said the defector Thae was the member of an elite family in North Korea, the son of a high-profile general. As with all high-profile defections, Park said the family still in North Korea could expect to face suspicion and possibly punishment in the future.

Park said it was unusual the diplomat had been with his entire immediate family overseas when he was posted. “That’s quite rare … a lot of the time there will be a son or an immediate family member that’s still back in North Korea kind of as collateral to make it harder for people to defect,” he said.

When asked why Thae may have defected to South Korea, rather than the United Kingdom where he was posted, Park said he may have been offered more incentives. “Maybe he would have better career prospects, for instance, if he came to South Korea, worked with the national intelligence service … rather than staying in the United Kingdom,” he said.

[CNN]

North Korean diplomat defector now in South Korea

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A senior North Korean diplomat based in London has defected to South Korea, becoming one of the highest Northern officials to do so, South Korea said Wednesday.

Thae Yong Ho, minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, has arrived in South Korea with his family and is under the protection of the South Korean government, Seoul’s Unification Ministry said. Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-Hee said Thae told South Korean officials that he decided to defect because of his disgust with the government of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, his yearning for South Korean democracy and worries about the future of his children.

Jeong said Thae was the second-highest official in North Korea’s embassy, and is the most senior North Korean diplomat to defect to South Korea. (In 1997, the North Korean ambassador to Egypt fled but resettled in the United States.) The highest-level North Korean to seek asylum in South Korea is Hwang Jang-yop, a senior ruling Workers’ Party official who once tutored Kim Jong Un’s late father, dictator Kim Jong Il. Hwang died in 2010.

Ramon Pacheco Pardo, senior lecturer in international relations at King’s College London, said this diplomatic defection “could prove very valuable to South Korea, the U.S. and other countries. … Most North Korean defectors have limited access to the inner workings of the North Korean regime,” he said. “The defection of a diplomat would allow intelligence services and military forces in other countries to learn more about the level of support that Kim Jong Un enjoys, recent developments in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs or the extent to which real economic reforms are being implemented.”

Thae, 55, is a veteran diplomat who is experienced in dealing with countries in Western Europe. He led a North Korean delegation that held talks with European Union representatives over the North’s human rights situation in Brussels in 2001, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. He had worked at the North Korean Embassy in London for about 10 years.

[Associated Press]

Are UN sanctions against North Korea working?

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It continues to be difficult to gauge the effectiveness of the United Nations sanctions imposed on North Korea in March.

While prices for essential goods in the North remain stable, there are reports that business is stagnating at the economic development zones set up to attract foreign investment. The lack of international investment is, to some degree, the result of the U.N. sanctions that place increased financial restrictions on companies that do business with North Korea, and U.S. sanctions that authorize the seizure of assets from international organizations and individuals involved with banned North Korean industries like mining and banking.

But Adam Cathcart, an East Asia expert at Britain’s Leeds University notes that even without sanctions, international companies are reluctant to invest in North Korea’s economic development zones because they do “not provide enough infrastructure.”

There have also been reports that food and fuel prices in North Korea have not been affected by the new sanctions imposed this year. Analysts credit the growth of semi-legal private markets under leader Kim Jong Un for keeping food and fuel supplies stable despite the sanctions.

Beijing’s enforcement of international sanctions is considered crucial because 90 percent of North Korean trade flows either to or through China. North Korea analyst Andrei Lankov with Kookmin University in Seoul recently told Radio Free Asia that … “if sanctions implementation begins to threaten the survival of the Kim Jong Un regime, China will pull back.”

[VoA]

More on North Korean defection in Hong Kong

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North Korean national Jong Yol Ri snuck away from the 57th International Mathematical Olympiad at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. and on July 16 found refuge at the South Korean Consulate General in Hong Kong.

It is believed it was the first time that a North Korean defector had abdicated in Hong Kong since 1996, before the United Kingdom handed the city back to China. And it’s a situation that could test Beijing’s relations with Seoul and Pyongyang.

Hong Kong resident Owen Lau Kwun-hang said the recent case of Jong Yol Ri should prompt widespread discussion among the community on how Hong Kong should be responding when defectors from North Korea surface. “At least people would know what to do … and when necessary, a well-informed society could apply pressure on relevant authorities if the status of a defector is at risk,” he said.

Largely unknown to many, the North Korean Defectors Concern (NKDC) has recently been thrust into limelight by media organizations seeking comment since the North Korean defector sought refuge in Hong Kong. Lau and three friends founded the NKDC in 2012,  a group focused on advocating for human rights and protesting Beijing’s repatriation of defectors from the secretive state.

As part of the NKDC’s advocacy and education efforts, Lau will host the annual North Korea Human Rights Film Festival at the Chinese University from August 12 to 14. The group is hoping to have a number of other North Korean defectors attend the festival for sharing sessions.

It was a chance refueling stop somewhere between the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and the border town of Sinuiju that gave four Hong Kong students a forbidden glimpse into the secretive state back in 2012. When the train stopped, Owen Lau Kwun-hang said they were confronted by a group of beggars pleading for food. “An elderly woman with her grandchildren came up to us. We gave them cakes,” Lau, now a secondary school liberal studies teacher, recalled.

[South China Morning Post]

China steps up repatriation of North Korean refugees

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China is taking a more active role in repatriating North Korean refugees, as relations between Beijing and Seoul have deteriorated in recent weeks over the deployment of THAAD. The repatriation is a break from a trend toward “looking the other way” when North Korean defectors make their way into China, a source said.

Chinese security officers now encourage local residents to report defectors, providing award money to Chinese citizens who turn in undocumented North Koreans. Chinese public security officials are offering $150 to individuals reporting a defector. For Chinese citizens who directly apprehend and turn in a defector, the award is $300. There is also a fine of $450 for anyone assisting a North Korea refugee, according to the report.

The policy has resulted in an increase of arrests and decreased chances of a successful defection, the source said.

The source also said the new measures are connected to a recent trend by the government in Beijing to come to North Korea’s defense as China has grown increasingly critical of Seoul’s decision to deploy a U.S. anti-missile defense system on the peninsula.

[UPI]