Category: Humanitarian Aid and Relief

North Korean defectors travel to US to share their story

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Yu Sunhui calmly recounted how she escaped North Korea by train, jumping off often to avoid the checkpoints. She had to swim across a river to China, where she was sold to human traffickers before she managed to make her way to South Korea in 2010.

Yu spoke through an interpreter after arriving Sunday in San Francisco as part of a delegation of North Korean defectors visiting the Bay Area. The visit, organized by the Hometown Mission Association for North Korea in Seattle and Korean Churches Council of San Francisco, includes 29 refugees, most of whom are living in the South Korean capital of Seoul.

Yu, 59, a former lieutenant in the North Korean military, recently obtained a green card and moved to Southern California, where she hopes to help other North Korean refugees better adjust to life in this country. She said she would like Americans to better understand North Korea. North Koreans are taught the United States is the “ultimate enemy,” but Yu described her experiences with Americans as “exactly the opposite of the way we were brainwashed.”

This is the third delegation Seattle Pastor John Yoon, who escaped North Korea in 1950 and has been living in the U.S. for 36 years, has arranged to help Americans better understand the plight of North Koreans. Yoon said he wants North Korean refugees who now have the freedom to travel to learn about the United States, and he wants the world to better understand the abuses that North Koreans are undergoing at the hands of the government.

[San Francisco Chronicle]

Japanese police interrogate North Korean defector

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Japan police on Sunday began the interrogation of a man who claimed he jumped from a North Korean ship and swam ashore clinging to a plastic container, the BBC reported.

According to officials, the man was carrying no proof of identity when he was found in the city of Nagato prefecture on Saturday.

Police are expected to hand him over to immigration officials who will decide whether he is a genuine defector, the BBC noted.

In 2011, nine North Koreans were picked up by the Japanese Coast Guard after spending five days at sea.

[BBC]    

North Korean defectors in America

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Defectors from North Korea automatically become South Korean citizens after a mandatory three-month transition that is part debriefing, part re-education. Refugees receive a few thousand dollars to start their new lives and learn skills most people take for granted: grocery shopping or using an ATM.

“South Korea has an enormous program to resettle North Koreans. It’s basically a yearlong program, but then it goes on beyond that in many ways where there are grants for education, for housing, and all kinds of things,” said Lindsay Lloyd , who currently leads the George W Bush Institute’s Freedom in North Korea project. “So the scale of their programs to bring these people into South Korea, compared to what happens here in the US, it’s just radically, radically different.”

“When refugees come to the United States … the US government only provides about six months’ worth of support for them,” Lloyd added. “It’s done through groups like Catholic charities and others that really just address the basics: find a place to live, get some basic healthcare, maybe some rudimentary English lessons, a first job, that kind of thing.”

The State Department has documented 192 North Koreans entering the US from 1 January 2002 to 1 January 2016. But this only includes refugees who have obtained green cards through the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004. Many North Koreans enter the US illegally and settle in Los Angeles, amid the large population of ethnic Koreans. Nearly 200 former North Koreans live in Los Angeles, advocacy groups say, but exact numbers are unknown.

In October 2014, the Bush Institute at the George W Bush Presidential Center published a qualitative survey, “US-Based North Korean Refugees.” It found that “even those on a path to citizenship lived almost entirely within Korean communities”, the survey reported. “However, nearly all also said they did not feel completely accepted or included, and often felt looked down upon or pitied.”

[The Guardian]

North Korean defectors develop post-unification reconstruction plans

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Some 30 North Korean defectors have rolled up their sleeves to create reconstruction plans for their hometowns and help residents improve their lives post-unification.

“While studying the reunification of East and West Germany, I thought there are certainly roles that we defectors could play in the reconstruction of North Korea,” said Kim Byeong-uk, the founder and president of Seoul-based think tank North Korea Development Institute and founder of the 185 Project. “I think South Korea can cut unification costs if it narrows the development divide with the North. If concrete, area-specific construction plans are in place, it will be easier for the South to reconstruct the North, and this, consequently, will reduce costs.”

One of the project’s current plans is for North Korea’s public markets. [By analyzing satellite imagery] “we’ve found 414 markets all across North Korea, which have become an integral part of the North Korean way of life,” Kim said. “As long as the North Koreans are allowed to make a living through the markets, they won’t care much about politics or nuclear weapons. But they won’t sit back if the North Korean authorities attempt to suppress market activities because these are their lifeline,” he said.

Kim said the thriving markets in the North indicate that a wind of change is blowing. He also noted that in the country’s relatively basic manufacturing industries, North Koreans import raw materials from China and send them to the cities or counties that have sufficient facilities and labor forces to process them into finished products.

“The markets are classrooms in which North Koreans learn the capitalistic way of life. The thriving markets indicate that, whether intentionally or not, North Koreans are preparing themselves for reunification,” Kim said.

[Korea Times]

North Korea says it will treat U.S. detainees under ‘wartime law’

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North Korea said on Monday it has told the United States it will sever the only channel of communication between them, at the United Nations in New York, after Washington blacklisted leader Kim Jong Un last week for human rights abuses.

All matters related to the United States, including the handling of American citizens detained by Pyongyang, will be conducted under its “wartime law,” the North’s official KCNA news agency said.

Two Americans known to be detained in North Korea include Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia student sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March for trying to steal an item with a propaganda slogan, according to North Korean state media. The other, Korean-American Kim Dong Chul, is serving a 10 year sentence for espionage, state media said.

The move is the latest escalation of tension with the isolated country, which earlier on Monday threatened a “physical response” after the United States and South Korea said they would deploy the THAAD missile defense system in South Korea.

Pyongyang  said, “The Republic will handle all matters arising between us and the United States from now on under our wartime laws, and the matters of Americans detained are no exception to this.” It was not clear how “wartime laws” would affect the handling of the two Americans detained. But North Korea has indicated in the past that wartime laws would mean that detainees will not be released on humanitarian grounds.

The North and the United States remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War, in which Washington sided with the South, ended only with a truce.

[Reuters]

North Korean diplomat and family flee Russia seeking political asylum

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A North Korean diplomat based in Russia has gone missing, and it is likely he is attempting political asylum with his family.

According to a Pulkovo Airport official in St. Petersburg, the diplomat left the country on a plane bound for Belarus on July 2, Ria Novosti reported.  The man was identified by Russian media as Kim Chol Song, a third secretary and trade representative of the North Korean mission in St. Petersburg. (Chinese state media, however, has said the man’s name is Kim Chol Sam.)

The diplomat, his wife and son boarded a Belavia Belarusian Airlines flight, purchasing the tickets three hours prior to boarding, according to the report.

Fontanka, an online Russian news site, quoted a local investigator who also said the North Korean envoy had left for Belarus to seek asylum in Europe.

[UPI]

Number of North Korean defectors arriving in the South rises 22%

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The number of North Korean defectors who left the reclusive state this year reached 749, marking a 22 percent increase on-year, the Unification Ministry said Thursday.

This is the first significant rise in the number of the defectors since North Korean leader Kim Jong-un took helm at the end of 2011, the ministry added.  The number had declined in recent years, from 2,706 in 2011 to 1,502 in 2012, 1,514 in 2013, 1,397 in 2014 and 1,276 last year.

The ministry said at the current rate, the number of the defectors is expected to reach 1,500 by the end of this year.

The South Korean government has said that the recent rise in the number of defectors is attributable to the strong sanctions slapped on the reclusive regime upon its fourth nuclear and long-range missile tests earlier this year.

They pointed to the increasing defections by North Korean workers sent overseas. A total of 13 workers from a North Korean restaurant in China entered the South on April 7, and another group of three North Korean restaurant workers in China defected and arrived in Seoul last month.

The ministry added that the total number of North Korean defectors settled in the South was on track to exceed 30,000 by October. The number currently stands at 29,543 as of the end of June.

[Korea Herald]

North Korean defectors’ detention unlawful, say human rights lawyers

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The ongoing tussle between the two Koreas over 12 waitresses from North Korea who defected to the South spilled into a courtroom in Seoul on Tuesday, where human rights lawyers accused the authorities in the South of unlawfully detaining them.

The 12 women, together with their male manager, flew to Seoul, the South Korean capital, in April after leaving a North Korean government-run restaurant in the Chinese city of Ningbo. South Korea welcomed the women and described them as having defected of their own free will after growing fed up with their totalitarian government.

Colleagues and family members of the 12 North Korean waitresses who defected were presented to the news media in Pyongyang

North Korea immediately accused the South’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, of kidnapping the women. It has since arranged for their parents to give interviews with the Western news media, during which they have demanded that South Korea allow them to meet with their daughters to learn their true intentions. The South has dismissed the demands as propaganda.

The inter-Korean standoff took an unexpected turn recently, when a South Korean human rights group, Lawyers for a Democratic Society, asked a court in Seoul to release the women from a tightly guarded government facility south of the city where they have been kept since their arrival, so they could speak for themselves. The group accused the National Intelligence Service of blocking the women’s access to legal services and their right to speak freely.

The South Korean government has denied the lawyers access to the women, saying that the defectors do not want their services. It has also said that if the women appeared in court and testified that they abandoned North Korea of their own accord, that would prompt the North to persecute their relatives in retaliation.

By law, the National Intelligence Service can keep North Koreans who flee to the South at a secluded facility outside Seoul for as long as six months for debriefing and to ferret out spies.

[New York Times]

Programs to help North Korean defectors shed stigma

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Ken Eom, who was a soldier in the People’s Army, defected from the North Korea in 2010. He eventually arrived in Seoul after seeking asylum at the South Korean Embassy in Thailand.

But his problems were far from over. “Prejudice is most difficult to cope with. In South Korea news, there’s a stereotype of North Korea associated with violence or communist totalitarianism,” Eom said, describing how the media affects local perceptions of his birthplace.

Other problems persist because defectors new to the South lack knowledge of the basic workings of a capitalist society and struggle with English, which has been adapted to the South Korean vernacular. These and other setbacks result in a loss of confidence among defectors who become resigned to feelings of inferiority and try to hide their identity, Eom said.

But the former North Korean soldier said he resolved problems by stepping out of the fear zone and seeking help with everyday issues. “When I began telling people I’m from North Korea and opening up, people around me became a source of help,” Eom said.

A new program allows participants to speak out about North Korea and overcome the stigma of their identity. It’s not easy, though, for North Koreans to speak out after living under an authoritarian regime, that avoidance of the limelight continues in South Korea, where defectors don’t feel motivated to attract attention.

[UPI]

Satellite imagery suggests China is punishing North Korea

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Following North Korea’s nuclear test in January, trade over the China-North Korea border dropped dramatically, according to newly released satellite imagery. The revelation has led experts to conclude that Beijing has been quietly punishing Kim Jong Un by cutting off the flow of funds to his regime.

There’s no question that the China-North Korea relationship has been strained since Kim assumed power in 2011. Against Beijing’s wishes, the young leader has revved up North Korea’s pace of missile tests and detonated two nuclear devices, one in 2013 and then again this January. In 2013, Kim executed his uncle Jang Song Thaek, who had been China’s main contact in Pyongyang.

After the latest nuclear explosion, Secretary of State John F. Kerry publicly called on China to end “business as usual” with North Korea. Publicly, Beijing rejected being told by the United States how to handle its client state. Behind the scenes, it appears Beijing was doing just that.

Victor Cha, director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration, and now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), led a team of researchers that procured and analyzed the new satellite imagery as part of their project, a website and database dedicated to demystifying what’s going on inside the world’s most secretive state.

“It shows that China pursues things in their own way when it comes to North Korea, not because the U.S. or the U.N. tells them to,” said Cha. “The good news is that they are squeezing them more than we were led to expect.”

CSIS worked with imagery analysts at the commercial satellite firm DigitalGlobe to collect and examine satellite photos of several key trade-related areas on both sides of the China-North Korea border. Satellite images showed a “substantive reduction of economic activity on the Sino-North Korean border” as evidenced by a huge drop in the number of rail cars at the stations, trucks in customs areas, trucks on the bridge and undocked boats in the Yalu River.

[Washington Post]