Category: Humanitarian Aid and Relief

After fleeing North Korea

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The academic work of Professor Clifton Emery, a lecturer at Seoul’s Yonsei University, focuses on the power that social groups and communities wield over the specter of child abuse, and as part of a wider study he is currently interviewing 200 North Korean defectors to examine the risks they face in terms of post-traumatic stress disorder and family violence.

This work has put him in contact with the underground railroad, a network of smugglers and NGOs working to bring North Koreans to safety via a shadowy route that snakes from China to Southeast Asia and finally to Seoul. Many of these refugees are women, who willingly sell themselves as brides to rural Chinese men and then wait, often bearing several children to their husbands, until the opportunity for escape presents itself.

It has also brought Emery close to the aid workers – a handful of Israelis among them – who help the process along. One of his closest Jewish friends these days is Yotam Polizer, the Israeli serving as Asia Director for the NGO IsraAid, which offers trauma care training and workshops. IsraAid has offered training to the counselors and therapists who serve as refugees’ first contacts when they make it to South Korea and to the government-run Hanowan Resettlement Center that sits in the hills south of Seoul. There, the refugees learn the bare bones of democracy, free speech, and capitalism. They are taught that they can say whatever they wish about their government and practice any religion they choose. It’s a paradigm shift of massive proportions.

This evening two dozen aid workers and psychology students gather together in a lecture hall to discuss the intricacies of trauma and how they can identify, salve and treat the emotional wounds of shell-shocked North Korean defectors. Much of that work focuses on nonverbal treatment, be it through art, music, or movement, allowing survivors of the North Korean regime to express themselves without the burden of a written record.

Such a cross-section of humanitarians, Emery says, is typical. “The people doing the work and defectors themselves are all over the map politically,” he says. “You have fundamentalist Christians and you have very secular professional Western organizations and you have IsraAid. What we share in common is a sense of the absolute urgency of this crisis.”

It’s really a question, Emery says, of how much we believe in the term “never again.” He says, “I grew up hearing stories of the Holocaust and hoping that if I had been alive at that time I would have had the moral fortitude to do something. I simply cannot look myself in the mirror and not do something. It’s just a very simple response of the heart.”

[Times of Israel]

Disillusioned by meeting Kim Jong Il

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“Until the day I met Kim Jung Il,” North Korean defector Jang Jin-Sung says, “I truly considered him divine, as someone more holy, like a sage – someone to be revered, someone who was better than us, who was sacrificing his own life for the people.”

Jang, a poet, caught the dictator’s eye, and was invited for a private audience with him.

Unti then, so effective was the regime propaganda machine, Jang told CNN’s Christine Amanpour, that he did not even believe that Kim the elder used the toilet.  “The man I saw standing in front of me was a man, he was a human being. He was not a holy man; he was not a saint; he was not a god. He was a man just like me, who did use the toilet.”

In propaganda, Kim had used “perfectly composed, flowery language,” Jang said, and was deeply reverential of the people. “But when I met him, he just spoke in slang like in a kind of commanding colloquial, working-class slang, even to his most senior men. …. And that was shocking to me.”

From that highest perch of North Korean society, Jang could clearly see for the first time all the lies he had been told. The truth became even starker when he went back to visit his hometown of Sairwon, in the southwest of the country.  “That was when I really witnessed the devastating effects of the famine. That’s where I saw the corpses in the station area just piling up and being taken away.”

As many as 3.5 million people are estimated to have died during North Korea’s severe famine of the 1990s, according to the South Korean NGO Good Friends. (Official North Korean numbers estimate that 220,000 people died.)

Jang also witnessed a public execution [in his hometown]. “It’s considered a method of moral education … So that’s why these executions happen in public places, such as market squares, where people watch it. It becomes a theater.”

A decade ago Jang decided to flee the country. Not even his family knew he was planning to leave.

 [Read full CNN article] 

China denies planning for North Korean collapse

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China’s Foreign Ministry dismissed purportedly leaked plans for dealing with regime collapse in North Korea, while the plan’s authenticity itself has come under question:

John Delury, a professor of Chinese history at Yonsei University in Seoul told NK News that it is highly likely that China, along with other stakeholders such as the U.S. and South Korea, would have contingency plans for a North Korean regime collapse but that he is “deeply skeptical” of the validity of this report.

“I don’t doubt the existence of such plans. The Chinese have mentioned them to me and others, at least in think tank settings, if not publicly. Indeed, it would be pretty odd if the PLA and other agencies did not have such plans, but I’m not convinced Kyodo actually saw them,” said Delury.

This is a sentiment shared by Adam Cathcart, a lecturer in Chinese history at the University of Leeds. “Where are the documents? If they don’t actually exist or cannot be excerpted in Chinese or English, I would be skeptical, although Kyodo is a decent news agency.”

Genuine or not, the plans highlight China’s high stake in North Korean stability, with collapse likely to send both a humanitarian crisis and geopolitical chaos washing over its border.

The Wall Street Journal’s Andrew Browne notes that the intact Pyongyang regime presents a “more immediate nightmare” for Beijing: “Evidence North Korea is about to pull the trigger on its fourth nuclear test underline that the North is marching determinedly, one step at a time, toward the day when it can target any city in the Asian Pacific—and potentially large population centers in the U.S.—with nuclear attack.

“This is China’s nightmare: a nuclear arms race on its doorstep, and one that adds muscle to its rival Japan as the two wrangle over a set of islets in the East China Sea.

“Yet it would be a huge leap for Beijing to actually abandon one of its few real friends in the world. In the end, the demise of a socialist ally may be too unnerving a prospect for the Chinese Communist Party, which frets about its own mortality.”

[China Digital Times]

North Korea hits out at Christian missionaries

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Responding to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, North Korean ambassador Se Pyong stated, “There are in the northeastern area of China so-called churches and priests exclusively engaged in hostile acts against the DPRK. They indoctrinate the illegal border crossers with anti-DPRK ideology and send them back to the DPRK with assignments of subversion, destruction, human trafficking and even terrorist acts.”

Rev. Eric Foley, who is the CEO of Seoul USA, a US/Korean NGO that operates a number of discipleship bases reaching North Koreans, says, “The significance of North Korea’s comments cannot be overstated. North Korea is choosing to publicly blame Christian missionaries for its human rights problems and internal difficulties.”

Foley notes that the situation facing North Korean missionaries in Northeast China is tight and getting tighter. But Foley adds that the challenge is not only from North Korea. “If North Korea is pointing to missionaries operating in China as a source of potential North Korean instability, and if it is alleging that China is the host, then missionaries can expect an increasing crackdown on churches and discipleship bases reaching North Koreans.”

[Christian Newswire]

China’s role in taming North Korea overestimated?

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A Chinese expert said Wednesday North Korea is not likely to heed China’s warning against conducting its fourth nuclear test, arguing that Beijing’s role in taming Pyongyang has been “overestimated”.

While China has grown increasingly frustrated with the North’s wayward behavior, many analysts believe Beijing would not take tougher actions, including suspending or restricting supplies of food and energy as it could lead to a regime collapse in North Korea.

Jin Qiangyi, director of Asia Studies Centre at Yanbian University, told China’s state-run Global Times newspaper that North Korea will respond with even more provocative ways if China takes a “tough stance”.

“Beijing’s role has been overestimated. As long as Pyongyang is determined to develop nuclear weapons, it will not be obedient to any other country including China,” Jin said.

“So far, North Korea has exploited the weak points of the Chinese government to continue to pursue its nuclear goals. It has been aware that China wants to maintain the stability of its threshold at the northeastern borders.

“If Beijing takes a tough stance toward Pyongyang, the latter will behave in a more provocative way,” he said.

Jin said North Korea will choose the timing of a test by taking its own interests into account.

[Bernama]

Diverse opinions on how the world should deal with North Korea

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North Korean defectors, now living in Seoul, were invited to share their thoughts on how the world can best help North Korea. Some excerpts:

Nayoung Koh, 25, defected North Korea in 2009, now attending university:
“The whole of the international community needs to simultaneously criticize the DPRK about its human record. In my experience – until early the early part of the last decade – capital punishment was commonly witnessed in North Korea and there were almost no criminal trials. However, some of these incidents and practices were photographed by cameras and satellites in the early 2000s and revealed to the world. When that happened, North Korea was severely criticized by the international community – and shortly afterwards there was a temporary halt to the practice of public capital punishment.”

Jinwoo Ham, mid-50s, had been a NK military officer for 22 years before he left:
“The international community needs to have heavy sanctions on the DPRK while it continues to violate the human rights of its own people and remains unwilling to give up nuclear weapons. That is the only way to make North Korea collapse. At the same time, the international community also needs to help North Koreans speak up and rebel against the current dictatorship. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to take advantage of all kinds of media including broadcasting, publications, and video to raise public awareness.”

Jimin Kang, 28, had been in the military before he defecting from Pyongyang in 2005:
“In my opinion, the greatest contribution the international community can make to North Korea will be in the form of economic aid and better quality education. You see, once North Korea opens up, the greatest priority will be in rebuilding the economy. … North Korea needs talented individuals to lead the country into the future. … Therefore what the people of North Korea really need is a transplant of the West’s educational environment into the DPRK.”

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North Korean defectors on humanitarian aid and human rights

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Se-hyok Oh, mid-30s, left North Korea in 1999. Now a journalist for Daily NK:
“The international community needs to let North Koreans know that it has a continuous and long-lasting interest in them. One method of achieving this is through humanitarian aid – though only under certain conditions. The international community needs to impose sanctions while informing Pyongyang of the many positive effects and consequences that would result from the DPRK making changes.”

Mina Yoon, 28, had been in the military before defecting in 2010. Now an university student in Seoul:
“What frightens ordinary North Koreans the most is either starving or being beaten to death. …While human rights need to be enhanced, food supplies still need to be provided. We also need to ensure that food aid goes to ordinary North Koreans, not the government. And it is important that those receiving aid should be informed where it comes from.”

Soon-kyung Hong, mid 60s, had been a DPRK Trade Councillor before he defected in 2000:
“The most important thing the international community can do is to speak out for the human rights of ordinary North Koreans. Also, the international community should impose additional sanctions on the North Korean government.”

[Read Guardian article] 

North Korea announces it has American in custody

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On the day that U.S. President Barack Obama visited South Korea — a trip that North Korea’s foreign ministry condemned as being “aimed to escalate confrontation and bring dark clouds of a nuclear arms race” — the reclusive country announced it is holding an American man who it claims arrived in the country this month to seek asylum.

KCNA identified the man as 24-year-old Miller Matthew Todd, who it says was taken into custody on April 10.

The man, according to KCNA, entered the country on a tourist visa. He tore his tourist visa and shouted that “he would seek asylum” and “came to the DPRK (North Korea) after choosing it as a shelter,” KCNA said.

The United States is aware of the report and has been in touch with Sweden — which represents American interests in North Korea — about it, State Department press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday.

[CNN]

Two North Korean activists flee their country

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Kim Seung-chul of North Korea Reform Radio told the Chosun Ilbo two North Korean activists made a telephone call to his station from China asking for help. The two are from Jagang Province and had been listening to the South Korean radio station for five years with a home-made receiver, which moved them to launch a pro-democracy group in North Korea.

Kim quoted one of the men as saying the broadcasts inspired him to think about how to improve North Korea. He said they printed anti-regime leaflets based on the broadcasts and scattered them in markets and streets.

But they decided to flee late last year because one of their members was arrested last November and state security dragnet was closing in.

Kim said he helped them escape through China, from where they made their way to Thailand and then on South Korea.

Call for North Korean sanctions

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Former High Court justice Michael Kirby, the head of a special UN inquiry into North Korea, told an informal meeting of the UN Security Council convened by Australia, France and the US that should slap targeted sanctions on North Korean officials responsible for grave human rights abuses.

Kirby also wanted the reclusive regime hauled before the International Criminal Court for prosecution. ”More monitoring and engagement alone cannot suffice in the face of crimes that shock the conscience of humanity,” he said. ”Perpetrators must be held accountable.”

North Korea did not send a representative and the meeting was snubbed by China and Russia.

[The Age]