Category: Humanitarian Aid and Relief

Interview with Kenneth Bae in North Korean prison

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The American citizen sentenced to 15 years in a North Korean labor camp, has appealed to the Korean authorities for forgiveness and asked the United States for help in securing his release in an exclusive interview from prison obtained Wednesday by CNN.

Pae Jun Ho, known as Kenneth Bae by U.S. authorities, was found guilty in an April 30 trial of “hostile acts to bring down its government” and planning anti-North Korea religious activities, according to the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

In the interview footage, his head was shaved and his face noticeably thinner than the previous photos of the Korean-American. Bae wore a blue prison garment streaked with sweat and dirt that bore the number 103. The interview is believed to be the first since Bae’s sentencing about two months ago.

Choson Sinbo, a pro-North Korean group based in Tokyo, was permitted to conduct the interview by North Korea. The edited footage, which runs less than eight minutes, was made available to CNN.

The timing of the Bae interview comes after North Korea proposed high-level talks with the United States last month. However, North Korea has stated before that Bae is not a “political bargaining chip” through KCNA.

“There is no greater priority for us than the welfare and safety of U.S. citizens abroad and we urge the DPRK authorities to grant Mr. Bae amnesty and immediate release,” said Brent Byers, spokesperson at the U.S. Embassy in South Korea. He added that the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang, which represents U.S. interests there, has met with Bae six times since his arrest.

In the interview, Bae sat in a room next to a door and a radiator. He calmly described his current prison life as eight hours of farm labor — which he had never done before — with a break in the middle of the day and lunch. He was also filmed clearing the fields, wearing black gloves and a hat as a guard stood watch nearby.

When asked if prison life was bearable, Bae replied, “Yes, people here are very considerate. But my health is not in the best condition, so there are some difficulties. But, everyone here is considerate and generous, and we have doctors here, so I’m getting regular check-ups.”

North Korean media has detailed the reasons why Bae was sentenced. Among the list of alleged crimes was 1) setting up bases in China for the “purpose of toppling the DPRK government,” 2) encouraging DPRK citizens to bring down its government and 3) conducting a “malignant smear campaign.” KCNA added that Bae had planned what it called a “Jericho operation” to bring down North Korea through religious activities. It suggested that Bae could have been sentenced to death, but avoided it through “candid confession of his crimes.”

Plight of North Koreans persists amid posturing

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As last week’s abortive meeting between the two Koreas illustrated, the region’s foreign policy often seems to be at the mercy of Pyongyang’s irrational whims.

But while diplomats debate ad infinitum, many of North Korea’s 25 million people live a nightmare. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International estimate that up to 200,000 North Koreans, some of them children, are imprisoned in camps modeled after the Soviet gulags, where they are subjected to torture and forced labor. Millions waste away in hunger, without freedom of expression or religion. Arbitrary arrests and public executions maintain order by instilling fear. The U.N. Human Rights Council has condemned North Korea’s “systematic, widespread, and grave violations of human rights.”

Many North Koreans are jailed after failed attempts to cross the Chinese border. Because the demilitarized zone dividing the Koreas is heavily fortified, North Koreans can only escape northward. After the new government gave a shoot-on-sight order to curb illegal crossings, the number of defectors was almost halved, to 1,500 last year.

For those fortunate enough to make it to China, the journey has only begun. In violation of international agreements, China routinely repatriates North Korean refugees. So defectors face a 3,000-mile clandestine journey to Southeast Asia to gain refugee status and entry to South Korea, where they are naturalized and given government stipends. While around 25,000 have settled there, more than 30,000 North Korean refugees live illegally in China.

Humanitarian organizations such as Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) and Helping Hands Korea facilitate their journeys. The Rev. Tim Peters, a North Korea activist, has compared the network to the Underground Railroad that once helped African-American slaves from the South reach the North. While these organizations make up a small bandage for the hemorrhaging, more relief may be achievable through diplomacy.

[The Philadelphia Inquirer]

Scratch Laos off North Korean defector route?

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Over the years, Laos has been a vital safe haven for North Korean defectors, with its Communist government quietly helping thousands reach South Korea. But Laos reversed course with little explanation, recently detaining 9 defectors for traveling without documents, then handing them over to North Korean agents, who whisked them away on a series of commercial flights back to Pyongyang.

The cooperation between Laos and North Korea blindsided aid workers and South Korean officials, who say that North Korea, under leader Kim Jong Un, is taking new forms of recourse against those who escape its borders.

During Kim’s 18 months in power, the North has cut defections nearly in half, according to South Korean government data. North Korea has tightened security on its own borders and sent agents into China to pose as and expose escapees. But until now, escapees who made it to Southeast Asia had remained relatively free from danger.

The case in Laos has sparked fears that the North, as part of that strategy, is also pressuring Southeast Asian governments to return defectors, though “we still don’t know for sure,” said one South Korean government official, requesting anonymity to discuss details of the case.

Analysts say the North views defections as a double-edged threat: Once out, escapees can testify about the country’s gulags and poverty. They can also send back money and information to family members, planting the seeds for others to defect via a labyrinth of safe houses and small churches operated by aid workers and Christian missionaries.

South Korean officials say they have little clue about whether Laos and North Korea will continue to cooperate in stopping defections, or even why they cooperated in this instance.

Either way, the case has prompted new concern among activists for those who escape the North, who depend on the governments of Southeast Asian countries — typically Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam or Laos — to help them seek asylum and resettle in South Korea.

[Washington Post]

North Korean defector routes

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The Korean peninsula is divided by a nearly impassable demilitarized zone, a border strung with barbed wire, peppered with mines and patrolled on both sides by militaries. As a result, North Koreans who want to eventually reach South Korea, where they are granted citizenship, must take the long route.

North Korean border guardThey start by crossing one of two shallow rivers — the Yalu or Tumen — into China, either swimming across or walking over ice during winter. They try to avoid the watchtowers and North Korean guards who have occasional shoot-to-kill orders.

In China, they are far from safe. Beijing views North Koreans as “economic migrants,” not valid asylum seekers, and repatriates them to the North, where they are deemed traitors and subject to re-education camps, prison, torture, and sometimes execution.

NK refugee routesIf they make it to Southeast Asia, they have roughly a half-dozen options. Many defectors transit through Laos or Burma and head to Thailand, the nation most welcoming to defectors. (Its fines for illegal entry are minimal, and it allows defectors to meet with United Nations officials.)

Others pass through Vietnam in order to make it to Cambodia, which the UN describes as a “model” for protecting refugee rights.

[Washington Post]

European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights in North Korea

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U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues Ambassador Robert King will be in Brussels June 19-21, where he will participate in the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights’ Exchange on the Human Rights situation in North Korea.

King will be joined by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Daniel Baer for meetings with officials from the European Parliament, European Union, and countries that share concerns about the deplorable human rights situation in the DPRK.

On North Korean defectors apprehended in Laos – Part 1

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Early last month, nine young North Korean defectors, guided by a South Korean pastor and his wife, thought they were on the last leg of a long escape.

Already, they’d traveled some 2,500 miles, sneaking from the northern tip of North Korea into China, then — in the most dangerous part of their journey — across much of eastern China. Next, they’d headed into Laos.

The group’s goal was to make it through Laos undetected until arriving at the South Korean embassy in Vientiane. For several days, the escapees traveled across Laos by bus, disguised as a school group, wearing backpacks and matching T-shirts, according to video and photos released after the group’s detention.

Over the years, Laos has been a vital safe haven for North Korean defectors, with its Communist government quietly helping thousands reach South Korea. But Laos reversed course with little explanation, recently detaining 9 defectors for traveling without documents, then handing them over to North Korean agents, who whisked them away on a series of commercial flights back to Pyongyang.

Nearly all the defectors were orphans, between 15 and 23 years old, who’d crossed into China, starving and sickly. Some had parasite infections and had been eating out of trash cans in the North. continued …

On North Korean defectors apprehended in Laos – Part 2

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Human rights activists say that perhaps no group of escapees has ever made it farther from the North only to be dragged back.

Some non-governmental organizations put part of the blame on the South Korean government, saying its officials underestimated the willingness of Laos and North Korea to work together and failed to meet with the group during the 18 days between its detention and the hand-off to the North. South Korea says it was notified by the pastor on the day the group was first detained, but that Laos never granted its diplomats a meeting with the escapees.

Laos, in a statement released by its foreign ministry, said it returned the nine to the North after its investigation found that they were victims of “human trafficking.” But activists, including some who worked with the nine escapees or know the pastor, strongly dispute that claim, and have drawn up their own personal theories to explain Laos’s behavior. They say the handoff could be the result of a diplomatic favor or a bribe.

Laos has been the preferred route of nearly half of the 25,000 defectors who’ve successfully fled impoverished and authoritarian North Korea, and its critical role on that escape route highlights the convoluted path defectors take from one Korea to the other.

[Washington Post]

UN fears for young North Korean defectors sent home

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Nine young North Korean defectors are at the center of a diplomatic storm. A war of words has broken out over the young refugees – all thought to be orphans – who the UN believes were sent back to their authoritarian homeland by China last week.

The UN said it was concerned about the return of the children to North Korea, where they could face severe punishment for having fled. Meanwhile, Beijing warned the UN against making “irresponsible remarks” about the young defectors.

The defectors, ranging in age from 15 to 22, were turned over by Laotian authorities to North Korean security agents, who flew them via China back to North Korea on May 28.

The refugees likely face harsh imprisonment in political gulags, torture, or execution. North Korea deems escaping from the country to be a political “crime of treason against the nation.” Under North Korean law, the minimum punishment is five years of hard labor.

It is unusual for Laos to have turned over the refugees so quickly to North Korea, as it is that Pyongyang sent nine security agents to escort them back to North Korea. South Korean officials commented that Laos had previously allowed refugees expressing a desire to travel to South Korea to do so after a few weeks’ hiatus.

North Korea may be seeking to disrupt the underground railroad by intimidating other defectors from attempting to escape. Up to 90 percent of North Korean refugees pass through Laos.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans are estimated to be hiding in northeast China, seeking to travel to South Korea via Mongolia or southeast Asian nations such as Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos.

Human rights activists argue that in allowing the transit of the North Koreans across China, Beijing “violates its commitments as a state party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, its 1967 Protocol, and the 1984 Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment.” However, China denied knowledge of the refugees’ plight since they had been given valid travel documents by North Korean embassy officials in Laos.

Source: The Foundry

Laos unexpectedly sends 9 North Korean refugees to China

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Laos sent back to China nine North Koreans who had fled their impoverished homeland.

The deportation raises fears the defectors may be repatriated by Beijing to North Korea, where they are likely to face harsh punishment. Reports of those who have been forcibly repatriated tell of beatings, torture, forced labor and sexual violence.

A South Korean source who works with defectors and who had been in contact with the nine North Koreans confirmed to VOA they were flown from the Laotian capital, Vientiane, to Kunming in southwest China on Monday.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency earlier reported on the defectors, who it said were 15 to 23 years old. Quoting an anonymous South Korean foreign ministry official, the report said Laos “unexpectedly” rejected the South’s plea to send them to Seoul.

Laos, along with other Southeast Asian countries, is a common destination for North Korean defectors, most of whom eventually are resettled in South Korea.

Thousands of North Koreans have defected to the South since famine crippled agricultural production in their homeland in the past decade. Those reaching Chinese territory often do so with the help of activists, missionaries or smugglers.

VoA

Kenneth Bae’s jail different than North Korean prison camp

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It’s bad for Kenneth Bae, but it could be worse, according to people familiar with the workings of one of the world’s most secretive and repressive regimes.

“These are not really camps like the political prison camps used for the North Korean people,” said Kang Chol-hwan, a survivor of North Korean gulags, who was sent to a prison camp at age 9 because his uncle had insulted the government. “If Kenneth Bae was really sent to a prison camp, he would not survive and that would not be good for the Kim regime.

“Normally a person dies in three years after being sent to a real camp,” added Kang, who was released from the Yodok prison in 1992 after enduring brutal conditions for a decade.

Andrei Lankov, a Seoul-based North Korea expert, said being held in a special camp actually bodes well for Bae.

“This prison will be isolated (no interaction with normal prisoners) and quite comfortable,” he said. “Had they said the guy is going to be in a “normal” prison camp, it would most probably mean he would never be allowed to get out alive!

“This statement indicates he has a fairly high chance of being released in due time,” Lankov added.

Experts said North Korea is likely planning to use Bae to leverage aid or concessions from the West, or simply in an effort to raise its stature by appearing to be humanitarian when it ultimately frees him.

“North Korea, by having a show trial and causing all this tension in the international media, will be preparing for big negotiations with the United States,” said Kang, who wrote about his experience in a memoir titled, “The Aquariums of Pyongyang.”

Bae was arrested in November and accused of trying to establish an anti-Pyongyang base in the North. But Bae’s friends say he worked as a Christian missionary in Dalian, a Chinese city near the North Korean border, and that he crossed the border to bring food to starving orphans.

Source: Fox