Category: North Korean refugee

The Silent Scream of the North Koreans

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Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of the release of a United Nations’ Commission on Inquiry’s report on human rights in North Korea. The U.N. report laid out, in devastating detail, what we’ve known for all too long: The regime’s “systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights,” the report found, “entail extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.”

And while 25,000 North Koreans have escaped to South Korea, and perhaps 200,000 North Koreans are in hiding in China, some 25 million North Koreans continue to suffer in silence, unable to communicate to the outside world because of their enslavement at the hands of their government.

To mark the one-year anniversary of the U.N. report – which, sadly, has yet to have a discernable effect on life in North Korea – the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, in Washington, D.C., convened a panel discussion with three defectors. The tales that the three former North Koreans – Hyun-ah Ji, Praise Joo, and Johan Kim – told were predictably grim, involving torture, hunger, and fierce repression. But the panelists also struck a positive tone, noting that the world is paying attention to North Korea’s abuses (they have been traveling the States for weeks, telling their stories), and trumpeting the success of initiatives like balloon launches into North Korea (which one panelist said the North Korean regime hates the most), and broadcasting free media into the country.

That these courageous refugees are devoting their life to talking about North Korea shows, in a tragic way, that they are in some sense still psychological prisoners of the regime – they cannot escape. But the world — and their fellow countrymen — benefit from their bravery. For these defectors speak for the 25 million North Koreans who cannot.

[WeeklyStandard.com] 

The one-year anniversary of the UN report on human rights in North Korea

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Commemorating the one-year anniversary of the report by United Nations Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, an unprecedented gathering of policy makers, opinion leaders, and stakeholders on the topic of North Korean human rights took place on February 17th.

The gathering aims to carry forward the momentum created by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry report and subsequent UN action.

[CSIS, Washington DC]

Nothing to celebrate about Kim Jong-Il on Feb 16

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North Korea’s so-called dear leader, Kim Jong-Il, should be remembered as his country celebrates his birthday on February 16, 2015, for presiding over one of the world’s most brutal and repressive governments, Human Rights Watch said.

“Kim Jong-Il ruled North Korea based on rights abuses, repression, and ruthlessness and prioritized maintaining his power over the welfare of the people, even as the country was facing widespread starvation,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director.

“Unfortunately, his son Kim Jong-Un, North Korea’s new leader, has continued many of his father’s abusive policies without pause.”

Kim Jong-Il took over the country in 1994 after the death of his father, Kim Il-Sung, who had ruled North Korea since 1948. His economic mismanagement combined with natural disasters forced the country into what later became known as the Arduous March, a severe famine that provoked despair and massive starvation. Kim Jong-Il and his government focused on a policy ofsongun (military first), which allocated the country’s remaining scarce resources and food to the Korean People’s Army. Kim Jong-Il ensured that the military and government elites were least affected while a still unknown number of North Koreans – estimates range from several hundred thousand to 3.5 million – died of starvation between 1994 and 1998, the most acute phase of the crisis.

Kim Jong-Il’s rights-abusing legacy also includes a massive system of kwanliso (gulag-like political prison camps) to instill fear among the people. Between 80,000 and 120,000 North Koreans are estimated to still be in kwanliso, which are characterized by systemic abuse and deadly conditions, including torture and sexual abuse by guards, near-starvation rations, back-breaking forced labor in dangerous conditions, and executions.

“The world should remember Kim Jong-Il’s brutality and his government’s horrific record of rights abuse, which only now has finally reached the international community’s agenda,” Robertson said. “The world needs to show North Korea that these serious human rights abuses will not go unpunished, and that there needs to be justice for these actions.”

[Read full Human Rights Watch article]

The decades-long cinematic arms race between North and South Korea

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In recent years, North Korea has become the antagonist of choice in Hollywood action movies such as Olympus Has Fallen and the remake of Red Dawn. That trend is mostly a matter of convenience: studios don’t want to antagonize any more plausible military powers that also happen to be emerging movie markets, including China and Russia.

But using North Korea as a workaround became less convenient in December when The Interview, starring James Franco and Seth Rogen a pair of lackadaisical journalists who land an interview with Kim Jong-un (Randall Park) and are asked by the CIA to assassinate him, prompted saber-rattling from the North Korean regime and threats of violence against theatres that had the temerity to show the movie.

While North Korea’s reaction to the US might have been unnerving for Americans, who are still adjusting to the impact of international audiences on their movies and television, the incident shouldn’t have come as a surprise. With The Interview, the US blundered into a regional cultural arms race that’s been going on for decades.

In The Interview, the two journalists are invited because Kim Jong-un happens to love The Big Bang Theory. That’s no flight of fancy: The first major position of the present leader’s father, Kim Jong-il, in his father’s regime was overseeing the Bureau of Propaganda and Agitation, including North Korea’s movie operations. Kim Sr. reportedly loved Elizabeth Taylor, Sean Connery, James Bond movies, Friday the 13th and First Blood.

Paul Fischer’s book A Kim Jong-il Production is a highly illuminating look at the middle Kim’s cinematic obsessions and the cinematic arms race between the two Koreas. Some of that competition was driven by the recognition that movies could be powerful political tools. North and South Korean children saw propaganda films about the evils of the government and people on the other side of the border. A drama Sea of Blood, which Fischer identifies as a turning point in Kim Jong-il’s movie-making, established the standard elements of a North Korean movie. At the same time, South Korea was making its own investments in movies.

As the balance of cultural influence shifted, Kim Jong-il implemented a plan to revitalize North Korean cinema that makes the present regime’s threats over The Interview seem less ridiculous and more plausible. In 1978, Kim ordered the kidnapping of a South Korean actress, Choi Eun-hee, and her director husband, Shin Sang-ok. Kim put them both to work revitalizing North Korean cinema.

In the fight for both international prestige and peninsular influence, South Korea obviously seems to be winning. The New York Times recently reported on just how powerful a temptation South Korean soap operas can be to North Koreans, but this is hardly a new phenomenon. Pirated DVDs have long been available on the black market in cities like Chongjin, and the North Korean government has long been trying to deter people from buying or owning them by making such acts a “betrayal of the fatherland”.

Paradoxically, it may have been Kim Jong-il’s attempts to create a more sophisticated North Korean cinematic culture that helped stoke North Korean hunger for higher quality, which often meant imported, stories.

Fischer writes that a North Korean defector told him that before: “We just watched our films and documentaries and accepted them the way they were. We thought that’s how movies are. But after the Shin Sang-ok era, we had new eyes.”

P.S. –Director Shin and actress Choi collaborated on a number of North Korean projects, but ultimately, they managed to escape, leaving Kim without a captive auteur, or a long-term plan to develop North Korean culture.

[South China Morning Post]

The North Korean Residents Society of southwest London

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Joong Wha Choi, 48, was formerly a government business consultant in North Korea who defected and is now president of the North Korean Residents Society, an organization aimed at helping refugees settle into their new lives in the UK, as well as informing the public about the human rights offenses taking place in North Korea.

After Joong Wha defected to China, he would send money he earned back to family in North Korea through a network of brokers happy to undertake the illegal transfers for a hefty commission. However, he soon realized that all the money in the world wouldn’t change life for his relatives, that the government in North Korea had to change for anything to become truly different.

I asked him if many North Korean defectors feel a duty to bring about change in their home country. His response: “I sometimes say to myself that it would be great if there was somebody else who risked their life to escape and could be the one to get things done.”

He paused, and then continued, looking weary. “In the past, there have been systems run by kings and queens, and even these monarchies would give some acknowledgement to the welfare of their people. But not the North Korean government—all they want to protect is their own power. I live a comfortable life now here in the UK, but this is a society that somebody else has worked hard for, and I have come to enjoy somebody else’s sacrifice.”

[Vice.com]

The Other Interview film

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Defector Park Ji-hyun has spoken of her year of hell in a North Korean labor camp, where starving prisoners ate rats to survive. She was forced to scrub and unblock toilets with her bare hands.

“You could say the whole of North Korea is one big prison,” Ms. Park said. “The people were all hungry. There weren’t even rats, snakes or wild plants left for them to eat.”

Humiliation was a ritual in the camp, which was situated within mountains in the Ranam district of the country. Ms. Park said: “If you got caught trying to wash your sanitary towel, you were ordered to wear it on your head, dripping blood and all, and beg for forgiveness.”

Work began at 4.30am and would continue until it was pitch dark – often as late as 9pm. The prisoners would finally eat – but before they could sleep they were forced to reflect on their performance and learn party principles and songs.

“We cleared the land with our bare hands,” said Ms. Park. “Four women had to pull an oxcart, two in the front and two in the back, carrying a ton of soil in the cart. We wouldn’t do this at a walking pace either. We had to run. We were worked harder than animals. Really, it was unspeakably bad.”

Ms. Park had fled North Korea with her son to escape starvation during the famine of the 1990s. She was sent to a labor camp after being caught as a defector in China. “A lot of people died between 1996 and 1998,” she said. “The train station platforms were full of dead bodies.”

After a year in the camp she was ailing so badly she was considered useless, prompting her release. Again she fled to China, where she was reunited with her son. Fearing for their safety, they attempted to get into Mongolia – and Ms. Park fell in love with a man who saved them at the border. The family now lives in Manchester, England.

Park Ji-hyun’s story of brutality is revealed in an Amnesty International film,  called The Other Interview. Kate Allen, Amnesty International UK Director, said: “This is the other film North Korea really doesn’t want you to see, and with good reason.

“People in North Korea are subjected to an existence beyond nightmares. The population is ruled by fear with a network of prison camps a constant specter for those who dare step out of line. Thousands of people in the camps are worked to death, starved to death, beaten to death. Some are sent there just for knowing someone who has fallen out of favor.

[Sky News]

 

Canadian accused of spying released from detention in China

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Canada says China has released one of its citizens, a Christian missionary who was accused of stealing military secrets while doing humanitarian work with North Koreans.

Chinese authorities released Julia Garratt on Tuesday after six months of detention, while keeping her husband in custody.

In an email to the VOA Korean service, a Canadian foreign affairs official urged the Chinese government to free Kevin Garratt: “While we welcome the recent decision to release Julia Garratt, the Government of Canada remains very concerned with the detention of Mr. Garratt. We have raised the case at the highest levels and will continue to raise it with senior officials. Consular officials have had regular access to the Garratts, we will continue to push for regular access and to provide consular support,” the official said.

The couple has lived in China for the past 30 years and has been running a coffee shop since 2008 in Dandong, a Chinese border city frequented by North Koreans. According to media reports, the couple worked to provide humanitarian aid to the North and trained North Korean Christians inside China.

[VOA]

UN official says North Korean human rights and cult of Kim can’t coexist

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A campaign within the United Nations to haul North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before an international court for crimes against humanity has touched off a defensive fury in Pyongyang, where it’s being treated like a diplomatic declaration of war , an aggressive act aimed not only at shutting down prison camps but also at removing Kim and dismantling his family’s three-generation cult of personality.

“It would be, I think, the first order of the day to get these 80,000 to 100,000 (prisoners) immediately released and these camps disbanded,” Marzuki Darusman, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “But that can only happen if this cult leadership system is completely dismantled. And the only way to do that is if the Kim family is effectively displaced, is effectively removed from the scene, and a new leadership comes into place.”

Such blunt words from a high-ranking U.N. official are unusual, although common among American officials.

Darusman said the General Assembly  resolution, passed by in December, is more significant because it holds Kim responsible based on a 372-page report of findings presented last year by the U.N.-backed Commission of Inquiry that detailed arbitrary detention, torture, executions and political prison camps.

North Korea’s intense response has included threats of more nuclear tests, mass rallies across the country, a bitter smear campaign against defectors who cooperated in the U.N. report and repeated allegations that Washington orchestrated the whole thing in an attempt at speeding a regime change. Its state media last week railed yet again against the U.N. findings, saying “those who cooked up the ‘report’ are all bribed political swindlers and despicable human scum.” It called Darusman, the former attorney general of Indonesia, an “opportunist.”

In a rare flurry of talks, North Korean diplomats at the U.N. lobbied frenetically to get Kim’s culpability out of the resolution without success. The proposal is now on the agenda of the Security Council, which is expected this year to make a decision on whether the issue should be referred to the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

But here’s the reality check about the resolution: The likelihood of criminal proceedings against Kim is minuscule. It would likely be shot down by China or Russia, which have veto power on the Security Council. Also, while more than 120 countries support the International Criminal Court, the United States isn’t one of them, so it is somewhat awkward for Washington to push that option too hard.

[AP]

The impact of soap operas on North Koreans

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North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has issued increasingly pointed warnings to his subjects about the “poisonous elements of capitalism” crossing China’s border with the North. South Korean intelligence reported hearing that Kim was so shaken by the spread of DVDs of soap operas that he ordered the execution of 10 Worker’s Party officials accused of succumbing to the shows’ allure.

But despite a crackdown, the country has seemed unwilling, or unable, to fully dismantle the smuggling networks that bring in not only banned soap operas, movies and K-pop videos, but also much-needed trade.

Defectors say the soaps have had an outsize impact, less for their often outlandish plots than their portrayals of the creature comforts of South Korea—a direct contradiction to decades of indoctrination about the inferiority of the South, and capitalism.

It was those portraits of wealth, Jeon Hyo-jin said, that inspired her to make the dangerous decision to flee in 2013 at the age of 18. “The kitchens with hot and cold tap water, people dating in a cafe, cars clogging streets, women wearing different clothes each day—unlike us who wore the same padded jacket, day in day out,” said Ms. Jeon, who lives in Seoul. “Through the dramas, I learned how strange my own country was, how full of lies.”

Most of the border trade is driven by money, defectors said, not ideology, but some defectors and pro-democracy groups also help arrange for the contraband material to be smuggled into the North. “It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” said Chung Kwang-il, a defector, who runs a smuggling operation.

Analysts and defectors alike say there are limits to how much outside entertainment can accomplish. A recent study by Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification of 149 recent defectors showed that more than eight in 10 had been exposed to South Korean movies or songs before fleeing the North. But most of them lived in areas close to China, where it is easier for smugglers to maneuver, and it is unclear how widely such entertainment has spread.

Still, the defectors say that the soaps are a potent tool for exposing North Koreans to the outside world.

[New York Times]

Excerpts of interview with a 19-year-old female North Korean defector

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My grandma had made it to South Korea and wired us money through Chinese brokers. The government cannot track where the money is coming from when it is transferred, but they were suspicious of the money so our family was heavily watched.

My mom, my sister and I made our escape first. We crossed the Tumen River, walked through China and eventually got on a bus that took us south.

Something went wrong in my father’s escape, however. He took a different route and was captured in Mongolia.

For North Koreans captured in China, the punishment is not as severe as it is if one is discovered in Mongolia. If a North Korean is seen in China, it is possible that they are just trying to find a job. If one makes it as far as Mongolia, however, it is quite obvious that they are trying to escape.

I have not heard from my father since we left (2008), and I do not know how he is doing.

UPI