Extortion with an axe – Part 1

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I was head of the local inminban [a type of neighborhood watch] when my eldest daughter’s family defected from our community in North Korea. At the time my songbun [family political background and loyalty] was good, but I was under heavy surveillance after and faced discrimination.

Songbun in North Korea is handed down from generation to generation. My older brother was made a hero of the State twice, so we were a “double hero” family. Our family was bestowed the honor during Kim Jong Il’s rule after we donated pork to the army [when we had a bumper crop of pork]. We received many benefits and our family had ties to the military, so our songbun was definitely good. But living under surveillance made me very anxious and stressed, and I began thinking ‘going down South’ would be better than living a life like that.

As soon as my daughter defected, the Ministry of State Security (MSS) came to search my house. It was joint search conducted by the MSS and Ministry of People’s Security (MPS), and they entered my house without a warrant. They went through our closet, ripped off the paper walls that were blocking out the wind and searched high and low for any sort of evidence. It was as if we committed espionage; they even went through our roof and floor heating panels. The search was so dehumanizing that it made me want to shoot them if I had a gun. I thought to myself ‘I can’t believe I worked so hard for my country under these people’.

They threatened to confiscate my home, a house that I had bought. We moved into the house after our first daughter suddenly defected and we hadn’t even unpacked. My youngest daughter and her family were living there at the time but a local administrator tried to forcibly evict them and take the house. … The administrator’s men told my daughter’s family to pack their belongings and leave the house. They even threatened them with an axe, but my daughter stood her ground and managed to keep the house. Read more 

Extortion with an axe – Part 2

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An order was issued in 2012 after my eldest daughter defected from North Korea … decreeing that any family member of a defector or missing person can’t be the head of an inminban. In truth, it is difficult to lead an inminban if a family member has defected. You have to tell people to “keep an eye on people so they don’t defect” and “report any strangers in the neighborhood”, so you lose all credibility once you have someone defect from your family. So the order came down and I was dismissed from my position.

[After I was relieved of my position as inminban] I felt people were talking behind my back and pointing fingers when I went outside. It was very difficult to go out during the day for a period of time. I no longer wanted to live there. I asked myself how I could continue living in a place where I’m constantly weighed down.

They placed informants to keep tabs on our daily life. One of my workers I hired confessed to me one day that the MSS ordered them to keep tight surveillance on my house for 25 days. The worker told me that they were looking to see if I would run [defect] or if strangers were coming to my house.

My husband was an extremely loyal follower. Whenever I spoke to my daughter on the phone or received money from her, my husband would stir up a fuss and say he would report me.  My husband was a cadre but he was dismissed after my daughter’s defection. He was understandably upset over it and harbored some resentment. Our relationship began deteriorating. My husband started drinking every day and threatened to hit me. Seeing my husband turn into that kind of person made me shake my head over and over.

Then my daughter phoned me one day and told me, “If you don’t come now, it will be almost impossible later”. I escaped North Korea in the summer of 2015, and arrived in South Korea in 2016.

[From the testimony of Ms. Moon Mi Hwa, as published in The Daily NK]

North Korean defectors in Toronto worried they may be deported

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A group of North Korean defectors living in Toronto, some of them for years, are worried that they soon might be deported.

Taegun Kim, a contractor who has been in Canada for 11 years, said he found out Tuesday that he might have to leave. He got married in Canada and has two children who were born here. He works hard as a contractor, he said, and he pays taxes and contributes to society. And although he admits he lied on his application, he doesn’t want to leave.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) sent 150 letters to people of North Korean origin like Kim in late October, saying the government had concerns about their applications for permanent residency. IRCC told Global News that they had information that raised “possible concerns” about their admissibility to Canada, though the ministry provided no details, citing privacy.

If these people’s applications for permanent residency are denied, they could face deportation. But they wouldn’t be sent back to North Korea – they would instead go to South Korea, a country that Canada believes is safe and where they can get citizenship.

But many of them don’t want to go, saying that North Koreans face discrimination there.

[Global News]

North Korean soldier defector ‘like a broken jar’

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South Korean surgeon Lee Cook-Jong, who is San Diego-trained, went to meet his critically injured patient on the helipad at Ajou University Hospital in Seoul.

“I was informed that he was badly shot by North Koreans,” Lee said, reliving the complex chain of events that brought North Korean defector Oh Chong Song to his trauma unit on November 13. “His vital signs were so unstable, he was dying of low blood pressure, he was dying of shock,” Lee said. “He was like a broken jar. We couldn’t put enough blood into him.”

The 24-year-old had been shot around five times by his fellow North Korean soldiers as he made his daring escape across the line that divides North and South Korea.  Riddled with bullets, he was dragged to safety by South Korean soldiers and hovered close to death during the 25-minute airlift to hospital.

During a five-hour operation to remove a bullet that had pierced Oh’s intestines, Lee encountered a complication he’s never seen in his 20-year career as a surgeon: parasites.

Lee describes working to repair at least seven wounds in the defector’s perforated bowel while the white worms were squirming their way out of Oh’s body.  “Everything was stained with blood, but the parasite was basically a really white color and this thick, big, long and very, very hard, this kind of thing was getting out from his bowel system,” Lee said.

All parasites were removed from Oh’s system, some of them as long as 27 centimeters (more than 10 inches). Intestinal worms are typically transmitted through contact with feces or unwashed hands. The use of human fertilizer on crops and poor sanitary conditions can also aid the transmission of parasitic cysts.

The soldier’s condition, though stable, is still grave. Complications from tuberculosis and hepatitis B continue to compromise his recovery, especially his liver function.

Oh is also under psychiatric care and likely to be struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, Lee said. He’s been plagued by nightmares, sometimes fearing he was still in North Korea, prompting Lee to hang the South Korean flag in his recovery room to remind him he was safe.

[CNN]

North Korean defectors claim nuclear tests have ravaged their health

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Defectors who lived near North Korea’s nuclear testing site say they believe they are suffering from exposure to radiation, and fear for the health of family members still living there.

Standing about 5 feet tall, Lee Jeong Hwa walks with a slight limp. Middle-aged with an ashen gray complexion and deep-set dark brown eyes, Lee says she’s in constant pain.

But back home, things are much worse, she says. “So many people died we began calling it ‘ghost disease,'” she said. “We thought we were dying because we were poor and we ate badly. Now we know it was the radiation.”

As Lee rubs her sore right leg in the office of SAND, a nongovernmental organization in Seoul that advocates human rights in North Korea, she recounted how she was caught trying to flee the country in 2003. She eventually escaped in 2010.

During the last seven years Lee lived in the North, Kim Jong Il test-detonated two nuclear bombs near her home. Since Kim’s death in 2011, his son and heir, Kim Jong Un, has tested four more.

According to the World Health Organization, radiation can impair the functioning of tissues and organs, depending on the level of exposure. At lower doses, it says, there’s a long-term risk of cancer.

[NBC]

North Korean soldier defector wants to study law

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The North Korean soldier who defected to South Korea under a hail of bullets last month has said he craves a chocolate snack and wants to get a law degree, according to reports in local media.

Channel-A TV station fully named the defector for the first time as Oh Cheong Seong (25) and identified him as the son of a high-ranking military police official, according to a member of the parliamentary committee on national defense.

“The soldier-defector is the son of a North Korean military police official with a rank equivalent to a South Korean lieutenant colonel,” the lawmaker said, quoted in the Korea Herald. It remains unclear whether the man is still serving in that position.

Oh defected to South Korea on November 13, crossing the demarcation line in the highly guarded Joint Security Area (JSA), the only part of the 160-mile demilitarized zone (DMZ) border area in which soldiers from the two countries face each other. CCTV footage showed him being chased by his former comrades, who shot him several times, causing him life-threatening injuries.

Thanks to the efforts of U.S. medics and South Korean doctors, Oh survived and recovered consciousness. Doctor Lee Cook-jong, one of South Korea’s leading trauma surgeons, carried out Oh’s treatment and described the former soldier as a “pretty nice guy” who enjoys K-pop, American movies and TV series. Doctor Lee told a local radio show on Friday the defector is now doing well enough to eat porridge, but he’s asking for more solid food, including a South Korean-made chocolate-covered, marshmallow-filled snack that is popular in North Korea.

[Newsweek]

North Korea’s new ICBM can hit anywhere in US

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North Korea’s latest intercontinental ballistic missile test demonstrates a number of things that are not good news for anyone hoping to prevent the country from becoming a global nuclear power. The missile, called the Hwasong-15, flew high enough (more than 4,400 kilometers, or 2,700 miles—more than 10 times the altitude of the International Space Station) and long enough (54 minutes) to demonstrate that it was capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to anywhere in the United States.

While it only flew about 960 kilometers (600 miles) over the ground, David Wright, a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, estimated the Hwasong-15 would have a range of 13,000 kilometers (8,100 miles) in normal flight.

“We do not know how heavy a payload this missile carried, but given the increase in range, it seems likely that it carried a very light mock warhead,” Wright said in a UCS blog post. “If true, that means it would be incapable of carrying a nuclear warhead to this long distance, since such a warhead would be much heavier.”

But even if the Hwasong-15 were to have a shorter range with a full warhead, the missile could still, in all likelihood, reach much of the US mainland. The distance from Pyongyang to Washington, DC, is roughly 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles).

Despite sanctions, North Korea—which had an economy a 10th of the size of the US government’s annual debt payments even before the latest round of sanctions—has successfully acquired the engineering and manufacturing technologies required to produce these missiles.

[ARS Technica]

North Korean defector working on Parliament Hill Ottawa – Part 1

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Ellie Cha was 19 when she left North Korea. She now works on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Cha is currently taking part in a program with the advocacy group HanVoice, which promotes human rights in North Korea. As part of the six-month program, the 23-year-old has spoken at universities in Ontario and Quebec while working as an intern.

As a child, Cha went to school and learned the same sorts of things a Canadian child might: reading, math, science – with a few differences. To start with, her history classes were almost completely wrong. She learned that the Korean War was started by South Korea and the United States, for example. Lacking any other information, she believed the history lessons, she said. But she didn’t believe the more overt propaganda.

Every day before class, students were asked to take 10 minutes to compose a written reflection on some recent news, like the “heroes” who died after they ran into burning buildings to save a portrait of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung.

And after school, she and her family would attend group meetings designed to instill further loyalty to the regime. All those amazing photos of parades on holidays or celebrations in honor of the leaders are the result of months or even years of forced practice, she said.

Growing up, Cha was aware of limitations placed on her family’s success. North Korea’s government has a social system that ranks people based on their perceived loyalty to the regime and doles out economic and social privilege accordingly. The rank can go back several generations and can be affected by the actions of family members. Read more

North Korean defector working on Parliament Hill Ottawa – Part 2

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Ellie Cha’s father, once a respected vice-president in a North Korean mining company, lost his job. An aunt had fled to China and the family was now regarded as potentially disloyal to the Kim regime.

So in 2012, Cha’s family made the decision to leave North Korea. It was the start of an arduous three-month journey across China and Southeast Asia to reach asylum in South Korea. Much of it was spent in prison cells.

Almost no North Korean defectors cross directly from North Korea into South Korea. The border is too well-guarded and it can be hard for ordinary North Koreans to travel around within their own country. So most people, especially those like Cha’s family who live near the border, cross into China.

But it’s hard for them to stay there. Because China has a relationship with North Korea, fleeing North Koreans are often caught by Chinese authorities and sent back home to face terrible punishments, including work camps or prison.

Instead, North Koreans typically head through China into Southeast Asia to find a South Korean embassy, where they can claim asylum and apply for South Korean citizenship. Read more

North Korean defector working on Parliament Hill Ottawa – Part 3

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Ellie Cha’s family paid Chinese brokers to smuggle them across the North Korean border, one by one. Cha was reunited with her father and 12-year-old brother in China, but their ride wasn’t waiting for them when they arrived. So, Cha’s first night of freedom was spent outdoors, on the side of a mountain. After two days of cold rain on the mountain, their Chinese contact arrived and took the family to meet their mother, then they spent six days driving south through China by bus, eventually reaching Vietnam.

“During that time it was very scary for us, because we knew that if we were caught by Chinese authorities, they would send us to North Korea,” she said. “And strong punishment would await us in North Korea.”

They intended to go to the South Korean embassy in Hanoi, but were arrested by the Vietnamese police before they could get there. They spent three weeks in Vietnamese jail cells. After much confusion, they were sent back to the Chinese border. Cha was afraid.

They were eventually released back into China, and so they tried again. They went through this five times before trying a different route through Laos, Myanmar and Thailand, where they finally ended up in a refugee camp and were able to contact the South Korean authorities.

Cha believes Canadians and Westerners confuse North Korea’s public face – its robotic propaganda and seemingly fanatical devotion to Kim Jong Un — with the North Korean people. “Please remember the people’s lives, people still living under the repressive society.”

[GlobalNews.ca]