Return to *North Korean Studies*
By GEORGE GEDDA, The Associated Press, Wednesday, October 29, 2003; 1:41 AM
WASHINGTON - Kim Jong Il has befuddled official Washington since he took office nine years ago on the death of his father, North Korea's Great Leader. American officials hope a defected 81-year-old propagandist can demystify the new Great Leader.
After defecting in 1997, Hwang Jang Yop is making his first visit to Washington. The highest ranking North Korean defector, he had served in such posts as the government's chief ideologue and head of propaganda operations.
Conservative U.S. groups have been eager for Hwang to come to Washington, but until now South Korea has said no because of worries about his security.
Another possible reason, cited by U.S. officials, is that former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung feared that a visit to the United States would set back Kim's efforts to reach out to North Korea.
Soon after Kim stepped down in February, South Korea became more amenable to a Washington visit by Hwang.
American officials and lawmakers will be curious to hear Hwang's thoughts about Kim's decision-making processes. North Korea has frustrated U.S. officials by repeated shifts on whether it is interested in continuing the six-nation process begun last August in Beijing to resolve the stalemate over the North's nuclear weapons program.
As of a few days ago, the North Koreans were saying they were willing to consider a proposal by President Bush to provide Pyongyang with security assurances in exchange for a commitment to disarm. It was a proposal Pyongyang initially dismissed as "laughable."
Hwang's schedule includes meetings with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, National Security Council officials and with members of the House and Senate foreign affairs committees.
At least two crews from Japanese television news outlets are being flown in from Tokyo to ask Hwang about North Korea's abduction of a number of Japanese citizens a generation ago. They had no access to him in South Korea for security reasons.
The Bush administration is sparing no effort to ensure Hwang's safety. When word of his visit was disclosed, pro-North Korean groups in South Korea issued death threats. Here, armored cars are being made available for his travels.
In a recent interview with the South Korea's Yonhap news agency, Hwang said the Washington trip was part of his campaign to "save the North Korean people moaning under the dictatorship of Kim Jong Il."
He envisions the United States as key to the eventual evolution of a democratic North Korea.
Last July, he said Kim told him in 1996 that North Korea had nuclear weapons. The CIA has believed for years that North Korea has one or perhaps two nuclear weapons. More are believed to be on the way.
Under the late Kim Il Sung and later his son, Kim Jong Il, Hwang was one of the regime's most trusted lieutenants, at least superficially.
He wrote in his memoirs about an occasion in which he attended the performance of a dance troupe with Kim Jong Il in the audience. Noting the enthusiasm with which Hwang applauded the performance, a companion asked him: "Are you clapping because you really enjoyed the performance?"
"It doesn't matter," Hwang replied. "Just clap like mad. It's an order."
Hwang is certain to be asked during his travels here about what makes Kim tick.
Jerrold Post, a former political personality profiler for the CIA, believes an obsession Kim has for Western movies may be influencing his governing style.
"To what degree is his view of the West shaped by Hollywood?" Post asks. "To what degree have the movies he loves influenced his actions? And finally, is he now writing, directing and starring in some grand epic he thinks of as `North Korea: the Movie'?"
Donga Ilbo reported that the first public safety division (Oh Se-hun, superintendent public prosecutor) which scrutinized the event of Song Doo-yul's violating the National Security Law, at the Seoul district public prosecutor's office, on October 15 announced that they were investigating the details of the incident because they concluded that after acquiring German citizenship, Song entered DPRK two or three times by using a passport issued secretly from DPRK.
The prosecution said, "When we collectively reviewed the statements by Song, DPRK`s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper's report, and other evidence, it is presumed that Song entered DPRK at a specific day. But a time gap appeared because there was no evidence showing his DPRK visit in his German passport. We doubt that Song used DPRK passport, which was issued with the name of Kim Chul-soo! (candidate in the political division, Rodong party, DPRK) or a third person, together. " The prosecution reported that even though they pressed hard and summoned Song seven times on this day to find out whether he used the passport of DPRK and the details of the affair, Song denied the fact he used DPRK passport. The prosecution considered that it was very possible for Song to use a duplicate passport, judging that if a foreigner visits DPRK informally owing to an invitation from DPRK, the foreigner usually enters DPRK with a DPRK passport under an assumed name by passing through a middle point such as Russia or Beijing as a rule.
The prosecution made clear that they found out the fact while investigating Song's visit to DPRK, and they concluded the number of times of Song's visit to DPRK was actually 20, two more than the 18 visits that the National Intelligence Service had indicated. But the defense attorney of Song contradicted these findings, saying, "Though Song entered DPRK 18 or 19 times as his German passport records shows, but on protocol it said that he entered DPRK more that twenty times. So I demand a correction. " On the other hand, on that day the prosecution clarified that they were under examination because Song submitted a document titled "I Clear up My Thoughts", which includes leaving the Rodong party and abandoning his German citizenship. The prosecution also collectively examined his background and the attitude with which Song submitted this document. The prosecution will confirm the final policy about the decision to treat Song with a conference with the Ministry of Justice after one more summons investigation this week. (Lee Sang-Rok, Lee Tae-Hoon, "SUSPICION THAT SONG DOO-YUL ENTERED NORTH KOREA WITH SECRET PASSPORT ISSUED BY NORTH KOREA", 10/15/03)
By TED ANTHONY, The Associated Press, Monday, October 6, 2003; 4:26 AM
BEIJING - South Korea's consulate in the Chinese capital will close for business indefinitely because it is housing too many North Korean refugees to continue operating smoothly and issuing visas, a South Korean diplomat said Monday.
The diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that the closure will take effect Tuesday. She couldn't say how long the office would be shut or how many North Korean asylum-seekers were inside.
The move means that anyone in China seeking a visa to South Korea is out of luck for the immediate future.
"The number of North Korean refugees who are staying within the inside of the consulate is beyond our capacity," the diplomat said in a telephone interview. "So it makes it difficult to do our consular jobs."
The South Korean Embassy has been at the nexus of a delicate diplomatic dance involving China and North Korean asylum-seekers, who use embassy compounds in Beijing to escape the harsh rule of Kim Jong Il's government in the North.
Such asylum-seekers typically enter China through its border with North Korea, make their way to Beijing and dash into a foreign diplomatic compound - among them embassies and consulates belonging to Japan, Spain, Germany and particularly South Korea.
Nearly 200 have done so since the beginning of last year, citing what they call abuse or political persecution at home. They typically make their way to South Korea through a third country.
The South Korean diplomat said the decision to suspend consulate operations was made by the embassy in consultation with the Foreign Ministry in Seoul.
The two Koreas split after World War II and fought a war in 1950-53, with the North backed by China and the South by the United States. Though an armistice was signed, the sides remain technically at war.
As its biggest ally, China has a treaty with Pyongyang requiring it to send back any illegal escapees. But it hasn't always done so in cases that have become public for fear of international backlash.
Outside the consulate on Tuesday, notices were posted in both Chinese and Korean announcing the closure. The handbills attributed it to "an internal adjustment" and also said the consulate's ability to make arrangements for all the North Korean defectors "beyond our
control"...
Agence France-Presse reported that a German professor of ROK origin appeared before prosecutors here for questioning on his alleged links to the DPRK's elite. "The truth will prevail," said Song Doo-Yul as he entered the Seoul district prosecution office. The probe is likely to focus on whether Song, 59, is a member of the powerful politburo of the DPRK's ruling Korean Workers Party and his alleged pro-DPRK activities in Germany. After questioning Song for three days, the ROK's counter-espionage National Intelligence Service (NIS) said earlier this week he had admitted to being a politburo member under the alias of Kim Chul-Su.
Communism is banned under the National Security Laws of South Korea. Song denied at a press conference on Thursday that he had been informed by the DPRK of his appointment as a politburo member and that he had accepted an offer to join the party's top decision-making body. Song appeared for NIS questioning voluntarily after returning to the ROK last week after 37 years in exile. An exit ban preventing him from leaving the country has been extended until November 3.
Song had been wanted by the ROK's spy agency since the early 1970s when he made a flurry of secret visits to the DPRK, beginning with a trip to Pyongyang in 1973. Song admitted to reporters that he had joined the Korean Workers Party during his first visit to Pyongyang, but said "it was merely part of obligatory procedures for those who entered the North at that time to join the Workers Party." Song said his initial trip to Pyongyang was to get a first-hand look at the DPRK, which at that time was showing signs of sustainable development to many overseas scholars. He has made at least 10 trips to the DPRK since. ("GERMAN SCHOLAR ACCUSED OF SPYING FOR NORTH KOREA FACES PROSECUTORS," 10/03/03)
by Joo Yong-jung ([email protected])
The U.S. Congress will pass a bill this year to promote freedom for
all of the Korean Peninsula, a staffer at the Congress said Sunday. The bill will call for spending of $200 million through 2006 to
promote human rights and democracy in North Korea and support North Korean refugees.
According to an 18-page draft for the plan, which the Chosun Ilbo was able to acquire for an exclusive report,
the United States Agency for International Development will give $80 million by 2006 to
institutions promoting human rights, to be directed to efforts to reverse Pyongyang's rights abuses. Also, $2 million a year will go to
North Korean religious groups active in the United States, Korea, and Japan, and $500,000 will be used every year to help institutions take
care of North Korean orphans.
Also added in the draft is USAID's plan to back up private organizations sending provisions to North Korea by
supporting them with $30 million every year until 2006. If the bill gets passed, the
United States Commission on International Religious Freedom will spend $350,000 a year sponsoring hearings in America's cities on the
religious oppression in North Korea.
The draft also contains initiatives for "first asylum" policy that will guarantee refuge and security to North
Korean fugitives. Some fugitives can obtain S-2 visas, which is given to people providing
confidential information about countries producing weapons of mass destruction. The United States will also allocate P-2
status to the Korean fugitives.
Also, the draft would call for spending of $1 million per year to help Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America
broadcast 24 hours a day and provide various radio programs to North Koreans.
Significantly, the plan would possibly inhibit financial aid to countries that have records of sending money
instead of humanitarian support to North Korean government or institutions.
Lastly, a "task force" team will be established to monitor criminal activities by the North and submit reports on the North's human
rights situation.
Working on the draft are the senators Richard Lugar, John Kyl, Sam Brownback and Edward Kennedy and the
Congressmen Henry Hyde and Christopher Cox. Brownback sent a letter to President George W. Bush,
seeking administrative support for the draft.
The Associated Press, Saturday, October 4, 2003; 11:44 PM
SEOUL, South Korea - Nearly 4,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War, three quarters of them in the past five years, South Korea's Unification Ministry said in a report submitted Sunday.
A total of 2,958 North Koreans, or 77 percent of the total 3,834 defectors, fled their country and arrived in South Korea after 1998, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
The ministry expects the number to rise as thousands of North Koreans are believed to be living in hiding in China, seeking a chance to come to South Korea.
Most of the defectors come to South Korea via China, which shares a long land border with the impoverished communist North.
Last year, 1,141 North Koreans defected to South Korea, up from 583 in 2001, 312 in 2000 and 148 in 1999.
Since 1995, North Korea has depended on outside aid to feed its 22 million people.
The Koreas were divided in 1945, and their border remains tightly sealed...
Reuters, Saturday, September 6, 2003. BEIJING (Reuters) - A North Korean biological weapons expert has been detained while trying to slip into the Australian consulate in China's southern city of Guangzhou to seek political asylum, an anti-Pyongyang activist said on Saturday.
Norbert
Vollertsen, a German doctor-turned-activist, said plainclothes security agents had detained Ri Chae Woo, who planned to testify in the United States against Pyongyang's chemical and biological weapons program.
Vollertsen, quoted on a human rights Web site, said Ri had evidence of human experiments in North Korea.
A spokeswoman for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs said the government was unaware of the incident.
"We have no knowledge of the reported incident. We checked with our consul-general there, who has no knowledge of it either," she told Reuters.
While North Korea's nuclear weapons program has been a top international concern recently, the reclusive state is also believed to be capable of making large amounts of chemical weapons such as nerve, blister and choking agents.
Ri had worked for the Chiha-ri Chemical Corp in Anbyon, south of Wonsan, North Korea, until June 2003 when he, his wife and two teenage children fled to China, Vollertsen said.
"He (Ri) was disguised in the uniform of maintenance staff of the building which houses the consulate," Vollertsen said in a statement on the Chosun Journal Web site, which promotes human rights in North Korea.
"He was apprehended in the fire escape stairwell. His family members escaped via a nearby fast food restaurant and are at large," Vollertsen said.
Guangzhou police declined to comment, and the Australian consulate was not immediately available for comment.
Activists say up to 300,000 North Korean refugees are hiding in northeast China after slipping across the border to flee hunger, poverty and repression in their Communist homeland.
Defectors say North Korean refugees who are sent home face imprisonment, torture or death.
China, which fought alongside the North during the 1950-53 Korean War, has an agreement with its neighbor to repatriate North Koreans, whom it views as economic migrants -- not refugees.
But to avert Western criticism, China has allowed many North Korean asylum seekers to leave for South Korea via third countries.
Hwang Jang-yop, considered the architect of North Korea's political ideology of juche or self-reliance defected to South Korea during a visit to China in February 1997.
Last year, more than 1,000 North Koreans reached South Korea via China and other countries. Since last year, China has allowed more than 150 asylum seekers, who have fled to foreign embassies and schools in China, to leave and ultimately reach South Korea.
Last month, Shanghai police foiled an attempt by nine North Korean refugees to sneak into a Japanese school and arrested a Japanese national for helping them. Three South Koreans were also detained for filming the refugees.
In July, four North Korean teenagers slipped into the British consulate in Shanghai and were sent later to South Korea.
The Asahi Shinbun reported that once again DPRK implied it is ready to allow the families of returned abductees to visit Japan. Japanese officials are now trying to assess the motive behind Pyongyang's latest ploy. While the informal offer represents a tremendous breakthrough, diplomatic sources suggested it was an attempt by DPRK to gauge Japan's willingness to make concessions on the tricky abduction issue as this remains the chief stumbling block to efforts to resume negotiations on normalizing relations.
Japanese officials don't want to be in the position of being on the cusp of resolving the abduction issue and then learn that its stand jeopardizes international moves to negotiate with DPRK on abandoning its nuclear weapons development program. On Thursday, during a meeting of those in charge of the abduction issue, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe reiterated that nothing less than total candor on the abductions was acceptable. "We have received 3.14 million signatures on petitions asking for a complete resolution of the abduction issue," Abe said. "We will continue to place priority on having the families of the five returned abductees come to Japan." The families of the abductees also are behind the government in its efforts for total resolution of the issue, officials say.
For those reasons, officials will not accept the return of the family members as closure to this highly charged issue, one that has dogged Japan for decades. Meantime, informal contacts with DPRK by government and ruling coalition officials have led to speculation that Pyongyang will offer some breakthrough before September, the first anniversary of the historic summit between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and DPRK leader Kim Jong Il.
Another sign of easing tensions was evident in a visit to Pyongyang in late July by a group of New Socialist Party members. They met with officials of the Korea-Japan Amity and Friendship Association as well as the Korean Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Those DPRK officials said Pyongyang was prepared to engage Japan in dialogue and the regime understood the feelings of the families of the abductees. Because of Japanese concerns about remaining in step with other nations dealing with the North Korean nuclear crisis, Japanese officials have tried to keep the abduction issue quite separate from multilateral discussions on the nuclear question. A high-ranking U.S. official said Thursday that Washington understood Japan's position and would support whatever response was taken in resolving the abduction issue. ("MOVE ON KIN OF ABDUCTEES: A PLOY OR A BREAKTHROUGH?," 08/02/03)
Kyodo reported that Japan's government officials delivered Saturday to five repatriated Japanese abductees to DPRK letters from their children which a Japanese group providing humanitarian aid to DPRK brought back from Pyongyang. The officials visited Kaoru and Yukiko Hasuike in Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, Yasushi and Fukie Chimura in Obama, Fukui Prefecture, and Hitomi Soga in the Niigata prefectural town of Mano to hand them the letters and photos of their children. The government official who gave the letter and photos to the Hasuikes said the couple confirmed the correspondence was from their children and the photos were of them. The Chimuras immediately read their letter, which they confirmed was written by their daughter, and Fukie remarked as she looked at the photos, "Their hair has grown long," according to the official who visited them.
Earlier in the day, the group Rainbow Bridge handed over to the government office supporting the abductees three letters from the children written in Korean and some 20 photos taken when the group's senior member Hiroyuki Kosaka met them on Monday in Pyongyang. Kosaka told a news conference Friday he had tried calling the returned abductees to see if he could hand the material over in person but was only able to speak with Soga, who told him she is willing to wait to meet him when he returns from an overseas trip. The secretary general of the nongovernmental organization said he met the children at a hotel he was staying at in Pyongyang after a DPRK official arranged for him to meet them as he had repeatedly asked about their well-being.
Kosaka said the children he met are the daughter and son of Kaoru Hasuike, 45, and Yukiko, 47, the daughter and one of the two sons of the Chimuras, both 48, and the two daughters of Soga, 44. The Chimuras' younger son was apparently attending summer camp. The children, who are in their teens and early 20s, remained in DPRK when their parents returned to Japan last October for their first homecoming since being abducted to the North in 1978. Soga's American husband, 63-year-old Charles Robert Jenkins, is also still in DPRK with their daughters. He is listed as a deserter by the US military. ("RETURNED ABDUCTEES RECEIVE LETTERS FROM CHILDREN IN NORTH," Kashiwazaki, 08/02/03)
Agence France-Presse reported that ten suspected DPRK asylum-seekers taking refuge at the Japanese embassy in Bangkok were being interviewed by a Korean-speaking Japanese official, the embassy said. The ten, including two children, slipped into the embassy on Thursday when the gates were opened for a car to enter, shouting what staff said sounded like "North Korea." Embassy counsellor Akihiko Fujii told AFP that a Japanese official dispatched from Seoul arrived in Bangkok Thursday night and began interviewing the group this morning. "They (the ten) are still at the embassy. They're all okay, they're well. They slept well and ate breakfast, with no problems so far, and we've started interviewing this morning at 8:00 am (0100 GMT)," he said.
He said officials were still unable to confirm whether the group were DPRKs seeking asylum. Japan's top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, said Thursday in Tokyo that if they were DPRK asylum seekers, they might be better off in the ROK than Japan. "Even if they came to Japan, the question is whether they could live (comfortably) here or not," he said at a news conference, adding they would probably be more at home in the ROK. The ROK said Thursday it would allow the ten in if they proved to be DPRK defectors. ("SUSPECTED DPRK ASYLUM-SEEKERS INTERVIEWED AT JAPANESE EMBASSY," 08/01/03)
Joongang Ilbo, 2003/06/04. Two North Korean defectors who testified at a U.S. Senate hearing last month about the North’s state-sponsored drug trade and imports of nuclear-weapon parts were residents of South Korea under government monitoring, but Seoul did not know ahead of time about their Senate appearance.
Grand National Party lawmakers who attended an intelligence committee briefing yesterday reported that government briefers said Seoul “did not have a clue that they were appearing at the Senate hearing.” The appearance came on the third day of the defectors’ stay in the United States, the lawmakers said.
One of the Grand National Party members said a National Intelligence Service official who briefed the lawmakers said the defectors were issued passports and travel visas.
A former senior North Korean official and a missile specialist appeared at the May 20 hearing covered in dark cloaks to conceal their identities. One defector, identified as a missile specialist, testified that the North had smuggled in nuclear-weapon parts from Japan. The other, identified as a former high-ranking official, spoke of Pyeongyang’s involvement in illegal drug exports to earn hard currency.
The defectors have not returned to South Korea, which the lawmakers said might indicate that they are seeking asylum in the United States.
Another lawmaker said the fact that Seoul’s intelligence officials were not informed of the defectors’ plans in Washington indicated a lapse in communication between the intelligence agencies of the two countries.
Another member of the intelligence committee said the director of the National Intelligence Service, Ko Young-koo, had denied April reports by an Australian publication that a top North Korean nuclear scientist, Kyong Won-ha, had been smuggled out of the North and is under the protection of a Western government.
“Foreign governments, including the Australian and American, have been contacted and the report was found to be baseless,” Mr. Ko was reported to have said, adding that Mr. Kyong is still in North Korea. Mr. Ko also discounted the characterization of Mr. Kyong as “the father of North Korean nuclear program,” saying that his specialty is far from nuclear weapons.
Seoul had neither confirmed nor denied the report about Mr. Kyong’s defection since it broke in April.
Mr. Ko also reiterated the agency’s position that the former senior North Korean official who defected to the South, Hwang Jang-yop, would be authorized to travel to the United States if steps are taken by the U.S. government to ensure his safety. Mr. Hwang was theoretically free to travel after being taken off the government’s special protection list, Mr. Ko said, but his former status continues to warrant special measures.
Agence France-Presse reported that the wife of an accused DPRK secret agent pleaded guilty to failure to declare 18,000 dollars in cash she
brought into the US after an alleged visit to her husband's spy masters. Susan Young-ja Yai, 51, admitted one count of failing to inform US Customs
officials that she and her husband were bringing more than the declarable amount of in cash into the country when they returned from a trip to
Prague and Vienna. Yai, who is due to be sentenced on September 15 by US District
Judge George King, faces up to six months behind bars under her plea bargain deal.
Her ROK-born husband, "John" Yai Joung-woong, 59, faces more serious charges of failing to register as a DPRK agent, failing to declare the cash and making false statements. Yai, who was arrested in February after a long undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation probe and accused of seeking to obtain "top secret" US documents and of plotting to infiltrate the government, is free on US$400,000 bail. His lawyers say Yai -- who has not been charged with espionage and who faces 30 years in jail if convicted -- say he is being unfairly targeted by the authorities to make an example of him. Defence attorney William Genego said his client was sending only publicly available information to the DPRK in an attempt to compensate for the lack of free media and Internet access in the DPRK.
During the seven-year FBI probe, authorities intercepted Yai's e-mail and faxes, bugged his phones and office and made covert searches of his premises. They allegedly found code charts containing substitutes for words such as "White House," "State Department," "The Pentagon," "secret operation," and "top secret." No trial date has yet been set for small-businessman Yai, a naturalized US citizen who had been under FBI investigation since 1996. ("WIFE OF ACCUSED N. KOREAN "SPY" PLEADS GUILTY TO NOT DECLARING CASH," 06/04/03)
Joongang Ilbo reported that Hwang Jang-yop, a senior North Korean official who defected to ROK in 1997, has been invited to speak at a
research institute in Japan, a former North Korean agent who defected to Japan said
Thursday. Genki Aoyama, who is 62 and was a former North Korean intelligence agent before he defected to
Japan in 1995, was in Seoul and personally met with Mr. Hwang to hand him the invitation. Mr. Aoyama told
the JoongAng Ilbo that Mr. Hwang has accepted. The invitation was from the Asia Pacific Research Center, a think tank affiliated with the Japanese
business association, Keizai Doyukai, or Japan Association of Corporate Executives.
Mr. Hwang is asked to visit Japan in mid-June and to speak to North Korean defectors and refugees who are trying to get legal status in Japan. Mr. Aoyama was a Korean American and a former member of the pro-DPRK General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, or Chongryon, before he was sent to DPRK to study and work in the intelligence division of the Workers' Party. An official with the National Intelligence Service said authorization for Mr. Hwang's trip would have to be preceded by an official confirmation of security guarantee by the inviting country. (Lee Young-jong, "NORTH DEFECTOR INVITED TO SPEAK AT JAPAN FIRM," Seoul, 05/30/03)
The Associated Press reported that the US State Department would be willing to provide
security arrangements for a US visit of a former DPRK official who defected seven years ago, a department official said Friday. The department also
said it was prepared to undertake a threat assessment in advance of any visit, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Hwang Jang
yop, a one-time close aide to the DPRK leader Kim Jong Il, defected to South Korea in 1996 and has lived there under the protection of the
NIS, the South Korean equivalent of the CIA. Hwang is best known for his role in
providing ideological orientation for the DPRK regime.
The official said the State Department would coordinate security measures for Hwang with local and federal law enforcement authorities. The department made a similar commitment last year when the possibility of Hwang visit to the United States arose. Hwang has been invited by the Defense Forum Foundation, a Washington-based conservative group, to speak on Capitol Hill on June 20. "We remain hopeful and optimistic about our invitation to Hwang Jang yop to come to the United States," said Suzanne Scholte, president of the foundation. According to reports from South Korea, officials there are reluctant to allow him to go ahead with the visit because of concerns about his security. ("US WOULD PROTECT NORTH KOREA DEFECTOR," Washington, 05/30/03)
Joongang Ilbo, 2003/05/27. “Some called my son a double agent, others a hero,” said Ahn Jeong-suk, 61. “To me, he is just an unfortunate man with a wounded heart. He is mentally ill and needs help.”
Ms. Ahn is the mother of Yu Tae-jun, a man who defected from North Korea ― twice.
The Seoul District Court yesterday sentenced Mr. Yu to six months in prison for violating the inter-Korean exchange law. His crime: returning to the North without government permission in hopes of finding his wife and bringing her back.
The court acknowledged yesterday that Mr. Yu had no improper motive, but it said the law must be obeyed.
Mr. Yu’s dramatic journey began five years ago. He fled North Korea in December 1998 with his son, now 8 years old. The defections of his mother, Ms. Ahn, and a younger brother followed in February 2000. Mr. Yu’s wife, however, did not join the family.
After settling in Daegu, Mr. Yu decided to risk his life to re-enter North Korea and bring back his wife. He slipped across the Chinese border in June 2000, but was caught quickly and sentenced to a 32-year term in political prison. But he managed to make his way South again, arriving in February 2002. He was unable, however, to bring his wife.
The National Intelligence Service questioned Mr. Yu for two days, then released him. But in December he was indicted as a violator of the Inter-Korean Exchange Act, because he did not obtain advance permission for his visit.
Mr. Yu did not submit meekly. He staged a demonstration, demanding to be sent back to the North rather than be put on trial in the South. Twice, he failed to show up for his trial. The Seoul District Court issued a detention warrant May 11 and has held him since then in the Seoul Detention Center.
“My son simply does not understand his situation,” his mother, Ms. Ahn said. “He believed that the South would welcome him again, but only icy treatment awaited him.”
Upon his second defection, Mr. Yu faced unexpected hostility ― particularly skepticism about his identity. Many other former North Koreans wondered if it could be so easy for a man to cross the borders three times. Doubts only grew when Mr. Yu intentionally lied during a media interview upon returning to the South.
“My son did not tell the whole truth before the media because we were trained in that way in our years of experience in North Korea,” Ms. Ahn said. “There is no such thing as a free press in the North. My son and I thought we had to tell everything truly and accurately to the National Intelligence Service. We thought we could lie about some things to the media.”
Mr. Yu agreed to a media session Feb. 13, 2002. He said he was lured across the Tumen River because a North Korean border guard said he could arrange a meeting with his wife. Mr. Yu said he was tortured severely by North Korean authorities and then sent to Cheongjin political prison in North Hamgyeong province. He faced a 32-year prison term, he said, but escaped from the prison on foot. He made it to the China-North Korea border area by smuggling himself onto a train then crossed the Yalu River to reach China, where he was detained by Chinese police for more than two months. At length he convinced the police that he was a South Korean citizen, and China deported him to the South.
Expecting to be hailed as a returned hero, Mr. Yu found instead that his story was challenged at several points, and rumors spread that he was a double agent. It turned out that the South Korean media knew quite a bit on their own about what had happened to Mr. Yu. Indeed, they may have saved his life.
After Mr. Yu’s return to the North, the South Korean press began reporting that he might be executed. To keep its captive from becoming a cause celebre, North Korea organized a press interview with Mr. Yu in Pyeongyang. First it moved him from the strict-security political prison to a rice-refining facility in Pyeongseong, South Pyeongan province. This was a prison, too, but with lighter security and better food. When Mr. Yu’s health and appearance im-proved, he put on a propaganda interview, fiercely condemning the South. He later insisted that he had done so under threat of death.
Mr. Yu was returned to the rice factory, where he continued to recover. In his media interview in South Korea, he said he escaped while security was loosened. Challenged, he admitted that he had been released on the order of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il.
“I told my son to lie about it, because I did not want South Koreans to believe that Kim Jong-il is a good man,” Ms. Ahn said.
Mr. Yu also lied that he had been unable to meet his wife in the North. The National Intelligence Service contradicted him, saying that he had lived with her for nearly a month in the North. Mr. Yu later apologized, saying he had lied to protect his wife, who remains in North Korea.
“My son and his wife had a difference of ideology, and they could not overcome the difference,” Ms. Ahn said. “That is why he had to return to the South alone.”
Upon his return to the South, Mr. Yu found himself in a changed environment. While he was away, the government had stopped his monthly 580,000-won ($490) payments, taken back the apartment in Daegu and canceled his resident identification. After returning, the monthly aid and identification were restored, but not the housing.
Mr. Yu moved to Itaewon, Seoul, with his son. He was apparently obsessed with the apartment. “He was really disappointed when he found out that he lost the apartment,” Ms. Ahn said. “He went crazy. He repeatedly said that the South Korean government had given up on him.”
Ms. Ahn said her son believed that everything would become normal once he came back to the South. “He knew he had committed a wrong by smuggling himself back to the North,” she said, “but he was going there to bring his wife back. My son was so naive that such an action was forgivable. He thought he would be treated as a hero, not a double agent.”
Ms. Ahn said she and her son understood that he should be punished for visiting the North without government permission. “But, whatever he did wrong after he returned to the South, that was just out of his insanity,” Ms. Ahn said.
Some people differ. “He sometimes showed signs of a persecution delusion,” said Nam Sang-gu, a police officer who has monitored Mr. Yu since October. “But, he was a fine man. He had no difficulty in thinking straight. He seemed like a normal logical man for everyday affairs.”
The court said yesterday that a period of isolation from society would help to calm Mr. Yu down.
Mr. Yu’s family has a week to decide whether to appeal the prison term. “The family still needs a couple of days to decide,” said Do Hee-yun, secretary general of the Citizens Coalition for Human Rights and North Korean Refugees. “No matter what, we will still ask the government to detain him in a mental hospital, not regular prison.”
The Unification Ministry is mulling over what to do with Mr. Yu. “There is just no precedent,” a ministry official said. “The court just made a ruling. We need time to make a decision.” Giving back the housing assistance to Mr. Yu is undecided.
As more North Koreans find their way to the South, it becomes more difficult for Seoul to oversee them. In 1999, 148 North Koreans came to the South, but the number grew to 312 in 2000, 538 in 2001 and 1,141 in 2002. Through April this year, 400 North Koreans have arrived via third countries; a fresh group of 24 arrived yesterday.
The defectors are granted South Korean citizenship. Except for high-profile defectors, they are allowed to travel overseas after spending three years in the South, although the destinations and purposes of their trips are subject to government review.
“It is difficult to restrict defectors with South Korean citizenship from traveling overseas, but considering the safety and diplomatic reasons, it is a serious issue,” said Jhe Seong-ho, professor of law at Choong-Ang University. “The government should try to urge the defectors to avoid traveling to China and Russia in particular.”
Chosun Ilbo, 2003/06/04. The US Committee for Refugees disclosed in “The World Refugee Survey 2003,” released on May 29, that China forcibly repatriated tens of thousands of North Korean refugees last year alone and that they, as a result, had them imprisoned or executed.
In this report, the USCR, a non-profit human rights organization, stated that, in October 2002, China and the North Korean security forces started a “100-Day Operation” of ferreting out and repatriating North Korean refugees. According to this civic organization, as many as 1,000 North Korean refugees were being repatriated per day as of the end of 2002.
This report also disclosed that, despite the danger involved, foreign civic organizations have built an “underground railroad” to help North Korean refugees in China reach Korea via Mongolia, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Thailand. The “underground railroad” includes providing these refugees with safe places to stay at and guiding them [through their journeys].
The report also stated that, although the number of North Korean defectors in China was unknown, they numbered 100,000 at a minimum and 300,000 at a maximum as of the end of 2002 according to estimates. The report also disclosed that as many as 100,000 North Korean residents are displaced even inside North Korea.
The report noted that some North Koreans defectors are working at Russia’s poorly-conditioned logging camps in the hopes of escaping to South Korea.
Joongang Ilbo reported that DPRK defectors painted a new picture of DPRK's crimes at a US congressional hearing Tuesday in Washington,
supporting long-standing allegations that DPRK raised money from the sale of narcotics to finance its military. The defectors also confirmed claims
DPRK continued missile development. According to a report by the Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Financial Management, the Budget and
International Security, a former senior North Korean official testifying before the panel said opium production began in DPRK in the early 1980s.
The opium farms spread nationwide, he said, and a methamphetamine plant was built near Pyongyang.
The report says the defector testified that seven people were brought from Thailand to oversee the drug refining. The official, who left DPRK in 1998, said DPRK produced 1 metric ton of opium and methamphetamine each annually while he was in DPRK. The drugs were smuggled into Japan and ROK, he said. He testified behind a screen to protect his identity, the subcommittee reported. The report says that another defector, who worked as an engineer in DPRK until 1997, said he visited Iran in 1989 to perform a missile guidance test. He said 90 percent of missile parts were smuggled into DPRK from Japan via Mangyeongbong, a cruise line that connects Japan and DPRK. (Ser Myo-ja, "NORTH DEFECTORS TELL OF DRUGS, MISSILES," Seoul, 05/23/03)
Stephen Collison in Washington, 22 May 2003
IN a dramatic confession to the US Congress, two men identified as high-ranking North Korean defectors yesterday said they had been intimately involved in test-firing Pyongyang's missiles in Iran and a state-sponsored drugs ring.
The men, led into a congressional hearing wearing black hoods, gave evidence behind a screen to conceal their identities.
They at present live in South Korea, but were brought to the US by two refugee advocacy groups.
Their appearance came as the Bush Administration tries to turn the spotlight on North Korea's alleged criminal behaviour after making little obvious progress to end a simmering crisis over the communist state's nuclear weapons programs.
Journalists and members of the public were asked to leave after three hours as the subcommittee of the Republican-controlled Senate governmental affairs committee opened a final classified session in which the men promised to divulge highly sensitive data.
But one witness, using the alias Bok Koo Lee, told the open portion of the hearing that he worked as a missile scientist for nearly nine years at Plant 39 in Huichon, Jagang Province, North Korea before defecting in July 1997.
He said in summer 1989 he became an unwitting pawn in Pyongyang's missile technology export plans.
Bok said he was ordered to go to Nampo seaport, dressed in military fatigues, and was locked inside a freighter for a sea voyage lasting about 15 days.
When the ship docked, he was taken aboard a missile guidance control vehicle with curtained windows on a two-day journey to a secret location.
"Although it was night-time, we could see and immediately we realised that we were in a Middle Eastern country, judging by a foreign soldier and his physical make-up," Bok said.
The small team of scientists activated and fired the missile from a remote site, before immediately being returned to the ship for a 15-day journey back to North Korea, locked in the hold.
During a visit to Pyongyang on his return, Bok said he was told by senior North Korean officials that his mission had been to Iran, and testified that his plant subsequently churned out more of the missile control vehicles he had worked on during the project.
Bok alleged 90 per cent of components used in his work inside the North Korean missile project were smuggled in on scheduled ferry services from Japan, every two or three weeks.
His compatriot, identified only as defector No.1, said he was a former high-level government official in the Stalinist state.
"North Korea must be the only country on earth to run a drug production-trafficking business, on a state level," he said.
He alleged Kim Jong-Il's regime, desperate for hard currency, produced large quantities of heroin and methamphetamines.
Opium was sent to a pharmaceutical plant in Chungjin city and "processed and refined into heroin under the supervision of seven to eight drug experts from Thailand".
"This is all done under the direct control and supervision of the central government," he said.
Senator Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois charged that North Korea was "essentially a crime syndicate with nuclear bombs".
The New York Times reported that two DPRK defectors appeared before a Senate panel Tuesday
and detailed how the DPRK has made the export of narcotics and missiles a state-run business. The estimated $1 billion in hard currency generated
annually by these ventures, experts told the committee, is probably subsidizing the DPRK's nuclear weapons programs. "North Korea is basically
a crime syndicate with nuclear bombs," said Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.), who sponsored the hearings before a Senate Governmental Affairs
subcommittee. "The role of a government is to protect its citizens from criminals. But, in the case of North Korea, it appears the government is
the criminal." The testimony comes as debate rages within the Bush administration and among its Asian allies about how to quash the North
Korean regime's nuclear ambitions. Some advocate a multilateral "quarantine" to keep North Korea from exporting its nuclear material,
weapons and drugs, in what would amount to a containment strategy. The DPRK has said it would consider such sanctions to be an act of war.
(James Dao, "NORTH KOREA IS SAID TO EXPORT DRUGS TO GET FOREIGN CURRENCY," Washington, 05/21/03) and the Los Angeles Times
(Sonni Efron, "DEFECTORS TELL OF NORTH KOREAN DRUG TRADE," Washington, 05/21/03)
The Japan Times reported that a DPRK defector testifies to US Senate A man identified as a former DPRK missile scientist told a US Senate hearing Tuesday that more than 90 percent of the components used in the DPRK's missile program were smuggled in from Japan. The man, who has assumed the name Lee Bok Koo, said the components were smuggled out by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryun) aboard a passenger-cargo ship that plies between Japan and the DPRK. He also said was deeply involved in test-firing Pyongyang's missiles in Iran.
"I worked for nine years as an expert in the guidance system for the North Korean missile industry, and I can tell you definitely that over 90 percent of these parts come from Japan," Lee told the Financial Management, the Budget and International Security Subcommittee of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. "The way they bring this in is through . . . the North Korean association inside Japan, and they bring it by ship every three months." Lee identified the ship as the Man Gyong Bong-92, which sails between the North Korean port of Wonsan and Niigata port. In Tokyo, Chongryun denied the man's allegation as groundless. Lee was one of two men identified as high-ranking DPRK defectors who spoke at the Senate session. Led into the hearing wearing black hoods, they spoke from behind a screen to conceal their identities.
In Tokyo, Chongryun released a statement saying the association has never been involved in shipping missile parts. "(The testimony) is a total fabrication," the statement says. "Chongryun has never been involved in anything like that, nor is it directly engaged in any export-related matters. It is commonly known that the Man Gyong Bon legitimately transports export goods and humanitarian aid supplies based on Japan's laws." The association also accused the US of trying to use the testimony to step up its anti-North Korean campaign. ("90% OF MISSILE PARTS FROM JAPAN," Washington, 05/21/03)
Joongang Ilbo reported that Hwang Jang-yop, a senior DPRK aide who defected ROK in 1997, has completed construction of an office
building in Gangnam district, southern Seoul. He used 300 million won ($250,000) donated by
ROK government and royalties on his books. Mr. Hwang said he and five other researchers from the Unification Research Institute at the National
Intelligence Service will concentrate on researching human-rights issues in DPRK. The US based Defense Forum Foundation said it would invite Mr. Hwang
to its annual conference on June 20. Mr. Hwang was barred last year from accepting an invitation in Washington. "The government has not yet issued
Mr. Hwang a passport, but the Roh Moo-hyun administration is positive about his visiting," said Nam Shin-woo, a rights
activist and North Korean defector. ("DEFECTOR BUILDS OFFICE TO STUDY NORTH ISSUES," Seoul,
05/19/03)
Agence France-Presse reported that a man claiming to be a former DPRK People's Army general who fled the impoverished state last year has told a Japanese publication that Pyongyang secretly imported nuclear bombs from the former Soviet Union and developed dozens of its own weapons. The claims were among details about the Stalinist state's military command and its leader Kim Jong-Il contained in an article in the June edition of the respected Gekkan Gendai (Modern Times Monthly), based on an interview. The general told the magazine that the DPRK secretly imported nuclear bombs from the former Soviet Union in 1983 and now has four Soviet-made nuclear missiles which, with a range of 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles), could reach the west coast of the US.
"The North Korean army even has tens of nuclear weapons it has developed itself in addition to those made by the former Soviet Union," the general was quoted as saying. The four nuclear-tipped missiles are stored at an underground site in Potaeri, in Samjiyon district at the foot of Mount Paekdu on the border with China, he said. The article said the general was the "highest ranked" DPRK defector since Hwang Jang-Yop, top ideologue and secretary of the ruling Workers Party, was granted political asylum in the ROK in 1997. The magazine withheld the man's name, rank and other details at his request, using the pseudonym, An Yong-Chol. A Gendai editor stated that the general was aged around 60 and lives in an Asian country, and that the interview was held in mid-April.
He declined to say where the interview took place. An claimed to have served in the army for more than 30 years, the last 10 years close to Kim Jong-Il, and had met the supreme leader many times. He told the magazine his former position meant that he continued to get information from the DPRK's elite, adding, "I maintain channels with the Kim Jong-Il family." Kim has an "operation team" made up some 120 top cadres from the Korean People's Army and the Korean Workers Party, An said. It is headed by General Kim Tu-Nam and includes Vice Marshal Jo Myong-Rok, director of the army's general political department and Vice Marshal Kim Yong-Chun, chief of general staff. An also said Kim Jong-Il bought more than 20 sophisticated MiG-31 fighters and deployed them near Pyongyang in 2000. But An's revelations met with a cautious response from analysts here, who said defectors are often keen to inflate their value or distort information for various purposes. ("NORTH KOREA HAS DOZENS OF NUKES, TOP DEFECTOR SAYS IN JAPAN," 05/14/03)
Chosun Ilbo reported that an ROK group that assists DPRK defectors said Wednesday that 19 defectors caught last January as they were leaving PRC by boat at Yantai Harbor were returned to DPRK on Jan. 25. The Durihana Mission produced a tape recording of a telephone call with one of the refugees, identified only as Kim, who was released by DPRK authorities two weeks ago and had re-escaped. "On Jan. 18 we were caught at Yantai and sent to the border," Kim said. "On Jan. 25, 19 of us got on three buses and passed through Dandong to North Korea. Four people, including myself, were held captive for months before we were released on May 3." Durihana helped about 80 defectors from DPRK escape in January, using two boats. The group had been unsure whether those caught had been repatriated. (Kim Min-cheol, "CHINA SAID TO HAVE REPATRIATED 19 DEFECTORS," Seoul, 05/15/03)
Chosun Ilbo reported that many DPRK soldiers, including officers, have fled to PRC and are seeking exile in Western countries and ROK, the wire service Reuters reported Wednesday, quoting various sources in PRC. "During the past few months, defectors from the North Korean military escaped through China and went to Southeast Asia by plane, train or on foot with false identification," said Reuters, with information from three different sources. One of the defectors is a 45-year-old army officer, Baik Jong-su, who is hiding in Cambodia. In a written interview he said many other soldiers had escaped before him. (Yoon Hee-young, "NORTH'S SOLDIERS DEFECTING," Seoul, 05/15/03)
The New York Times magazine, April 27, 2003
"In September, a North Korean boy named Heo joined a group of seven other refugees in China -- most of whom
had left their homeland by crossing the Tumen River -- and boarded a southbound train from Jilin Province to
Beijing. The North Koreans carried no luggage. With each passing stop and hour, they remained in their seats,
increasingly fidgety and nervous. Once at the station in Beijing, they summoned a taxi and piled in. What lay
before them was either freedom or long prison terms, which, they knew, would most likely include torture and
extreme privation." ..//..
"When I met Heo, he was living in a house on a mountainside on the northeastern edge of Seoul with seven other
young defectors. While it is estimated that unaccompanied child refugees from North Korea number nearly 10,000
in China -- broadly known as kotchebi, or ''fluttering swallows'' -- only about 100 of them have made it to the
Promised Land, South Korea, in the last five years."..//..
"One at a time, the fluttering swallows had told me that the best thing about their newfound freedom in South
Korea was that they weren't always looking over their shoulders, that their paranoia had transmogrified into a
state of cautious well-being. But then everything was provisional in the life of a swallow. Soon news of the
murders of three North Korean defectors would send a shock of fear through the young refugee community, the
deaths assumed at first to have been wrought by the long arm of Kim Jong Il reaching from the other side. (Later,
when more facts were available, the crime became another reminder of troubles in the refugee community. It had
been committed by a North Korean refugee in a love triangle who had since fled to Thailand.)"..//..
NIIGATA, Tuesday, April 22, 2003 at 06:57 JST. Returned Japanese abductee
to North Korea Hitomi Soga plans to visit the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo in early May
to discuss her husband, a former U.S. Army sergeant listed as having deserted in
1965, government officials said Monday.
Soga, 43, one of five Japanese repatriated last October after being abducted to
North Korea in 1978, is hoping to meet with U.S. Ambassador to Japan Howard
Baker to ask that her husband, Charles Robert Jenkins, not be taken into custody
if he comes to Japan. He is currently in North Korea. (Kyodo News. Also see the discussion
on this topic at JapanToday.com)
by Resa LaRu
Kirkland, WorldNetDaily.com, April 21, 2003
They saved Pfc. Lynch. She was a POW, and the powers that be received reliable information she was alive and being held against her will by enemy forces, so they did the logical thing and rescued her. It is a remarkable story – one filled with hope, determination, heroism and the glory of doing the undeniable right thing.
Apparently, however, it is the right thing only if you are a female POW.
I am absolutely against women in front-line combat. The vast majority of women are not suited for such things. This is in no way meant to demean Jessica Lynch. In spite of being placed in harm's way by Political Castration run amuck, she performed exactly as a warrior for right should. The condemnation is not hers to wear. But the rightness of women on the front lines is not the topic of this article.
The rightness of POW rescue is not the topic either, for that isn't even debatable. The hypocrisy of "preferential rescuing" regarding females over males is the topic of the day.
Nature has endowed certain triggers within the male psyche – triggers designed to encourage the male of the species to love and protect the female. The shorter female stature, the soft, round female build, the higher female voice – all are a deliberate design to elicit a specific response within the male that ensures the survival of the female, within whom resides the next generation, thus ensuring the survival of the species.
This is the basis for the biggest problem with women in front-line combat – it is asking men to ignore nature, which, in fact, is asking them to deny all things logical and reasonable. But our government – in a gutless cow-towing to political castration – has done just that. Men must by law defy logic and reason, or face court martial. Except, it appears, when a woman is taken as a prisoner of war – then, the cry of "But she's a woman!" holds meaning.
Now, please understand: This is in no way against our front-line men. They did the right thing. This is not against Jessica Lynch. She did the magnificent thing. Our men proved it could be done, and so did the young private. No, this sin is the hypocrisy of a system which will go all out to save a woman on the word of an enemy civilian, but ignores the life of a man on the word of an enemy general. This is the evil of Political Castration and deliberate denial.
Case in point: Philip Mandra. Sgt. Philip Mandra was a proud young Marine, still a child in World War II, but a man in the Korean War. As part of D Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Regiment, 1st Marine Division, he was wounded in fierce fighting in July 1952, after grabbing an automatic weapon and maintaining his position in the face of massive enemy fire, maneuvering his firing team around the enemy outpost, and killing in hand-to-hand combat an intruder determined to bring them all down. He was awarded the Silver Star, which his sister later accepted on his behalf, because only a scant month later – Aug. 7, 1952 – Sgt. Philip Mandra disappeared while fighting on Bronco Hill, along with four other Marines.
Then began the 50-year-and-counting agony of his sister, Irene. Imagine that ┘ 50 plus years. Jessica's family knew that anguish for less than two weeks. Seeing their suffering on FOX News every day, sharing their suffering – I can't help but wonder: How is one to endure for 50 years!? That painful question becomes more excruciating given what has come to pass since for Irene and her family, and is best told by Irene herself:
In September of 1993, a Russian colonel contacted the American Embassy in Russia. He heard a radio broadcast that the U.S. government was looking for Americans who were brought into Russia as prisoners of war. Anyone with information was asked to contact the USA Task Force. In the meanwhile, Task Force Russia was absorbed into Defense POW-Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) and this reorganization essentially dismantled the task force as we knew it.
The U.S. task force visited a Col. Malinin in the Soviet Union, who spoke of seeing an American POW in a prison in Magadon, Siberia in 1962. When the task force showed Col. Malinin an album of approximately 100 pictures of missing men; the colonel picked my brother's picture out twice. Two different pictures – one when he was young and a computerized age-enhanced picture of Phil at age 60.
Col. Malinin told the story of visiting a prison which was part of his job and going into the commodore's office and looking out the window. The colonel observed a man who was brought out of his cell and walked in the court yard. The colonel asked the commandant, "Who was this man?" The explanation given was that "He is an American," sent to him "from the Gulag." This took place in 1962, and Col. Malinin saw the same American in 1965 when visiting the prison, again.
When I learned this news, I packed and left for Russia. I met with Col. Malinin and he told me that as he was leaving the prison, he heard three prisoners yelling out the window, "I'm American." He couldn't see their faces, but he heard what they were yelling. The colonel again identified my brother's face as the prisoner that he saw in that courtyard. I showed him other pictures of my brother and his reply was he could never forget that lone prisoner who was kept in solitary confinement and not allowed to be with other prisoners walking in that courtyard.
I also visited the commandant, who claimed he didn't remember my brother and denied that there were any Americans in that prison. I spent two weeks in Russia searching for answers, but hitting many a brick wall.
My oldest brother Sal, accompanied me to this frozen land. Sal and I gave interviews, visited prominent people, made a video. Our story appeared in the local newspapers in Moscow, but the major newspaper, Izvestiya promised to write our story, but never published it. The media claims that Russia is no longer communist, I disagree. The Russians were polite, but gave no information except the names of people involved in my brother's case, (which, I might add, my government refused to give me).
While I was in Russia, Vice President Gore was there. I visited his hotel and left a note for him asking for his help and explaining who I was and what my mission was about. I never heard from our vice president. I wrote Vice President Gore a letter, when I got back to the states, asking for his help in finding my brother again and getting cooperation with Russia. I received a letter back from him that was so cold and heartless, it enraged me so, that I sent it to my congressman.
– Irene Mandra
Coalition of Families
Reliable evidence given by a Russian general that Americans were being held in gulags more than a decade after the declared cease fire. And this doesn't even include defectors from North Korea – as recently as 1991 – who have spoken of a dozen very old black and white men still being held just north of Pyongyang.
My question is: Why is Philip Mandra counted as less than Jessica Lynch? He wasn't even given the courtesy of being a footnote on the evening news. Lynch is having her entire college education paid for by her home state. No one wants to dirty their hands by keeping Philip in the public eye; Jessica was rescued in a daring caper that put a dozen other men in harm's way. Philip is ignored, re-buffed, and counted out of the game; Jessica is getting free trips, prizes and money. Jessica hit the POW jackpot; Philip the POW received jack.
And I haven’t even mentioned the most famous and recent POW case from the famous and now historic Gulf War I – Capt. Scott Speicher – the man who made military history by having his status changed from KIA-BNR (that’s Killed In Action Body Never Recovered) to MIA, and this past October given the official status of POW. The evidence it took to get the Department of Defense to make so momentous a change amounted to a helluva lot more than a pharmacist at a checkpoint.
There can be only one conclusion. Put aside our real-time news coverage, our instant access and embedded reporters who show us what our front-line men see and feel. Somebody has to say it, because truth must be leant if it is to be acknowledged and accepted. Jessica counted more because she is a woman – Philip was only a man. So much for "equal under the eyes of the law." This is feminism's ultimate and evil goal come to fruition: to be treated the same as men, except when it comes to the hard, painful stuff – then, by God, to be treated better.
They didn't save Sgt. Mandra. He was a POW, and the powers that be received reliable information that he was alive and being held against his will by enemy forces, so they did nothing. It is a wretched story, one filled with denial, lies, cover-ups, abandonment and the evil of doing the most miserably wrong thing.
Apparently, however, it is the right thing only if you are a male POW.
Keep the faith, bros, and in all things courage.