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The Chosun Ilbo, 30 May 2001
An agreement of the 40th meeting of the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea]-China Border River Navigation Cooperation Committee was signed here on Tuesday [29 May]. Present at the signing ceremony were members of the delegations of the DPRK and Chinese sides to the committee. The agreement was inked by head of the DPRK delegation Ri Nam-jong [name as received] and head of the Chinese delegation Tian Yuguang, head of the communications department in Liaoning Province.
With more and more North Korean defectors making their secret trails to Mongolia through the Chinese border, the Mongolian government went out to set seek measures to prevent further unwelcome entry. Recently it has lately requested the Chinese government for alternatives to prevent the further defectors from crossing the boundary, reported the Japanese Kyodo News on Tuesday, May 22. “Over 100 North Korean defectors have secretly reached Mongolia last year alone and nearly 60 defectors by this May." said the high state official of Mongolian government. "Our government will no longer tolerate with such illegal acts." The Kyodo News added that the Mongolian government has already banned the entry of one Korean-American suspected for helping out North Korean defectors.
Alexyss Kim, International Campaign Officer, NKHR
For desperate North Koreans in search of a stable asylum, Mongolia has been an optional route they could take to reach that safety. By no means has it been an easy and comfortable stroll on the red carpet. Harsh weather and uncultured geography of Mongolia posed as life-threatening obstacles to refugees lacking the resources and knowledge to sustain themselves in a strange land for an indeterminable period. An outcome more daunting than Nature’s obstruction was capture by Mongolian border guards who may kick them out, or in other words back to China. Nevertheless, Mongolia has attracted quite a few North Korean refugees and humanitarian aid workers trying to save them. The main reason for this attraction was Mongolia’s official policy on North Korean refugee problem.
Unlike the neighbouring China, Mongolia was relatively tolerant of North Koreans seeking asylum in accordance with the international refugee laws. At the time a US-based NGO had received an encouraging letter from a Mongolian diplomat, who confirmed: “there has not been, until now, any incident/s of forceful expelling of North Korean refugees found in Mongolia.” He had further added: “I can assure you that Mongolia as a respected member of U.N., would gladly cooperate with UNHCR and other international community, and their respective endeavors.” The only impediment for Mongolia to embracing more North Korean refugees, confessed the diplomat, was an economy too weak to support “a large influx of refugees.” That policy seems to have drastically shifted according to an article in Joong Ang Ilbo dated May 23 (see above Mongolian government out to block out N.K. defectors).
In reference to unauthorized entry of North Koreans into Mongolian territory, a Mongolian official firmly stated: “Our government will no longer tolerate with such illegal acts,” and the strength of his words was demonstrated in the official request from Mongolia to China for measures to stop the trail of North Korean refugees entering Mongolia via China. This move made by Mongolian authorities is a proof that the North Korea – China – Mongolia refugee trail continues and to a degree that aggravates the Mongolian government. This move is also proof of how fragile North Korean refugees and refugees in general are to political interests and maneuvers of states. As conscious citizens of the world we encourage the Mongolian government to return to its old policy of adherence to international laws concerning refugees. It is the least a responsible member of the international community should do for people who really have no other choice.
The Korea Herald, 30 May 2001. A North Korean defector has disappeared after leaving for China with his girlfriend last year, South Korean officials said yesterday. Authorities are trying to locate Shin Jung-chul, 55, who went to China in June last year with a 35-year-old South Korean woman, the officials said. They said that Shin might have eloped with the woman, who reportedly worked at a barbershop in South Korea. Shin married in October 1983, five months after he defected to the South when he was a North Korean army captain. He has two daughters. But authorities do not rule out the possibility that Shin or the couple is in North Korea. Officials said that Shin went to China on a "business trip" with a "single-use" passport June 17 last year. Since then, no one has seen or heard from him. The officials said that before leaving for China, Shin withdrew 20 million won from his credit card account and sold a passenger car that had been registered under his wife's name. These lead authorities to suspect that Shin eloped with the woman, the officials said. Shin, who served in the North Korean army as a captain, crossed the border in May 7, 1983. He became a major in the South Korean army and retired as a colonel in 1995. Before leaving for China, he worked for a company run by another North Korean defector.
Yonhapnews Agency, Seoul, May 29, 2001 -- Five North Korean defectors arrived in Seoul recently after hiding out in a third country, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said Tuesday. All natives of North Hamgyong Province, the defectors are a three-member family from Hoeryong and two workers who had lived in the area bordering China, NIS officials said.
Joong Ang Ilbo, 28 May 2001. People in North Korea are encouraged to visit China if they have relatives there. “North Korean authority these days are actively recommending its people to visit their relatives in China, and if possible to stay there for a whole month,” said one member of the aid group who have returned from China last Sunday. “The authority figured that these people could actually do some propaganda work for the North. At the same time it would be few less mouth to feed for a while and hopefully some food on their way back,” explained the aid member against the backdrop of the visit. He pointed out the authority has already started special ideology education program for those leaving for China. “The people have to tell outsiders that the North’s economic condition has improved and that the nation has successfully passed the period of ‘arduous march’.” He said. “The authority even told the people to encourage North Korea defectors hiding in China to return, that they would let bygones by bygones.” “In normal circumstances the authority wouldn’t have allowed its people to stay for more than one or two days,” he added. In relations one North Korean defector too testified that such exchange with the outside world was almost impossible in the past. "Only the family members in direct line were allowed to cross the borderline and the travelling documents itself took six whole months.”
[Editorial] The Korea Herald, 23 May 2001
Recent media reports about a young Korean woman who was caught entering the United States illegally through the Mexican border have renewed our concerns about North Korean defectors. This particular woman's story drew our attention because at first it was sad and dramatic and then because North Korea had denied her citizenship. In view of a growing number of North Koreans fleeing their repressive famine-stricken country, the arrival of some of these escapees in America cannot be totally ruled out. Despite an enormous geographical distance, it was not inconceivable that, some day, a few brave people might somehow find the means to reach the "land of freedom and opportunity."
Few had expected, though, to see a single woman arrested by immigration officials at the end of what she described as a perilous journey over seven years through several countries. The woman identified herself as Kim Soon-hi, 37, a former elementary school teacher in Musan, North Hamgyeong Province. She reportedly told officials at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in San Diego that she left North Korea in 1994 and lived in the northeastern Chinese city of Yanbian for six years, doing various odd jobs, before embarking on her trip to the United States last November. She is said to have left her eight-year-old son with an ethnic Korean in China, from whom she borrowed the money she needed to buy a forged passport and make the trip. She allegedly walked across a partly frozen river, carrying her little son on her shoulders, into China in February 1994. Two other people who were crossing the river with her were shot to death by North Korean guards, according to her story...
BBC, 18 May 2001
China's thriving internet café sector may be about to cause government regulators another headache. Following controversy about pornography, political dissent and leaking state secrets, a North Korean defector hiding in China is reported to have used a local internet café to send an e-mail to a South Korean organisation, pleading for help. South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a relief worker, named only as Lee, as saying: "He said he was waiting for us to help him enter South Korea". The e-mail said the defector was in China with his siblings, and gave details about his reasons for defecting, a pager number and an e-mail address. This is not the first time defectors have sent pleas for help. But the use of the internet is a new development, after the more usual letters and visits to relief groups or government agencies.
The border between the two Koreas is one of the most heavily militarised in the world Defectors usually try to reach South Korea through China or another third country, since the border between the two Koreas is one of the most heavily militarised in the world. North Korea and China are both keen to control the web. North Korea has banned private internet use outright, while Chinese authorities are engaged in a running battle for control with internet cafes. Only last month, China announced a three-month moratorium on approval of new cafes, while existing ones are checked and re-registered. Although Lee is now planning to help rescue the North Koreans and expects to receive more requests for help, he is not optimistic that this will become a major new channel of communication "The Chinese security forces will probably intensify their control of internet cafes when this method becomes popular."
BBC Monitoring Service (17 May 2001) Text of report in English by Yonhap
United Nations, 16 May: A civic organization staging a campaign to protect North Korean defectors on Wednesday [16 May] submitted a letter of appeal to the United Nations, calling for the world peace body to bestow refugee status on the defectors. With 11.8m signatures from people supporting the campaign, the North Korean Defectors Protection and UN Appeal Campaign Headquarters presented the letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The civic organization also detailed the outcome of its signature-gathering campaign staged in 21 countries over the past two years. In the letter, the organization said, "North Korean people who defected from their country to escape persecution should be recognized as refugees as stipulated by international law, and their forced deportation should be prevented." "A proper shelter to protect them should be established," the letter said. Earlier, the organization held a rally in front of the UN building to call for the protection of North Korean defectors.
At the rally, 3.8 tons of documents containing 11.8m signatures were displayed. The organization delivered 2.57m of the total signatures to the Geneva-based United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in December 1999, and will present the remaining 9.22m to the UN Secretariat.Reuters at the United Nations, 17 May 2001
A South Korean group presented UN officials overnight (HK time) with a petition bearing 11 million signatures that seeks to improve the lot of North Koreans who say they fled their homeland to escape famine or political oppression. The petition was presented to representatives of the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees by a delegation of some 20 South Korean government, religious and business leaders who said they want so-called ''defectors'' from North Korea to be granted refugee status in their adopted lands. The individuals, representing the Commission to Help North Korean Refugees, said refugee
status would protect the fleeing North Koreans from being sent back home against their will to face possible detention, forced labour, torture and even execution, UNHCR official Robin Groves said.
The 11 million signers represent nearly a quarter of South Korea's total population of 48 million. The petition was brought to the United Nations in an effort to publicise their cause and organisers hope it will prompt action in countries where North Koreans have fled. Mr. Groves said UNHCR was ''very concerned'' about the defectors' plight and had offered to help South Korea with legislation granting them refugee status. UNHCR has also intervened in the past on behalf of a few individuals who had been forced to return home from China after fleeing North Korea, she said.
Aid groups estimate that between 150,000 and 300,000 North Korean refugees are scattered in the hills and plains of Northeast China and Mongolia eking out a living. Others have travelled to Russia and South Korea. South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) said this week a total of 1,470 North Koreans had defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean war, half of them in the last five years, as North Korea sank into economic collapse and famine. Almost all arrived in South Korea via third countries. The defectors usually steal across North Korea's border into the mainland and from there into Southeast Asia, where they seek asylum at a South Korean embassy.
Alexyss Kim, International Campaign Officer, NKHR
Kim Soon-hi, a North Korean woman who has applied for asylum in US, has a good chance of becoming the first North Korean to be granted refugee status in the country, reported Hankook Ilbo, a South Korean daily. INS conducted an oral examination on Kim Soon-hi and determined that Kim Soon-hi had “credible fear” of repatriation to North Korea. US legal experts say that there is no guarantee that she will pass the final examination scheduled for early June. We hope that Kim Soon-hi’s six-year sojourn for freedom will finally bear fruit. If she is given the due protection she deserves as a refugee, it will not only save a life but will give hope to the refugees who fear the next hour unpredictable, the next footstep up the stairs, the next growling of the car passing by, the next shout in the Chinese language they do not comprehend. But this hope if turned down will result in a tragedy of not only this brave woman but for all North Korean refugees hiding in fear. But the most disconcerting aspect about this case is that whether Kim Soon-hi is saved or forsaken, her family still in North Korea will likely face retaliation from the North Korean government. And what will happen to her son Young-min left in China? She says she had to leave him behind as a kind of a mortgage for the loan of a few thousand dollars for her trip to US. Kim Soon-hi truly speaks for the majority of the oppressed North Koreans when she says, “I wish to live freely.” Don’t we all wish that she as well as all the suffering North Koreans could live freely?
REUTERS in Tokyo, South China Morning Post, 16 May 2001
A daughter of a member of the Japanese Red Army group who hijacked a plane to North Korea 30 years ago is expected to arrive in Japan on Tuesday, hoping to find happiness after growing up in the communist state. In a letter to Kyodo news agency about her feelings ahead of her arrival in Japan on Tuesday, 23-year-old Ritsuko Konishi wrote: ''I want to familiarise myself soon with the lifestyle in Japan and work.''
''As a Japanese, I am hoping to find my own happiness and purpose in life there in Japan,'' she added. Japan's Foreign Ministry said last month that it would issue documents needed to enable the three daughters of the Japanese Red Army Faction members who defected to North Korea after hijacking a Japan Airlines plane in 1970 to enter Japan. The three women - all in their early 20s - were born and raised in North Korea after their Japanese mothers moved to North Korea in the late 1970s and married the hijackers. Saying she is both expectant and nervous about her new life, Ms Konishi conveyed her ''deepest gratitude'' to those who encouraged and helped pave the way for the three women to enter Japan.
Ms Konishi and the other two women - Azumi Tanaka and Asaka Tamiya, who is the daughter of Takamaro Tamiya, the deceased leader of the hijackers - are expected to arrive in Tokyo on Tuesday evening and stay with relatives, Kyodo said. Among nine Red Army Faction members involved in the hijacking, four are believed to be in North Korea along with some of their family members. Three others have died and two have returned to Japan. The Red Army faction that carried out the 1970 hijack is separate from group members responsible for a series of bloody shootings and other incidents in the late 1970s, especially in the Middle East. The United States said last year that Pyongyang must expel members of the group and make a public denunciation of terrorism if it wants to be removed from its list of ''state sponsors of terrorism''. Japan, which has no diplomatic ties with North Korea, had said it would issue the travel documents through its embassy in Beijing.
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom, 10 May 2001
(Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap)
Los Angeles, 9 May: A North Korean woman who was detained here after a failed smuggling attempt into the United States, was released into the custody of a guardian after asking for political asylum Tuesday afternoon [8 May]. In a telephone interview with Yonhap News Agency, Han Chong-il, voluntary guardian of the 37-year-old defector, Kim Soon-hi, said the woman will undergo initial screening by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) on 4 June. He said Kim applied for political asylum on the grounds that she was seeking freedom from oppression and to escape the famine that has ravaged North Korea for several years. "We will protect her with the aid of an association of ethnic Korean residents in San Diego for the duration of asylum-seeking process", he said. Should the United States accept her application for asylum, she will be the first North Korean ever to be granted the official status in the country.
Born in Muan, North Hamgyong Province, Kim lived in hiding in the Chinese city of Yanbian for six years after defecting from the North in 1994 with her son, who was only two years old at the time. She then travelled through Hong Kong, the Philippines and Mexico using a fake passport. "We came to know about her through Korean lawyers of various non-profit human rights groups here who learned she was a North Korean national and volunteered to serve as a translator in her quest for asylum", said Han, who once served as deputy director of the association of Korean residents in San Diego. "I introduced my daughter to them, who serves as a court translator." Kim majored in accounting at a junior college and worked as an elementary school teacher before escaping from North Korea, Han said. "I was told that she decided to seek political asylum in the United States because people in Yanbian have a negative image of Koreans," he said. Kim said, "I don't yet really feel that I'm here. I heard a lot about the United States from ethnic Korean neighbours in Yanbian...[agency ellipsis] But it breaks my heart when I think of my son who I had to leave there. For external relations, Chris Patten, persuaded Mr. Kim to agree to discussions on opening a dialogue on human rights with the EU. But there was no response to the suggestion that Pyongyang should accept a visit by the UN special rapporteur on human rights...
Nezavisimaya gazeta's Evgeny Galushko reported that a PRC citizen was shot dead in the area of "Novopetrovskaya" border guard station of Blagoveshchensk border guard regiment in the RF Far East. RF border guards found two PRC poachers illegally fishing on the RF river coast and ordered them to stop. Getting three shots in reply, the border guards opened fire sinking the poachers' boat and killing one of the poachers. The other one is missing. The corpse was delivered to PRC authorities. The latter admitted the fact of the border violation. ("RUSSIAN BORDER GUARDS SHOT DEAD A CHINESE POACHER," Khabarovsk, 05//01)
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The seven North Korean defectors, including the three family members who were caught by the border guards of Mongolia during their flight from homeland were repatriated to China according to the Friday 11th's report. The Non-Governmental Organizations from home and abroad expressed much concern for the fate of defectors who would most likely face a grave punishment. Seven escapees from North Korea who entered Mongolia via China borderline were caught by the Mongolian guards and were sent back to China on the last week on the 6th, said one civic group officer who spoke in condition of anonymity. "But we're not sure whether there's some kind of policy change in Mongolia to block out the North Korean defectors unlike in the past", he said, adding " more defectors are choosing the roundabout path to Mongolia and other countries due to tighten inspection in the Chinese border. "We did confirm certain number of North Korean defectors detained in the borderline of Mongolia", said the government official meanwhile. "However we are not sure about the forced repatriation". May 15, 2001 KST 13:12 (GMT+9) Joongang Ilbo
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A college professor, a bank clerk, a veterinarian and 10 other North Koreans defected to South Korea after fleeing their hunger-stricken communist homeland, Seoul's government intelligence agency said Saturday. The defectors, including two children, had lived in hiding in an unidentified ``third country'' up to three years, seeking a chance to travel to democratic South Korea, said the National Intelligence Service in a release. Ten of the 13 will reunite with their family members who had earlier escaped to the South, it said. The intelligence agency did not further identify the defectors to prevent authorities in Pyongyang from tracking down their relatives left in North Korea (news - web sites) for possible retaliation. More than 140 North Koreans have defected to South Korea this year. Most arrive from China, where tens of thousands of North Koreans are believed to be living. The Korean Peninsula was divided into the communist North and pro-Western South in 1945. Their 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, and their border remains sealed. Saturday May 12 3:36 AM ET
A report by Kim Yong-sam
North Korea's Auschwitz for Political Prisoners The Bloody Record of an Extermination Camp Kim Yong claims he saw three foreign men from close range who appeared to be in their 70s. Hwang Jang-yop's relatives are interned in the No. 18 detention center. Kim Yong was earning foreign currency as a cadre at the National Defense Department when he learned that his father had been executed on espionage charges. He was then sent to the No. 14 detention center and when he arrived there he saw "people who looked like living skeletons" and he realized that no one ever left there alive. Kim Yong is the first person known to have escaped from Pyongnam Kaechun, the No. 14 detention center, and to have made his way to South Korea. He testified about "the National Defense Department guard who shot and killed at will," and about Kim Chul-min, "who was shot dead as he picked up fallen chestnuts," and the ensuing fight among the inmates for those chestnuts. Kim also gave an account of Kal Li-yong, "the basketball player who was killed for boiling and eating the whip of a guard," and seeing inmates "picking through cow dung to find bits of corn to eat and also to eat the fleas feeding there"...
Chosun Ilbo reported that Doctor Norbert Vollertsen of "Cap Anamur," a German association that is providing medical aid to the DPRK, told the National Assembly Human Rights Forum Discussion Tuesday that the gap between the elite and the common people in the DPRK is huge. Vollertsen stated, "In North Korea, there are two different worlds. One is the luxurious world for the high ranking military officials and privileged, and the other is hell in its true sense." Vollertsen was expelled from the DPRK for commenting on its human rights violation situation. Vollertsen testified that children's hospitals near Pyongyang were incredibly poorly equipped lacking bandages, scalpels and antibiotics. He said that all that was there for children was death from starvation on broken wooden beds, adding that the children reminded him of those in concentration camps during Hitler's rule. However, when a high-ranking military official was injured or became ill, he would be sent to a hospital as modern as those in Germany. He also recalled that workers' lives were miserable and lacking completely in basic human rights, while party members and military officials enjoyed luxurious lives at restaurants, nightclubs, and casinos. (Hong Seok-jun, "NK HUMAN RIGHTS LIKE NAZI GERMANY," Seoul, 05/08/01)
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom 3 May 3 2001
Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap
North Korea is tightening up the attendance check on workers at factories and companies in areas bordering China in a bid to prevent them from fleeing to China, a government official here said Thursday [3 May], quoting recent defectors from the communist North. According to testimonies of North Korean defectors, the People's Security Ministry of the famine-stricken country has stepped up its activities to pick out potential defectors, by summoning those who are frequently absent from the workplace for no specific reason and tracing back long-term absentees. "However, there are testimonies that authorities still have difficulty locating the whereabouts of disappearing citizens amid mounting death and defections", the official added. Since 1995, when the chronic food shortages began, the North has turned a blind eye to citizens who leave their factories or companies to cross over the border in search of food.
By Kim Hyung-jin, The Korea Herald, 9 May 2001
South Korea should call on Beijing to grant refugee status to North Korean defectors in China to protect them from being forcibly repatriated, a human rights lawyer said yesterday. "It's crucial to ensure that the first North Korean defector in China gains refugee status as soon as possible," said Kim Sang-chul, director general of the Commission to Help North Korean Refugees (CHNKR). "There are several precedents in which Russia, Thailand and some European nations gave refugee status to North Korean defectors," he said. Kim spoke at a human rights forum organized by Rep. Hwang Woo-yea of the opposition Grand National Party (GNP) at the National Assembly. Kim said that the Seoul government should take the lead in pressuring Beijing to abide by international treaties on refugees, which they signed in 1951 and 1969. Under the treaties, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) last year defined North Korean defectors as refugees eligible for international protection. The UNHCR publicly denounced Beijing for its repatriation of a North Korean family of seven to Russia, who entered China through Russia in December 1999. Russia later repatriated them to the North. "It is questionable that China wants to join the WTO (World Trade Organization) and hold the Olympic games in 2008, while they are violating the international treaties that they signed," Kim said. About 100,000 defectors reportedly live in China and the number is rising due to North Korea's deteriorating food shortage, Kim said...
The Korea Herald reported that officials are interviewing six recent defectors from the DPRK about their motives and identity, the ROK National Intelligence Service (NIS) said Thursday. The defectors include those who claim they have been working as automobile mechanics and factory workers in Onsong and Kimchaek in the DPRK's Hamkyong Province, the NIS said. (Kim Ji-ho, "SIX N.K. DEFECTORS ENTER SOUTH," Seoul, 04/26/01)
The Korea Herald reported that the ROK government Wednesday denied reports that high-level DPRK defector Hwang Jang-yop will attend a US Senate committee hearing on the DPRK next month. Local dailies reported that Hwang will visit the US at the invitation of Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms to testify before a hearing scheduled for May 23. The Foreign Ministry said it confirmed that the US committee had never sent an invitation to Hwang. A ministry official said Hwang might have been invited from a conservative defense-related foundation in the US. ("SEOUL DENIES U.S. VISIT BY HWANG," Seoul, 04/26/01)
The Korea Herald reported that Song Du-yul, a Korean-German professor accused by ROK rightists of spying for the DPRK, refuted allegations against him Thursday, claiming that their arguments are aimed at damaging ROK efforts on rapprochement with the DPRK. "All of them are well aware that the South Korean court has yet to adjudicate upon the case of my libel suit against the North Korean defector, Hwang Jang-yop, who said I am a North Korean spy," Song said in a telephone interview with The Korea Herald. "They are attacking me and taking issue up with Unification Minister Lim Dong-won's statement in order to damage the government and other promoters of inter-Korean reconciliation," Song said. Asked whether Professor Song and Kim Chul-su, known as a DPRK ruling Workers' Party member, are the same person, Lim said, "The state intelligence agency understands that they are the same person and I also believe so." Lawmakers also criticized Lim and other government officials for allowing Song to contribute articles to Hankyoreh Shinmun, a progressive daily. (Kim Ji-ho, "KOREAN PROFESSOR IN GERMANY DENIES SPYING FOR N.K.," Seoul, 04/13/01)
Joongang Ilbo reported that the Pyongyang Central News Agency broadcast an interview with Ko Sang-moon, a former high school teacher who was kidnapped by the DPRK while on an overseas trip, saying that Korean students should fight against Americans in the ROK. According to Yonhap News Agency, Ko stated, "Americans are disguised beasts and the imperialistic intention of the US will doom Korea." Ko went on to urge ROK students to "break out from the US influence by driving Americans out of Korea and by increasing anti-US protests." The Pyongyang Central News Agency falsely introduced Ko as a former head researcher at one of the institutions under the UN Economic and Social Council. (Kim In-Ku, "NK BROADCAST URGES STUDENTS TO FIGHT AMERICANS," Berlin, 04/08/01)
The New York Times reported that DPRK defector An Chang-suk said on Friday that she learned that her son, Yu Tae-jun, had been tortured and then shot by a firing squad when he returned to the DPRK to get his wife. An stated, "He was arrested right after the historic summit" between ROK President Kim Dae-jung, and DPRK leader Kim Jong-il. She added, "At about the time that everyone was chanting that Kim Jong-il was changed, my son was undergoing horrible torture." She charged that ROK authorities had discouraged her from publicizing her son's death for fear of offending Kim Jong-il. Park Sang-bong of the Commission to Help North Korean Refugees said that fleeing the DPRK had become "more commercialized, with a brokerage system under which people paid to leave," typically for about US$8,000. (Don Kirk, "A MOTHER SPEAKS OUT ABOUT HER SON'S EXECUTION IN NORTH KOREA," Seoul, 04/01/01)
The Korea Herald reported that a group of Korean and Japanese activists with family members who were kidnapped and sent to the DPRK will visit a UN human rights body early next month to appeal for international support for repatriation, organizers said Tuesday. During their visit to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in April 7-10, they will submit requests to confirm the fate of their lost family members. (Kim Hyung-jin, "KOREA, JAPAN TO COMBINE EFFORTS TO BRING BACK ABDUCTEES FROM N.K.," Seoul, 03/28/01)
The Los Angeles Times reported that Los Angeles-based Pastor Douglas Shin, working with human rights and Christian groups, is offering guidance, shelter, and food for DPRK refugees. The report said
that Shin's contacts help some refugees make their way from the PRC to Mongolia, where some then secure permission to fly to the ROK. Shin uses the Internet and the telephone to keep in daily touch with contacts
throughout Asia. Representatives of a Seoul-based commission will submit petitions with 10 million signatures to the UN secretary general this month demanding that the UN grant refugee status to DPRK citizens in exile. (K. Connie Kang, "L.A. GROUP HELPS NORTH KOREANS HIDING IN ASIA REACH FREEDOM," 03/22/01)
by Aidan Foster-Carter
Yu Tae-jun was either very brave or mighty foolish. Either way, by all accounts he's now very dead - at just 33 - after being publicly executed. His crime? Defecting to South Korea from the North. His mistake? Returning - or being returned. Even in North Korea people like the unfortunate Yu should have at least one right: to know what it is they're being shot for...
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. February 2001
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is a dictatorship under the absolute rule of the Korean Workers' Party (KWP). Kim Il Sung led the DPRK from its inception until his death in 1994. Since then his son Kim Jong Il has exercised unchallenged authority. Kim Jong Il was named General Secretary of the KWP in October 1997. In September 1998, the Supreme People's Assembly reconfirmed Kim Jong Il as Chairman of the National Defense Commission and declared that position the "highest office of state." The presidency was abolished leaving the late Kim Il Sung as the DPRK's only president.
The Korean People's Army is the primary organization responsible for external security. It is assisted by a large military reserve force and several quasi-military organizations, including the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and the People's Security Force. These organizations assist the Ministry of Public Security and cadres of the KWP in maintaining internal security. Members of the security forces committed serious human rights abuses...
The Chosun Ilbo, 17 March 2001
A former North Korean, who lived in South Korea, traveled to the Chinese-North Korean border in order to take his wife back to the South, was captured and publicly executed by the North Korean authorities. Yu Tae-jun (31 years old) arrived in South Korea in November of 1998 and lived in Taegu City. In June of last year he traveled to China and was not heard from since. However, in the beginning this year he is known to have been executed in the South Hamgyong Province in North Korea.
It is known that the North Korean government executed many former North Koreans, however this is the first time that the victim has actually been identified. In addition, due to the fact that Mr. Yu was a South Korean citizen, the repercussions for this incident are expected to be large. Mr. Yu was publicly executed in front of a group of North Korean citizens. It is known that he was charged with going to South Korea and committing treason against the Pyongyang government. Mr. Yu met his wife at the border of North Korea and China, and was then captured by the North Korean National Security Guard... Write for victim of public execution Yu Tae-jun!
The Chosun Ilbo, 19 March 2001
Ahn Jeong-suk, mother of executed North Korean defector Yu Tae-jun complained about the lack of government intervention in the death of her son. Yu, who defected to South Korea with his mother and son, went to China to get his wife out of North Korea, however he followed her back into the North, was arrested and later executed. Ahn said that she realized Yu was missing in October last year when Taegu police brought her grandson to her, saying that if she did not look after him, he would have to be sent to an orphanage.
She said that she was ordered by authorities not to talk to anybody about Yu returning to North Korea, especially the media, which she wanted to use to try and save her son. Ahn complained that if a North Korean came to the South and was caught and executed, he is regarded as a hero, whereas South Korea tells people to keep quiet when its people are killed in the North. She said that the government should have looked after her grandson as her son was a South Korean citizen, but instead just repossessed their apartment.
Ahn noted that since last October, authorities had just said that her son was safe, telling her to remain silent. She added that the monitoring period undergone by defectors was extended in her case because of her son.
Ahn had worked as a manager at Pyongyang Foreign Publishing House and as a reporter for Hamnam Daily before entering the South in February 2000. She has written many articles on North Korea's human rights which were published under a pseudonym.
Yong Kim's Testimony
presented at the Annual General Assembly of Citizens Alliance on February 24, 2000
Excerpts from interviews with NK refugees published in the September 1999 issue of The Monthly Chosun
The Korea Herald reported that the ROK's main government intelligence agency said on March 10 that twelve DPRK citizens arrived in Seoul after escaping their country. The group included five factory workers, a high school teacher and three children, the National Intelligence Service said in a news release. The defectors fled the DPRK one to four years ago and had lived in hiding in a third country that the agency did not identify. ("12 MORE N. KOREANS ARRIVE IN SEOUL," Washington, 03/10/01)
The reportedly huge number of refugees fleeing North Korea raises the possibility of the collapse of the Pyongyang regime. But hence the conundrum: to stem the exodus, the world should buttress, with aid, one of its most horrible regimes. Francesco Sisci writes that what is needed is a sophisticated, nuanced and hard-nosed coordinated policy on North Korea, not wet sentimentalism, to prevent endangering millions of its
neighbours and the welfare of all of Asia...
Yonhapnews, February 21, 2001
North Korea on Feb. 20 expressed concern regarding the planned visit to US by a group of Japanese whose family members have allegedly been abducted to North Korea. The visit which is to take place on the coming 25th could obstruct the improvement of DPRK-Japan relations, observed a leading North Korean press. According to Radio Pyongyang, the Rodong Shinmun criticized the 7-day visit by the group of Japanese as a political attempt by the hard-line right wing to win the election. In the editorial titled “ Stop the folly ”, the Rodong Shinmun denounced the planned visit as an anti-DPRK effort to create international attention to the issue. The newspaper also warned that the search for the missing that both countries have agreed upon could be aborted should the Japanese continue to make unfounded accusations of abduction of their citizens. The Rodong Shinmun further emphasized: “ The US has nothing to gain from inviting these Japanese in, ” and that it would be wise for US not to get involved in the whole issue of abduction that the Japanese claim were committed by North Korea.
Yonhapnews, February 16, 2001
Upon Red Cross DPRK’s notification of the death of Jae-hwan Lee (40), who was allegedly abducted to
North Korea in 1987, Families of Abducted and Detained (FAD) led by Woo-young Choi published a statement demanding Lee’s remains and information on when and why he died. In their statement of Feb. 16, FAD cited the 1999 announcement by National Intelligence Service that Mr. Lee was in one of North Korea’s political prison camps and asserted, “We strongly suspect that the harsh environment in the political prison camps may have been the direct cause of Jae-hwan Lee’s death.” In the same statement FAD also demanded information on whether or not other South Koreans who have been abducted to North Korea are alive...
Yonhapnews English, February 15, 2001
Foreigners, who are working in North Korea to provide the country with food supplies and medical service,
were invited on Feb. 8 to a "friendship" meeting in Pyongyang hosted jointly by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Flood Damage Rehabilitation Committee, the (North) Korean Central News Agency said the next day. Among the participants in the function were David Morton, resident coordinator of the United Nations and representative of the UN Development Program; representative Dilawar Ali Khan and members of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) mission; and members of various non-governmental cooperation organizations. Also on hand were North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su-hon and Li Yong-sok, vice chairman of the Flood Damage Rehabilitation Committee...
The Chosun Ilbo, February 15, 2001 "
I just imagined that North Korea, at most, would turn down the application for reunion... And now it's all over." On the night of March 15, Young-wook Lee, aged 70, was notified that his son, Jae-Hwan Lee who was kidnapped by the North while travelling in Austria and later detained in a political prison camp, is now dead. Jae-Hwan was 24 years old at the time of his abduction, which occurred in 1987...
Gesture gives him chance to prove he's North Korean The Japan Times: Feb. 6, 2001
SEOUL (Kyodo) South Korea granted entry Monday to a man who had been staying in Japan after being denied status as a North Korean refugee, South Korea's Justice Ministry said in a press release. Kim Yong Hwa, 47, who arrived in Seoul's Kimpo International Airport earlier in the day from Fukuoka, had abandoned his case being handled by the Fukuoka District Court, according to the release. "The entry permission has been issued from a humanitarian viewpoint to give him opportunities to prove he is a North Korean citizen through the court's judgment and other procedures," it said...
A major American news magazine has exposed the plight of North Korean refugees, an issue that has been shamefully neglected because a lot of people wish it would just go away. If not attended to, it may become a major threat to hopes of peaceful change on the peninsula. Aidan Foster-Carter writes that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il must be pressed urgently to feed and treat his people better - because it's right, and because if he doesn't he risks reaping the whirlwind...
Chosun Ilbo reported that DPRK defector Hwang Jang-yop may travel to the US at the invitation of US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms to offer testimony at a hearing on the DPRK, it was revealed on Monday. Hwang is said to have sent a confidential letter to Helms on February 12 that he was "ready to respond to any invitation," and reportedly gave the letter to someone to deliver it in person. This would have been a reversal of a letter he had delivered through the National Intelligence Service, in which he said he desired to delay any travel to the US until after October of 2001 "because of personal reasons." Helms is reported to have responded by telling Hwang that he would be sending him a formal invitation in the name of the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee "soon," adding that he would be organizing a hearing on the DPRK to hear both about the truth on the DPRK and ROK policies toward it. (Kim Ingu, "HWANG JANG-YOP INVITED TO US SENATE," Beijing, 03/05/01)
By Kim Yong
My name is Kim Yong. I escaped from a political prison camp in North Korea on September 25, 1998. On October 22, 1999, I arrived safely in South Korea via China and Mongolia. It was in August 1993 when I first entered the No. 14 political prison camp under the jurisdiction of the State Security Department. There I was treated like a beast and experienced things that you cannot even begin to imagine...
The Associate Press reported that the National Intelligence Service said that it had arrested Korean-American Song Hak-sam on charges of spying for the DPRK and of trying to publish in Seoul a book supporting the DPRK and its leader, Kim Jong-il. The book, titled "Kim Jong Il's Unification Strategy," was written by Kim Myong-chol, a member of Tokyo-based Chochongryon, or the General Association of Korean Residents. (Jae-Suk Yoo, "KOREAN-AMERICAN ARRESTED IN SEOUL," Seoul, 3/2/01)
The Yomiuri Shimbun reported that the families of the Japanese civilians allegedly kidnapped by DPRK agents visited US Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Hubbard on February 26 to ask for help in solving the abduction issue between Japan and the DPRK. The group of the families included the father of Megumi Yokota, who was allegedly abducted by the DPRK in 1997, and several members and supporters of the liaison office for the victims of DPRK kidnapping. The group handed to Hubbard a letter asking to deal with the abduction issue in the US-DPRK talks and not to lift the designation of the DPRK as a terrorist state until the issue is solved. Hubbard stated in response, "I have no doubts about the existence of the abduction cases. We will continue to raise the issue in the US-DPRK talks." As for the designation of the DPRK as a terrorist state, "We have no intention to lift it for the time being." (Gaku Shibata, "FAMILIES OF JAPANESE ALLEDGEDLY ABDUCTED BY DPRK VISITED US SATE DEPARTMENT TO ASK FOR HELP," Washington, 02/26/2001)
The Associated Press reported that shouting and shoving broke out between about a dozen ROK and DPRK officials during family reunions in Seoul after one DPRK visitor showed a photograph of Kim Il-sung to his mother. An ROK official complained that the DPRK citizen was violating a deal between the two governments that prohibited political displays or comments. Both sides later shook hands and reconciled. In Pyongyang, a 90-year-old ROK man suffering from exhaustion was hospitalized after meeting relatives on Tuesday, according to ROK press pool reports. (Jae-Suk Yoo, "KOREAN FAMILIES REUNITE," 02/27/01)
By George Wehrfritz And Hideko Takayama
NEWSWEEK INTERNATIONAL
“A LOT OF PEOPLE chatting in a foreign language,” Ho says. “We were arrested for watching it.”
The punishment—three months in a re-education camp—shattered Ho’s faith in the North Korean regime. Branded a “hooligan,” he turned to the black market when famine swept the country in 1996. He was arrested again, this time for smuggling antique pottery, and sent to a koppaku (“reform through labor”) camp 150 kilometers south of the Chinese border. Guards “beat me like an animal,” he says. He survived (minus nine teeth), and in 1999 escaped into China across the frozen Tumen River...
by Pierre Rigoulot
This paper aims to compare North Korean prison camps with Nazi and Soviet camps to analyze their similarities and differences. Such a comparison in Europe at least is a daring venture, for our knowledge of North Korean camps is new and still very limited. The source of our limited information is in the effort of some people, including the organizers of this symposium, and in the testimonies of a small number of those who defected in the past ten years: Chul-hwan KANG and Hyuk AHN on Yodok Camp No. 15, Myung-chul AHN on several camps and Dong-chul CHOI on Camp No. 11. In contrast, hundreds of books have
been published about the Soviet and Nazi camps, and numerous archives are available for the study of these camps. Despite this imbalance, some points of comparison are worth making for they enable us to consider North Korea free from particularism and, I dare say, from exoticism...
...Except about 8 hours - 5 hours of bedtime, an hour for; meals with a bread and 2 hours of review time before going to bed, alll inmates are spurred continuously to engage in hard labor for 16 hours a day. One of the most difficult problems for all inmates is to go to the lavatory. Every work site is equipped with one lavatory. All inmates are required to go there only in a group of 4 to 7 which forms a sub-team, the lowest unit organized at the work site. This means that if one wants to go to lthe lavatory, all members of the sub-team must move together, thus depriving them of the time to work. Therefore, everyone must endeavor to reduce the frequency of going there. Usually inmates are accustomed to defecating about once a week and passing urine once a day...
The Korea Herald reported that another 200 separated families from the ROK and the DPRK were to reunite with their loved ones Monday for the first time in five decades, as the ROK and the DPRK were to exchange 100 selected people across the border for the three-day event. In a new program aimed at facilitating the humanitarian exchanges, the ROK also selected 300 people Saturday who will send mail to their relatives in the DPRK on March 15. For the event, the DPRK will also finalize its own list of 300 families who will be allowed to write letters to their ROK kin. On March 15, Red Cross officials will collect their mail, which can include up to five pages of letters and two photos, and exchange them at Panmunjom, officials said. (Kim Ji-ho, "THIRD FAMILY REUNIONS BEGIN TODAY IN SEOUL, PYONGYANG," Seoul, 02/26/01)
The Associated Press reported that in its first report to the world body's Human Rights Committee in 16 years, the DPRK said that it believed it was meeting the requirements of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it signed in 1981. The DPRK report stated, "Citizens are ensured all the rights recognized in the covenant without any distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status..."
The Korea Times reported that the ROK opposition party should voice more concern about the dire human rights situation in the DPRK, a German doctor said Thursday. At a forum organized by a parliamentary study group, Norbert Vollertsen, a volunteer for German Emergency Doctors, a non-profit medical aid group, said that the forces in the ROK opposed to the "Sunshine Policy" toward the DPRK have to speak up to make the DPRK regime improve its human rights record. "The existence of the strong opposition party in West Germany, which called for the enhancement of the human rights situation in East Germany, helped expedite the process of unification," Vollertsen said. "Without strong outside pressure from South Korea and the international community, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il will not initiate political or social changes though he may undertake Chinese-style economic reform."
Though he initially believed that ROK President Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy would be a solution to the DPRK's hunger in June 1999, when he entered the DPRK, his 18-month tour in Pyongyang and the countryside caused a change of heart to such an extent that he has been working closely with the international media to put pressure on the DPRK to open up toward the outside world, which will in turn save DPRK citizens from poverty, he added. "From my experience in Pyongyang, I can tell you that North Korean officials do not listen to the weak. They paid attention only when I protested strongly. To improve human rights in North Korea, we have to speak out against the current North Korean regime," Vollertsen said. He said that since food aid began in 1995, there have arisen glaring inequalities between the elite in Pyongyang and the people in the countryside. "We can't prove whether international aid to North Korea was diverted or not. But given that children die of hunger in the countryside not far away from Pyongyang, the affluent lifestyle of the elite in Pyongyang makes me believe that the average North Koreans haven't benefited from the aid." (Sohn Suk-joo, "GERMAN DOCTOR MAKES URGENT CALL FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN NK," Seoul, 02/08/01)
The Korea Times reported that the United Nations Human Rights Committee on Monday released the DPRK's first report on its human rights situation in 16 years. However, the 39-page report, which Pyongyang presented to the committee in July last year, just described the DPRK's human rights-related laws, without explaining how it implemented measures recommended by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to improve human rights in the DPRK. The report said that the DPRK revised its criminal law in 1987 and 1995, reducing the number of criminal charges that can lead to capital punishment from 33 to 5. The DPRK also insisted that Article 29 of its Constitution bans people from engaging in forced or obligatory labor, permits the freedom of travel and residence and allows is citizens to leave and return to the country freely. The report, however, admitted that the DPRK government has had difficulty in guaranteeing people's right to live in recent years, presenting statistics that showed children suffering from malnutrition due mainly to a lack of food and medical supplies. The report attributed the difficulties to a series of natural disasters and international factors that have not been favorable to the DPRK. According to the report, in 1998, the infant mortality rate reached 23.5 percent, and 15.6 percent of DPRK children suffered from malnutrition. The report, however, said that the average life expectancy reached 74.5 in 1994, compared with 38 in 1944.
("NK PRESENTS 1ST UN HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT IN 16 YEARS," Geneva, 02/12/01)Not to save lives, says a German doctor who worked in the North. That, he says, is because aid agencies are afraid to stand up to Pyongyang By John Larkin, Far Eastern Economic Review, January 25, 2001
TEN YEARS as a general practitioner in the central German university town of Goettingen left Norbert Vollertsen unprepared for what he saw in North Korea: malnourished children so emaciated that they looked half their age, watching their friends die through lifeless eyes; teenage girls trekking hundreds of kilometres in freezing winters and sweltering summers to scavenge for food for their families; hospitals without windows or toilets, the doctors often starving themselves. The memories keep the 42-year-old German awake some nights. But it's anger that drives him...
Nine North Korean defectors, including two former South Korean soldiers who were caught by North Korean troops during the Korean War (1950-53), arrived in the country recently via a third country, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said.The two former South Korean soldiers are Pak Ki-chul, 70, and Ri Ki-hyong, 75. Pak was caught in June 1953 while fighting in a battle in Kangwon Province as a member of the Eighth Republic of Korea (ROK) Infantry Division and worked, after his release from a North Korean prisoners of war camp, as collier until his defection from North Korea last October. Ri, who belonged to the Third ROK Infantry Division, was also caught during a battle in Yangku, Kangwon Province, in May 1951 and worked as a factory worker until his escape from the Communist country last October. He brought his son, Chun-bok, 47, and grandson, Tae-hyong, 16, with him when he arrived in the country.
Chosun Ilbo reported that the families of the victims of Korean Airlines (KAL) flight 858 which was blown up by DPRK agents over Burma in 1987 announced on Wednesday that they will file a lawsuit in the Seoul District Prosecutors' Office against Kim Jong-il for ordering the bombing. They said that one of the perpetrators, Kim Hyon-hee, now an ROK citizen, had admitted that Kim Jong-il had personally ordered in his own writing the planting of a bomb on the plane, which killed 115 people.
They added that if Kim comes to Seoul without admitting responsibility and offering an apology and compensation, he should be arrested and tried. In related news, the committee against Kim Jong-il's visit, composed of 12 organizations including one for family members of soldiers and policemen killed in action, said that it was also filing lawsuits against the DPRK leader for the KAL and Burma bombings, kidnapping more than 3,700 ROK citizens, and assassinating his nephew-in-law who had defected. ("FAMILIES OF KAL BOMBING TO SUE KIM JONG IL," Seoul, 02/01/01)
German Doctor Arrested at Panmunjom
Dr. Norbert Vollersten, a human rightist German doctor who has been expelled from North Korea was arrested at Panmunjom and turned over to the German Embassy in Seoul, the United Nations Command announced Tuesday. UNC spokesman said he was arrested by JSA guards while attempting to cross over the Military Demarcation Line into North Korean area. Sources said he went to Panmunjom as a member of tour group accompanied by German and American reporters. His failed attempt was apparently to draw media attention to protest North Korean authorities, the sources said. Dr. Vollersten worked in a Pyongyang hospital for 18 months for the aid group, Komitee Cap Anamur.
Joongang Ilbo reported that ROK officials said on January 14 that the ROK's main intelligence agency will make public the arrival of DPRK defectors to the ROK. Explaining that the government had previously remained discreet about the arrival of DPRK defectors so as not to provoke the communist state since the inter-Korean summit meeting last year, an official from the National Intelligence Service said that policy will be reversed. The official said, "We made the decision out of the belief that it is necessary to let the public know the reality of the North Korean regime and the situation on the defectors." The service announced Tuesday that 10 DPRK citizens fled their homeland. Last year, 312 defected to the ROK, a sharp increase from 148 in 1999. ("NORTH'S DEFECTORS TO BE PUBLICIZED," Seoul, 01/16/01)
The Korea Herald reported that Amnesty International Korea will drastically increase pressure on the PRC in seeking an improvement in the protection of human rights of DPRK defectors and asylum-seekers staying in the PRC. As part of its efforts, the Korean chapter of Amnesty International (AI) launched early this month a one-month campaign to send letters or faxes with protest messages to the PRC Embassy in Seoul. The Korean chapter said it called on the PRC in the letter to lift restrictions on access to the border areas with the DPRK for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), independent human rights monitors and other independent observers, agencies and organizations. It also called on the PRC to ensure that DPRK defectors enjoy full protection of their human rights and refugee rights in the PRC. (Kang Seok-jae, "AMNESTY INT'L KOREA STEPS UP PRESSURE ON CHINA ON NORTH KOREAN DEFECTORS," Seoul, 01/16/01)
Amnesty International has published a report titled “Persecuting the Starving: The Plight of North Koreans Fleeing to China”. Here is the outline for your reference.
The Associated Press reported that the ROK intelligence agency said Tuesday that ten DPRK Nationals, including two infants, defected to the ROK. The National Intelligence Service said they were the first reported DPRK defectors so far this year. The service said the group recently arrived at Seoul's Kimpo Airport from a "third country." The defectors were being questioned on how and why they escaped the DPRK. ("TEN NORTH KOREANS DEFECT," Seoul, 1/9/01)