(By guest blogger, Andy Jackson)
As announced in the Chosun Ilbo, CNN has shown video evidence of public executions in North Korea:
Images from video smuggled from North Korea show a public execution and what appears to be a concentration camp housing political prisoners, according to a CNN documentary set to air Sunday night.
In one clip, the residents of a village gather on a hillside to watch the firing-squad execution of a man accused of helping a defector cross into China.
North Korean dissidents shot the video, which they smuggled out of the country through a network of contacts into their communist neighbor to the north.
If you think that you have heard about this video before, you have. But those of us living in Korea don’t know much about it because it has been effectively banned here.
There’s more in the CNN piece:
Sarah McDonald, who produced and directed the documentary, "Undercover in the Secret State," said her crew interviewed a man who had been in a camp shown in the movie.
"What he described, we didn’t put it in the film," she said Friday from London, England. "It is so appalling, you just can’t imagine. He said that 95 percent of people who go into that prison die in the prison. Their whole motivation is to kill these people, but they won’t let them die easily.
"They — they torture them to death over a very long period of time."
That jives with what Kang Chol-hwan said about the camps when I heard him speak in October. The main difference is that Kang and his family were put in labor camps. The person Ms McDonald talked with was probably referring to one of the death camps where ‘irredeemable’ prisoners are warehoused until they are starved and worked to death.
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Meanwhile, “Unification” Minister Chung “Nukihada” Dong-young sez Pres Roh will probably go to Pyongyang for the 2nd summit with Kim jong-ill (wonder how much that will cost) rather than stressing the midget dictator with a long trip into the 21st century. How much longer are these doofuses going to be in office? Aigo….
I watched that CNN special. It is amazing how brave North Koreans risk their lives using technology to expose the truth to fellow North Koreans and the world. I was disappointed that the US,which criticizes the North’s poor human rights record, was reluctant to take the brave dissident as a refugee.
Rev. Tim Peters, who was featured in the documentary as he tried to get one of these dissidents asylum at both the UNHCR and the US Embassy, came to Washington and personally described this to a group of us. It’s the same story all over SE Asia–US embassies and ROK embassies are both refusing to let these people in.
At least the ROK embassies can hide behind government policy, no matter how repugnant that policy may be. The U.S. embassies are defying the spirit, if not the letter, of the NK Human Right Act, most of which remains mostly unfunded a year after enactment. Furthermore, there’s no “first refuge” excuse in third countries in SE Asia. The well-founded fear of persecution is beyond question. Frankly, I have doubts about our own government’s compliance with the UN Refugee Convention. I’d like to hear the argument that our own government is in compliance. The hypocrisy argument is starting to stick.
Most inexcusable of all is the ever-cowardly UNHCR, which is about as useful as an overturned molasses tanker on a blind curve.
For the North Koreans, there is no Sugihara.
Joshua wrote:
US embassies and ROK embassies are both refusing to let these people in.
Joshua, has the ROK government accepted any North Korean escapees since Chung’s infamous policy was revealed/announced?
Has the United States? Has any other country? (These are real questions, not rhetorical devices.)
At least the ROK embassies can hide behind government policy, no matter how repugnant that policy may be.
I would argue that this, too, is a violation of the spirit and even the letter of ROK law (in reference to the point you make about US law below).
The U.S. embassies are defying the spirit, if not the letter, of the NK Human Right Act, most of which remains mostly unfunded a year after enactment.
No offense to Joshua, but does this really surprise anyone? I have been making reference to the utter lack of U.S. support for North Korean escapees for months.
In September I wrote, in reference to US legislation now calling for taking in North Korean refugees, “But where are the towns in Minnesota and Wisconsin full of former DPRK citizens now seeking a new life?” (The Minnesota-Wisconsin towns are a reference to Hmong refugees.)
One notable commenter replied, “Certainly the US will take some North Korea refugees, but to take as many as South Korea? That’s absurd. DPRK citizens speak Korean, so if they have to leave their country, it would be easiest for them to go to Korea. As there are plenty of them in China, perhaps China should be a close second. If they need to come to the US, I’m sure they will be welcome, as plenty of Vietnamese, Cambodia, and Meung have been in the past.” [Emphasis mine.]
Well, that ain’t happening. Washington seems to be feeling “buyer’s remorse” over the North Korean Human Rights Act.
Instead of actually doing something to help the escapees, too many people are too comfortable beating South Korea over the head with this issue, even though South Korea has (had?) brought in thousands of North Korean refugees and the United States has brought in zero.
I had hopes that this would change with the new U.S. legislation, but it hasn’t. I had hopes that implementation of the U.S.’s new-found example would shame the Roh-Chung administration into reversing its policy, but no real implementation has been forthcoming.
Instead, the hypocrisy has just grown deeper and deeper, and it is the North Koreans who suffer.
Furthermore, there’s no “first refuge” excuse in third countries in SE Asia. The well-founded fear of persecution is beyond question. Frankly, I have doubts about our own government’s compliance with the UN Refugee Convention. I’d like to hear the argument that our own government is in compliance. The hypocrisy argument is starting to stick.
Hallelujah! Like I said, I’m glad someone like Joshua finally said it. I have been making that hypocrisy argument for months. In June, I wrote that it was “a time when few other countries — including the United States — are willing to accept any North Koreans except those who make it to that country’s shores on their own.” (I could find more examples of these, but Marmot’s archives are in some other hole.)
South Korea has refugee fatigue, which is no real excuse in and of itself, but what the fu** excuse does Washington have?
And why just beat up Washington on this? How about Tokyo? Ottawa? Brussels (the European Union)? Canberra? Does everybody just expect that South Korea will absorb all 300,000 refugees, plus the thousands more that would come later?
Or the real culprint, Beijing?
Most inexcusable of all is the ever-cowardly UNHCR, which is about as useful as an overturned molasses tanker on a blind curve.
I hope it doesn’t really happen, but an example of exquisite hypocrisy would be for the Bush or future Cheney Administration to use the UNHCR’s lack of effective action as an excuse for UN reform.
What would the UNHRC do?
Would than go beyond Hans Blix from Team America?
The UN voting on tough language and such ultimately exposes the impotence of the organization — if one of the big nations decides to push something that has been voted on on paper. Iraq War II is the perfect example, but the history of the UN is filled with others.
In the Cold War, we could always blame it on the Soviet-US camps’ stand-off. The major players were all too big and too opposed to each other to get anything done.
Now?
There is little will to get things done.
If the UN adopts strong language and cites “serious consequences” with North Korea, is Kim Jong Il going to quake in his boots and reform?
No.
But let’s get even more to the heart of the issue.
Is UN action going to get South Korea and China to cut the North off?
Is it going to get even Japan and the US to cut what remaining aid it gives?
Is it going to get others to say even that the 6 Party Talks should be abandonned because they are not even discussing other key, major issues?
Is it going to alter the status quo?
I don’t see it…..
The US not taking in refugees, however, and moving to do other things within its power to pressure North Korea, and make those who grossly support it (SK & China) pay, is a different matter….
Kushibo, I wish I had time to respond to your long comment, but I just don’t. We do agree on many facts, although I suspect we have different ideas about how to interpret them.
Yes, the ROK govt has accepted some refugees since its policy was announced, in its typically inconsistent and reactive way.
As far as Washington, my impression here on the ground is that it’s mostly the result of factionalism and institutional paralysis, and that this administration’s famous message discipline hasn’t extended outside the Beltway. The result, of course, is just as bad.
To me, the answer to Chung, Roh, Bush, Annan, or anyone else being a hypocrite is not to dismiss the endeavor or call down a pox on them all, but to call them out and put public pressure on them until they buckle and do what is right. Fool that I am, I actually believe this to be possible, because I believe that President Bush himself sincerely believes in doing what is right, though the execution is both fraught with difficulty and often amateurishly done.
Emule link for the program:
Dispatches.-.North.Korea.-.Undercover.In.The.Secret.State.avi
I think the best way for the US and the Europe to fight for this “savagery” is to stop receiving South Korean imports and stop visiting visas.
As I wrote before, the only way Koreans turn around is to hurt them at the pockets. Economic sanctions put on South Korea will stop Communist movement in SK. People will change their attitude about Commies at once when they lose their jobs. This adjustment is long overdue.
And, the time has come to stamp out these Commies. Outside pressures, especially financial pressures, from the US and the Europe are desperately needed.