Well, that would improve the gulag scenery

The Chosun Ilbo, quoting a former resident of a North Korean prison camp in Daehung who recently defected to the South, is reporting that some 21 former members of a cheerleading squad that visited the South were imprisoned last November for violating an oath to remain mum about what they saw and heard south of the DMZ.

Usual defector caveats apply.

22 Comments

  1. frogmouth your flag
    Posted February 17, 2006 at 2:23 pm | Permalink

    Gimmie a “G”
    Gimmie an “R”
    Gimmie a “U”
    Gimme an “E”
    Gimmie an “L”
    What’s that Spell?
    GRUEL!!!!
    I can’t hear you….
    “GRUEL!!!!”

    Maybe a year of eating grass and critters will wipe that plastic grin off their brainwashed faces. Are these the same gals that blubbered because KJI’s photo was getting wet in the rain?

  2. snow your flag
    Posted February 17, 2006 at 2:39 pm | Permalink

    I’m surprised they weren’t all sent over to join KJI’s personal harem. Then again, being politically suspect, it wouldn’t do to have the girls around him when he can have anyone he wants at any time.

  3. michael your flag
    Posted February 17, 2006 at 4:13 pm | Permalink

    I was wondering the same thing as Frogmouth–the bimbos didn’t watch their OPSEC.

  4. Posted February 17, 2006 at 6:38 pm | Permalink

    Maybe they prefer being together in close quarters like the Carolina Panthers’ cheerleaders.

  5. snow your flag
    Posted February 17, 2006 at 6:59 pm | Permalink

    I hate to think what kind of punishment they would get for having sex, especially lesbian sex in the gulag. I imagine it would be the cruelest punishment possible, after a gang rape by prison guards.

  6. michael your flag
    Posted February 17, 2006 at 7:17 pm | Permalink

    Now I’m imagining lesbian sex in the gulag…something along the lines of:
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109364/

  7. R. Elgin your flag
    Posted February 17, 2006 at 9:07 pm | Permalink

    Come on you guys. That is some serious business, not some soft-core movie script.
    I feel for anyone that suffers at the hands of that evil regime up north.

  8. Posted February 17, 2006 at 9:14 pm | Permalink

    I just can’t believe we’re talking about women-in-prison flicks and no one’s mentioned Pam Grier yet

  9. michael your flag
    Posted February 17, 2006 at 9:23 pm | Permalink

    Mark and Snow made me do it :)

    You have to admit that Norkland can be like the theater of the absurd at times–it’s very difficult to imagine the cruelty of being deprived of freedoms we grew up with and are as natural to us as breathing.

    This story for instance is over the top on several levels–like a B movie, which got me thinking….

    I find it even more unbelievable that many in S. Korea deny the testimony of N. Korean defectors and will not acknowledge that N.K. is controlled by a military dictatorship.

    Pam Grier :) :) :) :)

  10. michael your flag
    Posted February 17, 2006 at 9:28 pm | Permalink

    I left out that I find it even more unbelievable and offensive that many in S. Korea deny the testimony of N. Korean defectors. A woman I used to work with is a “progressive” who has been to N.K. and told another co-worker that the defectors were “making up” their stories to make N.K. look bad!

  11. slim your flag
    Posted February 17, 2006 at 9:59 pm | Permalink

    The gulag is filled with people who’ve complained about the regime or living conditions, dissidents, Christians, reactionaries, elderly South Korean soldiers, freethinkers … Wouldn’t it be good to have ideological balance by sending a few thousand “progressives” up there — people understand that such suffering is a mere footnote in the grand project of the DPRK’s human centered socialism?

  12. Posted February 18, 2006 at 2:52 am | Permalink

    I do not trust NK defectors. While I do not fault them for wanting to leave, there’s something really screwed up about an individual who would do that knowing very well what would happen to their relatives and associates back home.

  13. slim your flag
    Posted February 18, 2006 at 3:49 am | Permalink

    Refugees I was in contact with in NE China mostly had already lost most family members to starvation or prison camps or starvation in prison camps. Others managed to get a toehold in China and then get remaining family members out. I think defector is an outdated Cold War term, when these people are political/economic refugees.

  14. Posted February 18, 2006 at 7:52 am | Permalink

    I do not trust NK defectors. While I do not fault them for wanting to leave, there?? something really screwed up about an individual who would do that knowing very well what would happen to their relatives and associates back home.

    While it’s probably true that gaining favor with their new benefactors may give them an incentive to embellish, it is possible to gain a clear picture by corroborating the accounts of unconnected defectors/refugees. This is apparently the story of just one defector, but as the Marmot said, the usual caveats apply.

    I think it’s helpful to think of them as, well, prison snitches.

    Rather than accepting most everything that is said (”Why would they lie?”) or dismissing most everything (”They’re just trying to get back at the North!”), the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. If it were up to me, I would put stock in most of what they say, but try to verify everything before acting on it, if possible.

  15. Brendon Carr your flag
    Posted February 18, 2006 at 9:05 am | Permalink

    At a certain, desperate point, it’s every man for himself. Usually that’s after one has exhausted himself trying to get the other person to make the necessary change and being met with refusal at every point (”Escape with me to the South!” “No, the Leader will work everything out.”).

    I’ve made the same change myself recently. Having failed to persuade my law firm away from its self-destructive course, I’ve bolted, even though I am positive such a move will prompt tragedy for the people left behind. But just because they’re too scared or stupid to save themselves doesn’t mean I have to go down with them. I’m sure that’s the North Korean defectors’ thought process, except with much graver stakes.

  16. Posted February 18, 2006 at 11:42 am | Permalink

    Brendon, I see they’ve wasted no time in removing you from the corporate website, but did they pepper you with birdshot?

  17. R. Elgin your flag
    Posted February 18, 2006 at 11:45 am | Permalink

    . . . A woman I used to work with is a ??rogressive??who has been to N.K. and told another co-worker that the defectors were ??aking up??their stories to make N.K. look bad!

    That is sad. These kind of “progressives” are a drag on society and are poor citizens. People have died just so they could be so ignorant and enjoy what they have now.

  18. Brendon Carr your flag
    Posted February 18, 2006 at 12:41 pm | Permalink

    That was me who wasted no time. I did all the internet stuff myself.

  19. snow your flag
    Posted February 18, 2006 at 5:07 pm | Permalink

    “I do not trust NK defectors.”

    I think this is basically what commie apologist Noam Chomsky said about reports from defectors who had escaped from Cambodia about the nastiness of the Kmer Rouge. Eventually, it will come out that the Norks really were extremely nasty, and what will the left say? Not a thing, of course, no apologies will ever be forthcoming.

  20. Posted February 18, 2006 at 7:19 pm | Permalink

    Brendon:

    You’re still listed in the who we are section.

  21. sanshinseon your flag
    Posted February 19, 2006 at 1:56 pm | Permalink

    No, he’s not, as of 13:50 on Sunday… the “Meet Our People” has only Koreans. “B. Carr” is still noted at the bottom of every page as web-designer is all.

    ANYway, contrition for their doubt and silence over NK human rights probably will come from those few leftists with genuine conscience and personal integrity, just as it did in the USA in the 80s & 90s… But ‘most everyone will just “move on”… Same with right-wingers and their favorite dictatorships.

  22. hardyandtiny your flag
    Posted February 21, 2006 at 1:30 am | Permalink

    who killed kenzi snider?

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