N. Korean Defectors Describe Brutal Abuse

Prison Camp Executions Called "Worse Than The Way Animals Are Slaughtered"

(AP)  The condemned inmate, his body torn apart by guard dogs, slumped unconscious as the three executioners fired. The bullets shattered his skull, splattering blood near other prisoners forced to watch.

His offense: trying to escape from the remote prison camp in North Korea.

"People were seized with fear but no one could say anything," former prisoner Jung Gyoung-il said, recalling the 2001 execution. "That's worse than the way animals are slaughtered."

For a decade, North Korea has denied such accounts from defectors, and South Korea has shied away from them to maintain good relations with its wartime rival. But now, under new President Lee Myung-bak, South Korea is investigating alleged abuses, including the prison camp system. South Korea's state-run human rights watchdog is interviewing defectors and is hosting a two-day international forum on the issue this week.

Meanwhile, U.S. President George W. Bush has made the push to crack down on rights abuses in North Korea one of his last missions before leaving office in January. He signed a law promoting the U.S. special envoy on North Korean human rights to ambassador and making it easier for refugees from the North to settle in the U.S.

The focus on alleged abuses has infuriated North Korea, which dismisses the accusations as a U.S. plot to overthrow its government. The country's Central Committee of the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland called Seoul's moves proof that South Korean officials are "sycophants toward the U.S." and "maniacs" who risk confrontation with the North.

North Korea runs at least five large political prison camps, together holding an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 inmates, according to the U.S. State Department. The gulags remain one of the Stalinist regime's most effective means of controlling its 23 million people, analysts say.

During the rights forum that started Wednesday, the U.N. investigator on human rights in North Korea demanded Pyongyang reform its prison systems and terminate public execution, calling the country's gulags "appalling" facilities.

"With regard to the substantive issues of human rights as a whole, the pictures are still sadly very negative on many fronts," Vitit Muntarbhorn said.

South Korean National Assembly Speaker Kim Hyong-o, in written remarks to the forum, also said "severe outrages against humanity" such as executions and vivisection are reported to have frequently occurred in the North's prison camps.

Satellite images show the camps in valleys tucked between mountain ranges, each covering up to 100 square miles. Former prisoners say the camps are encircled by high-voltage electrified fences and have schools, barracks and work sites.

Offenses meriting banishment to a prison camp include everything from disparaging North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to trying to flee the country, defectors say.

Former prisoner Jung said he spent three years in Camp No. 15 in Yodok, about 70 miles northeast of the capital, Pyongyang, on charges of spying for South Korea.

Jung, who was working for a state-run trading company, claims the charges were fabricated by security agents seeking promotion. After months of torture, Jung said he acknowledged the charge. By then he had lost nearly 80 pounds.

Shortly after his release, he fled to South Korea in 2004 with his wife and two daughters and now works for a civic group on North Korean prisons.

At Yodok, Jung said, the 400 inmates in his section subsisted on 20 ounces of corn each - the equivalent of one medium-size can daily - while toiling at mines, farms and factories for 13 to 15 hours a day. Many died of hunger and diseases brought on by malnutrition, he said. Some managed to trap vermin and insects.

"People eat rats and snakes. They were the best food to recover our health," said Jung, 46, adding he still suffers from ulcers, headaches and back pain.

One inmate, Choe Kwang Ho, sneaked away from his work for 15 minutes to pick fruit. He was executed, his mouth stuffed with gravel to prevent him from protesting, Jung recalled.

"I still can't forget his emotionless face," he said.

Life at the four other camps was even worse, Jung said. A former North Korean prison guard said only two inmates have ever escaped from the camps known as "total control zones."

"Inmates there don't even have time to try to catch and eat rats," An Myeong-chul said in an interview in Seoul.

An said he served as a guard and driver at four camps before defecting in 1994. If a female inmate got pregnant, he said, she and her lover would be shot to death publicly. Then, An said, prison guards would cut open her womb, remove the fetus and bury it or feed it to guard dogs.

Forced abortions are common, and if babies are born, many are killed, sometimes before the mother's eyes, defectors say. Grandparents also may be punished since whole families are imprisoned.

"We were repeatedly taught they were the national traitors and we have to eradicate three generations of their families," he said.

An, 40, defected after his father, a former Workers' Party official, killed himself after being accused of criticizing the government food rationing system as inefficient. Now working at a bank in South Korea, An said he pushes for the abolishment of North Korea's prison camps as the least he can do to offset his work as a guard.

Public executions are not limited to the gulags.

Before he was imprisoned, Jung took his eldest daughter, then 8, to the execution of a prisoner in 1997 in the city of Chongjin. She watched solemnly as the inmate's skull was smashed to pieces.

"She asked me, 'Hey Daddy, is he vomiting?"' Jung recalled, a bitter grimace curling his lips. "I should not have taken her there."

[eggy1620]

Why would any North Korean couple choose to bear children and continue to populate the worlds largest supermax prison?

[random_radar]

Stop criticizing and get back to work. You need to practice for the coming totalitarian state.

[downsteamjim]

Gotagrip: You may find it hard to believe, but having to watch ''Dancing with the Stars'' is not equal to mass starvation and forced labor in North Korea.

[gotagrip]

Where is all the conservative outcry??? Why aren''t the conservatives staging protests???? Maybe even trying to sneak into North Korea and effect change??? (Is it because they are cowards?)

[downsteamjim]

When you are redistributing the wealth, sacrifices must be made.

[inventagod2]

Bu$hCo''s gulags were never this bad...

Were they?

[zhynaryll]

And this dump of a so-called "country" is still around because??????? Garbage dump!! Clean it up, plow it under, and start over!!!

[mjm117]

Maybe a few more articles of this sort need to be published...across the headlines of the major newspapers in the country...so people can ask themselves prior to voting...who has the experience to deal with such animals? It certainly is not Senator Obama who is concerned about two things...power and influence.


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Posted by tomadams99 at 01:15 PM : Oct 29, 2008


Oh year, Mr. McCain is your man for dealing with this. The same man who folded under Vietnamese capture and spouted information that none of his fellow POW''s would give up. McCain is a spoiled little daddy''s boy and is a coward.

[presjfk]

Maybe a few more articles of this sort need to be published...across the headlines of the major newspapers in the country...so people can ask themselves prior to voting...who has the experience to deal with such animals? It certainly is not Senator Obama who is concerned about two things...power and influence. Posted by tomadams99"

You are clueless. There isn''t anything the US or any President can do about N Korea. There isn''t anything we can do about Iran, Cuba or Venezuela either. These places are not our problem nor should they be a priority.

As for your comments about Obama, he has the sense to know what can and cannot be done about rogue regimes. McCain thinks war is always the answer and that is hardly the experience we need in the Presidency.

As for learning more about N Korea, I have read everything on the country. Let me recommend to you, The Aquariums of Pyongyang.

[tomadams99]

Maybe a few more articles of this sort need to be published...across the headlines of the major newspapers in the country...so people can ask themselves prior to voting...who has the experience to deal with such animals? It certainly is not Senator Obama who is concerned about two things...power and influence.

[ttiwkram]

testerling:

You''re right, and your point is well taken. But it''s a tough call: If we have no relationship at all with North Korea, we have to real hope of influencing their behavior short of annihilating them. Maybe an uncomfortable dialog is the lesser evil.

[riddelup]

M. Vick is in jail for treating dogs better than this.Yet we are resuming relations with this country.