North Korea, The Hidden Gulag

The U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea has released a report titled, The Hidden Gulag, Exposing North Korea's Prison Camps. It can be downloaded in PDF format from their site.

The report is based on interviews conducted in 2002 and 2003 with thirty North Koreans who received asylum from South Korea, former prisoners and guards. In PDF format the report is 122 pages long.

In order to best tie together some of the information, some of the excerpts below may be out of chronological order from where they appear in the report, (For example to keep infomation on kwan-lin-so together.)

In the Preface, the camps are compared to the Soviet Stalinist model.

As in Stalin’s time, North Koreans are arrested for trumped-up political “crimes,” such as reading a foreign newspaper, singing a South Korean pop song, or “insulting the authority” of the North Korean leadership. As in Stalin’s time, North Korean prisoners — even children — are given ludicrous and impossible work “quotas” to fulfill and are subjected to brutal, irrational punishments. And, as in Stalin’s time, North Korea’s leadership doesn’t want anyone to know any of these details, since such revelations not only will damage their foreign reputation but also put their own regime at risk.

This, of course, is precisely why the full documentation of the North Korean camps is so important and why this report, compiled with such care and precision, is so significant.

...

Some, of course, will avoid reading it, fully knowing that if they do read it, they will have to change their tactics, or at least think differently about the political problems posed by North Korea. Certainly after absorbing such details, it will be more difficult for Americans or Europeans to sit down and negotiate, coldly, with their Korean counterparts and not mention human rights violations. South Koreans, when they know the details of life in the North, will also find it more difficult to argue in favor of appeasing the Northern regime. If these stories filter back to the North Korean police and administrators, those officials too will find it more difficult to justify their own behavior, or to claim that they don’t know what is really happening in the country’s concentration camps. And if the full truth about the camps becomes known to the wider population, then whatever support remains for the state constructed by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il will begin, even more decisively, to ebb away.

The kwan-li-so for political prisoners:

Part One of this report begins by describing the phenomena of repression associated with the North Korean kwan-li-so, most descriptively translated as “political penal-labor colonies.” In the kwan-li-so, tens of thousands of political prisoners — along with up to three generations of their families — are banished and imprisoned without any judicial process for usually lifetime sentences. Their sentences entail slave labor in mining, logging, and farming enterprises in the valleys of mountainous areas in north and north-central North Korea. The kwan-li-so are described as colonies because they are sprawling encampments, twenty or more miles long and ten to twenty miles wide, containing multiple, enclosed, self-contained sections, or “villages,” for different categories of prisoners. Some of the sections are for the political prisoners; others are for the families of the presumed political offenders, so that purged political prisoners have no contact with their imprisoned parents, grandparents, or children.

....

Formerly there had been a dozen kwan-li-so, but these have been consolidated into six or seven colonies. This consolidation and what is known about the closed camps is briefly described. Within the last several months, commercial satellite photographs of several kwan-li-so have become available. Several such photographs are contained in this report, with specific buildings identified by the former prisoners.

...

There are between 5,000 and 50,000 prisoners per kwan-li-so, totaling perhaps some 150,000 to 200,000 prisoners throughout North Korea.

The kyo-hwa-so camps generally hold prisoners who are convicted of crimes through a judicial process:

Part One of this report goes on to describe the second component of the North Korean gulag: a series of smaller penal-labor camps and penitentiary-like institutions called kyohwa-so. In the kyo-hwa-so, as in the kwan-li-so, prisoners are compelled to perform hard labor — virtually slave labor — under dreadfully harsh conditions, in mining, logging, textile manufacturing, or other industrial projects, such as brick- or cement-making. However, these prisoners are subjected to a judicial process and given fixed-term sentences according to the DPRK criminal code, after which they can be released. The kyo-hwa-so are administered by the In-min-bo-an-seong (People’s Safety Agency).

The majority of kyo-hwa-so prisoners are imprisoned because they have been convicted of what would be in any society felony crimes. But some prisoners are “political” in that they are convicted for actions that would not be normally criminalized: one woman interviewed for this report, for example, described being convicted of disturbing the “socialist order” for singing, in a private home, a South Korean pop song.

A major phenomenon of repression associated with the kyo-hwa-so is the shockingly large number of deaths in detention from slave labor under dangerous circumstances and from starvation-level food rations. Former prisoners interviewed for this report explain that many of their fellow captives did not expect to survive long enough to complete their sentences — and that thousands of them did not survive.

Ka-mok or ku-ryu-jang detention centers and ro-dong-dan-ryeon-dae or jip-kyul-so labor/training camps for interrogation and punishment of North Koreans who are forcibly repatriated from China.

The jip-kyul-so detention centers are facilities where both repatriated North Koreans and low- or misdemeanor-level criminals are held for up to six months of hard labor, for example brick-making or local construction projects. It should be noted that many technically illegal misdemeanor offenses are famine-motivated, for example taking food from state storehouses or state farm fields; not showing up at one’s assigned workplace (when the North Korean production-distribution system broke down and enterprises were no longer in production or paying wages, many workers stopped going to their assigned jobs); unauthorized private enterprise; unauthorized trading or economic activity; leaving one’s assigned village without authorization; or leaving the country without authorization.

The ro-dong-dan-ryeon-dae labor-training camps are even shorter-term, more localized detention/forced-labor facilities. One former detainee stated that, unlike the jip-kyul-so detention centers and the kyo-hwa-so prison-labor facilities, the ro-dong-dan-ryeon-dae do not appear in the North Korean statute books. Rather, they are ad hoc measures initiated by local authorities to cope with the overflow of famine-related misdemeanor arrestees. Another former detainee mentioned that all inmates in one labor-training camp were former repatriates who were being isolated from the common-crime detainees in the provincial detention center, so that the repatriated detainees could not tell the common-crime detainees about the prosperity and personal freedoms available in China.

When first repatriated from China, North Koreans are questioned in the police jails and detention facilities about why they went to China, what they did there, and when. More ominous questions follow, revolving around whether the individual being questioned had any contact with South Koreans while in China, which is deemed a political offense. (Many North Koreans do have contact with South Koreans there, as this part of northeast China, formerly known as Manchuria, is frequented by South Korean businessmen, students, tourists, missionaries, and refugee and humanitarian aid workers.) Fearing transfer to a kwan-li-so or kyo-hwa-so,3 or even execution, repatriated North Koreans typically deny having had any contact with South Koreans or exposure to South Korean radio stations, television programs, movies, or music while in China. But such denials often are not deemed credible by the North Korean police, who literally attempt to beat the truth out of the repatriated detainees. When the police are satisfied, the repatriates
are transferred to the jip-kyul-so police detention centers or ro-dong-dan-ryeon-dae labor-training camps. This report tells the stories of nine North Koreans forcibly repatriated from China, and the police interrogations, detentions, and mistreatments these Koreans were subjected to upon repatriation.

Included in the sections above are the stories of the 30 witnesses, some named, some unnamed because they fear retribution against relatives still in N. Korea. An example of a witness story:

WITNESS: KANG Chol Hwan: Kwan-li-so No. 15 “Yodok” (1977–1987)

KANG Chol Hwan was born in Pyongyang in 1968. His Korean–Japanese grandfather, who made a fortune in Japanese pachinko parlors (pinball/slot machine casinos), and his Korean-Japanese grandmother, a stalwart supporter of Kim Il Sung’s Korean Workers’ Party, had voluntarily repatriated to Pyongyang to contribute to the building of socialism in North Korea. Gradually the bank accounts, cars, and furniture the family had brought with them to Korea were seized.

One day Kang’s grandfather simply disappeared without word or trace. Several weeks later, agents came to Kang’s father’s home, announced that the grandfather had committed an (unspecified) act of high treason, and took the entire family— except for Kang’s mother, who, coming from a high political family herself, was
required to divorce Kang’s father at that point — to Kwan-li-so No. 15 at Yodok.

Initially the family had no idea where they were. The sign above the entry gate said only “Border Patrol of the Korean People, Unit 2915.” Subsequently, they learned that they were in a guarded “village” surrounded by barbed wire and reserved for the families of ethnic Koreans from Japan who had voluntarily repatriated to North Korea. They also learned that they were in the rehabilitable section — that is, the “revolutionizing zone”— of a sprawling prison-labor camp. Three years later, they learned from a prisoner who had been transferred into Yodok kwan-li-so from Sengho-ri kwan-li-so, some forty miles from Pyongyang, that Kang’s grandfather had been at the Sengho-ri kwan-li-so.

Kang was imprisoned from age nine to nineteen in what is North Korea’s most well known political prison-labor camp. After being released without explanation in 1987 (Kang suspects that his grandfather had died), Kang lived in several places in North Korea. He eventually met up with another former prisoner, AN Hyuk, whom he had first met in Yodok, and the two of them fled North Korea, going to Yanji, Shenyang,
Beijing, and finally Dalian, from where, in 1992, they went by boat to South Korea.

There are 24 different bullet points documenting torture. Three of these are below:

I. Torture Summary

According to almost all of the former-prisoner testimony gathered for this report —from Ali Lamada’s 1967 Sariwon prison testimony to the post-2000 testimonies of North Koreans forcibly repatriated from China — the practice of torture permeates the North Korean prison and detention system.

■ LEE Young Kuk reported that he was subjected to motionless-kneeling and water torture and facial and shin beatings with rifle butts at the Kuk-ga-bo-wi-bu interrogation/detention facility in Pyongyang in 1994, leaving permanent damage in one ear, double vision in one eye, and his shins still bruised and discolored as of late 2002.

■ LEE Soon Ok reported that she experienced beatings, strappings, and water torture leading to loss of consciousness, and was held outside in freezing January weather at the Chongjin In-min-bo-an-seong pre-trial detention center in 1986. Her account of beatings and brutalities in the early to middle 1990s at Kaechon women’s prison, Kyo-hwa-so No. 1, (in her prison memoirs) are too numerous to detail here.

■ JI Hae Nam confirmed the existence of miniature punishment cells at Kyo-hwa-so No. 1 and reported that beatings and kicking of women prisoners were a daily occurrence in the mid-1990s. She also reported beatings, during interrogation or for prison regulation infractions, in late 1999 at the Sinuiju bo-wi-bu jail, where she was required to kneel motionless, hit with broomsticks, and required to do stand-up/sit-down repetitions to the point of collapse, in her case in thirty to forty minutes.

Many of the witnesses report that women were forced to have abortions or their babies were killed. The report focuses on the stories of those repatriated from China, who were often told their children would be killed because they may be half chinese. Below is one of the eight listed in the summary.

■ Former Detainee #26 witnessed three forced abortions and seven babies killed at the Nongpo jip-kyul-so (detention center), Chongjin City, in May 2000.

The report concludes with recommendations:

1. North Korea: Comply with recommendations of the U.N. Human Rights Committe in July 2001 and April 2003, (which are reprinted in the appendices.)

2. China: Stop the repatriation of North Koreans that flee to China.

3. South Korea: Continue to grant asylum. Include human rights issues in dialogue with North Korea.

(Ed. Going to be a little hard to do when the N.K. deny there are political prisons, won't it?)

4. International:

- Include human rights in any dialogue.
- Base any export agreement on the exclusion of forced labor for foreign or domesitc markets.
- Proposal of third country resettlement for departure of kwan-li-so prisoners.

Also:

An agreement that provides for economic assistance to North Korea should also mandate the following:

1. North Korea should decriminalize the right to leave and should release all North Koreans who have been detained upon repatriation from China.

2. North Korea should release all those prisoners held in arbitrary detention in the kwan-li-so political penal-labor colonies, and invite the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Imprisonment, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and/or Human Rights Watch to observe the closings through on-site visits to the locations of the former kwan-li-so to confirm that these political penal-labor
colonies are no longer in operation.

3. The brutal mistreatment of convicted prisoners in the kyo-hwa-so prison-labor facilities must end. The World Food Program (WFP) and humanitarian relief organizations should be invited to supply food aid to the prisons in order to alleviate the problem of virtually constant semi-starvation among prisoners and high
levels of deaths in detention from combinations of forced labor and below-subsistence-level food rations.49

4. North Korea should initiate a dialogue with the International Labor Organization to bring the “reform-through-labor” in the kyo-hwa-so prison-labor facilities, jipkyul-so detention centers, and ro-dong-dan-ryeon-dae labor-training camps into conformity with international standards against forced and slave labor.

5. North Korea should invite representatives from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Special Rapporteur on Torture, and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in order to implement the recommendations to the DPRK from the U.N.
Human Rights Committee and U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

Satellite photos of the camps, with key features are also included in the report.

Of course Kim could never agree to these recommendations. Releasing his dissidents would only confirm the brutality of his regime to the world. In fact, there is a risk that exposing his concentration camps could lead him to order mass killings to cover up his crimes.

Yet we can't shrink away from exposing his crimes to the light of day. It's better for all nations to know the truth of what we're dealing with.

I tend to agree with Anne Applebaum's Washington Post column:

But the problem is not only one for immediate neighbors. In fact, if any of the democratic participants -- the United States, South Korea, Japan -- were to absorb fully the information the images convey, the knowledge would make it impossible for that country to conduct any policy toward North Korea that did not make regime change its central tenet. The more that is known about terrible human rights violations, the harder it is to do nothing about it. Yet at the moment, few of the countries involved in the debate about North Korea feel able to do much about it. As a result, we all probably prefer not to know.

I still advocate assasination, possibly followed by occupation by China.

DC