We usually find ourselves beating up on the BBC for biased coverage. Today they deserve our kudos. They aired a documentary yesterday called "Access to Evil" exposing the use of gas chambers and human experimentation in the North Korea gulags. Link via Segac's world I know
They interviewed Kwon Hyok, a N. Korean defector living in Seoul. He was persuaded to defect by South Korea when stationed in Beijing.
Six years before, in 1993, Kwon Hyok says he was Head of Security at prison camp 22 in Haengyong, an isolated area near the border with Russia.Camp 22 is one of a network of prisons in North Korea modelled on the Soviet Gulag where hundreds of thousands of prisoners are held.
Considering his next revelations, it must have been chilling to interview him:
Torture, he says, was routine. "Prisoners were like pigs or dogs. You could kill them without caring whether they lived or died..""For the first three years" he explained " you enjoy torturing people but then it wears off and someone else takes over. But most of the time you do it because you enjoy it."
Human experimentation
But Kwon Hyok had something else he wanted to tell.
He says he witnessed chemical experiments being carried out on political prisoners in specially constructed gas chambers.
"How did you feel when you saw the children die?", I asked.
His answer shocked me.
"I had no sympathy at all because I was taught to think that they were all enemies of our country and that all our country's problems were their fault. So I felt they deserved to die."
Reporter Olenak Frenkiel obtains corroborating documents from an independent source:
They are headed Letter Of Transfer, marked Top Secret and dated February 2002 . They each bear the name of a male victim, his date and place of birth. The text reads: "The above person is transferred from Camp 22 for the purpose of human experimentation with liquid gas for chemical weapons."
There's more from the Jerusalem Post:
His testimony is backed up by Soon Ok-lee, who was imprisoned for seven years. "An officer ordered me to select 50 healthy female prisoners," she said. "One of the guards handed me a basket full of soaked cabbage, told me not to eat it but to give it to the 50 women. I gave them out and heard a scream from those who had eaten them. They were all screaming and vomiting blood. All who ate the cabbage leaves started violently vomiting blood and screaming with pain. It was hell. In less than 20 minutes they were quite dead."
There are no easy answers considering North Korea was allowed to go nuclear, (with help from Pakistan as reported today:)
The founder of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has admitted he transferred nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, a Pakistani government official said Monday.
If you happen to be in Seoul, there is a demonstration and press conference to promote N. Korean human rights scheduled Tues, Feb. 3 at 11:00 AM in front of the Koreana Hotel to coincide with the arrival of the N. Korean delegation for the next round of inner-Korean talks.
Can the world afford to stand by when we have evidence of gulags, gas chambers, and human experimentation? How can we take action without sacrificing the people of South Korea?
For what it's worth, I've agreed with the administration's stance so far to not make ANY deals without 100% verification and to require the Asian nations that support N. Korea through trade to be involved in negotiations.
It should be possible in theory to induce a total trade embargo. How long can Kim retain power if everything comes to a standstill? These reports of prisoners escaping and horrors like this are becoming more common, which could be a sign the regime is losing control.
We as bloggers can increase the pressure by continuing to expose this regimes horrors to the light of day.
See also the latest round up on all things Korean at Winds of Change, Jan. 23.
Also, Brainstorming's previous summary of the report on North Korea: The Hidden Gulag can be found here.
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