North Korea A Portrait Of True Grit

Park is one of thousands of desperate North Koreans who’ve escaped from that impoverished country in recent years. Nearly all flee into China, and many are quickly arrested by Chinese police and, like Park, forcibly returned to the communist regime, where they are punished by internment in Pyongyang’s brutal prison system. Frail and boyish-looking, Park is suffering from memory lapses as a result of the mistreatment he claims to have suffered during his eight-month ordeal. Thinking he was dying, North Korean officials released him from prison last August and allowed him to go to his uncle’s house. But Park recovered. Last April he fled his country for the second time, swimming across the Tumen River into China. There, he met volunteers for the Japan-based Life Fund for North Korean Refugees, a nongovernmental organization whose goal is to protect escapees and prevent their involuntary return to North Korea. Last week three Life Fund members sat with Park in a Southeast Asian hotel room as he told a grim story of his capture and escape from the North.

Park comes from a broken family in the North Hamgyong province of North Korea. His parents divorced, and his father was thrown into jail for “economic” crimes when he was a child. His mother, unable to support Park, sent him to live with an uncle. There was little food or room for him at his uncle’s house so, at the age of 14, Park ran away. For seven years he lived as a street beggar and petty thief, stealing food to survive. As the famine in North Korea worsened in the late 1990s, he began making quick trips to China to find food and money. During a November 1999 foray, Park ran into six other North Koreans in their 20s, including a woman, and together they decided to set off for South Korea via Russia, where they’d request political asylum.

From the Chinese city of Shenyang, the group traveled by bus to a small town named Milsan, near the Russian border. They rested there for three days, then at 2 o’clock one morning, began walking across the frontier. A Russian border patrol stumbled across the seven Koreans, robbed them and then hauled the group to a local prison. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Moscow intervened with Russian authorities, but apparently without success. In late December 1999, the seven were driven to the border and handed over to Chinese forces. They, in turn, turned the group over to North Korean soldiers, who took them to the North Hamgyong Provincial State Security Building in Chongjin city, a four-hour drive from the Chinese border.

There began Park’s nightmare. Prison guards threw him into an underground, windowless cell with nine other political detainees. Park says the cell was full of rats, lice and fleas. There was a hole in the corner for a toilet. Three times a day, the inmates ate a handful of boiled corn and a thin, salty soup. They were forbidden to talk or even move; violators were severely beaten. Park says he was once forced to clean the toilet hole with his tongue for several hours.

Every night for the first month, he says, he was taken to an upstairs office for interrogation. On the first night, his questioner shouted “Death to a traitor,” and kicked him in the face, knocking out two teeth. “They wanted to make what I did–yearning for freedom and a decent life–a crime,” says Park, holding his head in his hands as if he was still in pain. His interrogators kept asking why he wanted to live with the enemy in South Korea. He was constantly beaten with clubs, burned with cigarettes on his arms and penis, and flailed with a thick wire across his stomach. Sitting on his hotel-room floor, he pointed to the scars on his hands, arms and chest.

Park confessed to whatever his interrogators wanted. But sometimes his responses were unsatisfactory, and he was sent to a large room. It echoed, said Park, with the anguished screams of torture victims. He saw men hanging upside down from chains. While he was in prison, he saw only one of his six traveling companions. He believes the others died.

Park eventually fell ill. He says he couldn’t eat and was too weak to rise from his hard bunk. The prison released him into his uncle’s care because Park’s family had a “patriotic” background. At his uncle’s, he says, he simply wanted to die. “The pain was so bad I decided to kill myself.” He swallowed bird poison but survived. Nursed by his uncle’s family, he began regaining his health. By March he was well enough to make another break, before the prison guards came back for him. In early April he sneaked out of the house before dawn and swam once again across the Tumen River. The fund’s volunteers smuggled him out of China to Southeast Asia last month. They hope to deliver Park to South Korea, perhaps this week. The group says that North Koreans who flee to China should not be viewed as illegal immigrants, subject to deportation, but as bona fide refugees allowed to remain in China or resettled in a third country. Beijing claims that Pyongyang does not mistreat returned North Koreans. The fund and Park disagree. “By sending these people back to the North, Beijing is a party to crimes against humanity,” says a fund spokesman. Park wants to meet South Korean President Kim Dae Jung. “I’d tell him what Kim Jong Il is doing to the people of North Korea,” says Park, “and warn him not to be deceived.”

title: “North Korea A Portrait Of True Grit” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-18” author: “Ruth Ortiz”

Park is one of thousands of desperate North Koreans who’ve escaped from that impoverished country in recent years. Nearly all flee into China, and many are quickly arrested by Chinese police and, like Park, forcibly returned to the communist regime, where they are punished by internment in Pyongyang’s brutal prison system. Frail and boyish-looking, Park is suffering from memory lapses as a result of the mistreatment he claims to have suffered during his eight-month ordeal. Thinking he was dying, North Korean officials released him from prison last August and allowed him to go to his uncle’s house. But Park recovered. Last April he fled his country for the second time, swimming across the Tumen River into China. There, he met volunteers for the Japan-based Life Fund for North Korean Refugees, a nongovernmental organization whose goal is to protect escapees and prevent their involuntary return to North Korea. Last week three Life Fund members sat with Park in a Southeast Asian hotel room as he told a grim story of his capture and escape from the North.

Park comes from a broken family in the North Hamgyong province of North Korea. His parents divorced, and his father was thrown into jail for “economic” crimes when he was a child. His mother, unable to support Park, sent him to live with an uncle. There was little food or room for him at his uncle’s house so, at the age of 14, Park ran away. For seven years he lived as a street beggar and petty thief, stealing food to survive. As the famine in North Korea worsened in the late 1990s, he began making quick trips to China to find food and money. During a November 1999 foray, Park ran into six other North Koreans in their 20s, including a woman, and together they decided to set off for South Korea via Russia, where they’d request political asylum.

From the Chinese city of Shenyang, the group traveled by bus to a small town named Milsan, near the Russian border. They rested there for three days, then at 2 o’clock one morning, began walking across the frontier. A Russian border patrol stumbled across the seven Koreans, robbed them and then hauled the group to a local prison. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Moscow intervened with Russian authorities, but apparently without success. In late December 1999, the seven were driven to the border and handed over to Chinese forces. They, in turn, turned the group over to North Korean soldiers, who took them to the North Hamgyong Provincial State Security Building in Chongjin city, a four-hour drive from the Chinese border.

There began Park’s nightmare. Prison guards threw him into an underground, windowless cell with nine other political detainees. Park says the cell was full of rats, lice and fleas. There was a hole in the corner for a toilet. Three times a day, the inmates ate a handful of boiled corn and a thin, salty soup. They were forbidden to talk or even move; violators were severely beaten. Park says he was once forced to clean the toilet hole with his tongue for several hours.

Every night for the first month, he says, he was taken to an upstairs office for interrogation. On the first night, his questioner shouted “Death to a traitor,” and kicked him in the face, knocking out two teeth. “They wanted to make what I did–yearning for freedom and a decent life–a crime,” says Park, holding his head in his hands as if he was still in pain. His interrogators kept asking why he wanted to live with the enemy in South Korea. He was constantly beaten with clubs, burned with cigarettes on his arms and penis, and flailed with a thick wire across his stomach. Sitting on his hotel-room floor, he pointed to the scars on his hands, arms and chest.

Park confessed to whatever his interrogators wanted. But sometimes his responses were unsatisfactory, and he was sent to a large room. It echoed, said Park, with the anguished screams of torture victims. He saw men hanging upside down from chains. While he was in prison, he saw only one of his six traveling companions. He believes the others died.

Park eventually fell ill. He says he couldn’t eat and was too weak to rise from his hard bunk. The prison released him into his uncle’s care because Park’s family had a “patriotic” background. At his uncle’s, he says, he simply wanted to die. “The pain was so bad I decided to kill myself.” He swallowed bird poison but survived. Nursed by his uncle’s family, he began regaining his health. By March he was well enough to make another break, before the prison guards came back for him. In early April he sneaked out of the house before dawn and swam once again across the Tumen River. The fund’s volunteers smuggled him out of China to Southeast Asia last month. They hope to deliver Park to South Korea, perhaps this week. The group says that North Koreans who flee to China should not be viewed as illegal immigrants, subject to deportation, but as bona fide refugees allowed to remain in China or resettled in a third country. Beijing claims that Pyongyang does not mistreat returned North Koreans. The fund and Park disagree. “By sending these people back to the North, Beijing is a party to crimes against humanity,” says a fund spokesman. Park wants to meet South Korean President Kim Dae Jung. “I’d tell him what Kim Jong Il is doing to the people of North Korea,” says Park, “and warn him not to be deceived.”