Defector Recounts Executions & Starvation In North Korea
Via One Free Korea comes this interview with 21 year old North Korean defector Yeonmi Park that explains what life was like for her in the “Socialist Paradise”:
In an interview with the Irish Independent, Yeonmi told how her first memory is of being told by her mother at the age of four “not to even whisper because the birds and mice could hear you”.
“That’s what I learned from my mum and that was really early – so that’s the way she could protect me from that terror,” said Yeonmi.
People are not really “living” there, she says of life in that country. “They are surviving there, and surviving is not that easy actually.”
When she was nine, she was forced to watch her best friend’s mother being executed on the street before her eyes.
Her only crime had been she had watched a James Bond movie and shared the DVDs with neighbours.
Watching her body crumble to the ground was a seismic moment in how Yeonmi viewed the world.
“She was a very nice, gentle mother,” she said.
“Always I knew that in North Korea when they kill the people, they justify themselves by saying these are criminals trying to destroy our socialist paradise.
“But I knew that lady. She was not that bad. She was not going to destroy our country,” she said.
“She was just being killed because she watched the Hollywood movie, James Bond. And that’s why she got killed.”
That same year, Yeonmi’s life changed catastrophically when her father, a mid-ranking civil servant, was arrested and imprisoned for selling precious metals to China on the black market.
Her mother, too, was interrogated and thrown into jail. Yeonmi and her sister, Eunmi were left to fend for themselves, at the age of nine and 11, foraging on the mountainsides for grasses, plants, frogs and even dragonflies to avoid starving to death. “Everything I used to see, I ate them,” she said. [Irish Independent]
You can read more plus watch a video interview with Yeonmi at the link. Make sure to read One Free Korea’s commentary as this link as well.
Cannot possibly be true, otherwise our Main Stream Media would be all over it…Right?
I hate articles like this because the author quotes the subject (Ms. Park) as if she is an authority on the matters at hand. The world is NOT ignoring the situation in North Korea. The world understands that the Kim regime is brutal and that the people of North Korea are suffering. The United Nations formally recognizes that atrocities are being committed in North Korea. But what exactly would Ms. Park have us do? If we send in humanitarian aid, the North Korean government determines where it goes, which is usually to the party members, the military, and people living in Pyongyang, with anything left over winding up on the black market. The profits from any trade with North Korea go to benefit the regime, which could not care less about the people suffering under its rule. If we launch a military offensive to unseat the regime, the collateral damage from an all-out war could prove to be disastrous for the civilian populations of North and South Korea. Yes, we would ultimately win, but at what cost? If Ms. Park is looking for someone to blame, she needs to look to those countries which continue to do business with North Korea in violation of UN sanctions, giving the regime the hard currency it needs to prop itself up. The only reason in this modern era that an anachronistic entity like the North Korean government can survive is because there are political forces in this world that want it to survive. Convince THEM to pull their support for North Korea once and for all, and the regime would collapse. It is a crime against humanity that the North Koreans continue to suffer the way they do, but it is unfair to characterize it as the world “allowing” it to continue or “ignoring” the problem, which is exactly what the author is doing by leaving Ms. Park’s story hanging the way she does.
Bruce, I would think Ms. Park would be an authority on North Korean human rights since she lived through it?
I agree that the world understands the Kim regime is brutal. However, what real measures are being taken to change the regime’s behavior? If the world treated the North Koreans like they Apartheid South Africa maybe you would see changes in behavior in North Korea. Instead you see them participating in all these sports events, taken off the terrorism list, countries failing to support the luxury goods prohibition, lack of financial sanctions, etc.