Blaine Harden - Escape from Camp 14.pdf

ForNorthKoreans who remaininthe camps

Thecult of personality surroundingtheKimfamily began with theGreat Leader, KimIl Sung, who was depicted in government propagandaas alovingfather to his people. Although his leadership was brutal, his death in 1994 was deeply mourned. (Photo of painting byBlaineHarden)

‘There is no “humanrights issue” inthis country, as everyone leads the most dignifiedandhappy life.’ [North] Korean Central News Agency, 6 March 2009

Preface His first memoryis anexecution. He walked withhis mother to a wheat field near the Taedong River, where guards had rounded up severalthousand prisoners. Excited bythe crowd, the boycrawled betweenadult legs to the front row, where he sawguards tyinga manto a woodenpole. ShinInGeunwas four years old, too youngto understand the speechthat came before that killing. At dozens ofexecutions in years to come, he would listento a supervisingguard tellingthe crowd that the prisoner about to die had beenoffered ‘redemption’ throughhard labour, but had rejected the generosityofthe North Koreangovernment. To prevent the prisoner fromcursingthe state that was about to take his life, guards stuffed pebbles into his mouth thencovered his head witha hood. At that first execution, Shinwatched three guards take aim. Each fired three times. The reports oftheir rifles terrified the boyand he fellover backwards. But he scrambled to his feet intime to see guards untie a slack, blood-spattered body, wrap it ina blanket and heave it into a cart. InCamp 14, a prisonfor the politicalenemies ofNorthKorea, assemblies ofmore thantwo inmates were forbidden, except for executions. Everyone had to attend them. The labour camp used a

public killing, and the fear it generated, as a teachable moment. Shin’s guards inthe camp were his teachers – and his breeders. Theyhad selected his mother and father. Theytaught himthat prisoners who break camp rules deserve death. Ona hillside near his school, a sloganwas posted:‘Allaccordingto the rules and regulations’. The boymemorized the camp’s tenrules, ‘The Ten Commandments’, as he later called them, and canstillrecite them byheart. The first one stated:‘Anyone caught escapingwillbe shot immediately’. Tenyears after that first execution, Shinreturned to the same field. Again, guards had rounded up a bigcrowd. Again, a woodenpole had beenpounded into the ground. Amakeshift gallows had also beenbuilt. Shinarrived this time inthe backseat ofa car drivenbya guard. He wore handcuffs and a blindfold fashioned froma rag. His father, also handcuffed and blindfolded, sat beside himinthe car. Theyhad beenreleased after eight months inanunderground prisoninside Camp 14. As a conditionoftheir release, theyhad signed documents promisingnever to discuss what had happened to themunderground. Inthat prisonwithina prison, guards tried to torture a confession out ofShinand his father. Theywanted to knowabout the failed escape ofShin’s mother and onlybrother. Guards stripped Shin, tied ropes to his ankles and wrists, and suspended himfroma hook inthe ceiling. Theylowered himover a fire. He passed out whenhis fleshbeganto burn. But he confessed nothing. He had nothingto confess. He had not conspired withhis mother and brother to escape. He believed what

the guards had taught himsince his birthinside the camp:he could never escape and he must informonanyone who talked about trying. Not eveninhis dreams had Shinfantasized about life onthe outside. The guards never taught himwhat everyNorthKorean schoolboylearns:Americans are ‘bastards’ schemingto invade and humiliate the homeland. SouthKorea is the ‘bitch’ ofits American master. NorthKorea is a great countrywhose brave and brilliant leaders are the envyofthe world. Indeed, he knewnothingofthe existence ofSouthKorea, China, or the United States. Unlike his countrymen, he did not growup withthe ubiquitous photographofhis Dear Leader, as KimJongIlwas called. Nor had he seenphotographs or statues ofKim’s father, KimIlSung, the Great Leader who founded NorthKorea and who remains the country’s EternalPresident, despite his deathin1994. Whena guard removed his blindfold and he sawthe crowd, the woodenpole and the gallows, Shinbelieved he was about to be executed. No pebbles, though, were forced into his mouth. His handcuffs were removed. Aguard led himto the front ofthe crowd. He and his father would be spectators. Guards dragged a middle-aged womanto the gallows and tied a youngmanto the woodenpole. Theywere Shin’s mother and his older brother. Aguard tightened a noose around his mother’s neck. She tried to catchShin’s eye. He looked away. After she stopped twitchingat the end ofthe rope, Shin’s brother was shot bythree guards. Each fired three times.

As he watched themdie, Shinwas relieved it was not him. He was angrywithhis mother and brother for planninganescape. Althoughhe would not admit it to anyone for fifteenyears, he knew he was responsible for their executions.

CONTENTS Introduction PART ONE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 PART TWO 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 PART THREE 21 22 23 Epilogue Acknowledgements Notes APPENDICES The Ten Laws of Camp 14 Sketches from Shin’s Life in Camp 14

Introduction Nine years after his mother’s hanging, Shinsquirmed throughan electric fence and ranoffthroughthe snow. It was 2 January2005. Before then, no one bornina NorthKoreanpoliticalprisoncamp had ever escaped. As far as canbe determined, Shinis stillthe only one to do so. He was twenty-three years old and knewno one outside the fence. Withina month, he had walked into China. Withintwo years, he was livinginSouthKorea. Four years later, he was livingin southernCalifornia and was a senior ambassador at Libertyin NorthKorea (LiNK), anAmericanhumanrights group. His name is nowShinDong-hyuk. He changed it after arrivingin SouthKorea inanattempt to reinvent himselfas a free man. He is handsome, withquick, waryeyes. ALos Angeles dentist has done work onhis teeth, whichhe could not brushinthe camp. His overall physicalhealthis excellent. His body, though, is a roadmap ofthe hardships ofgrowingup ina labour camp that the NorthKorean government insists does not exist. Stunted bymalnutrition, he is short and slight – five feet sixinches and about one hundred and twentypounds. His arms are bowed fromchildhood labour. His lower back and buttocks are scarred

withburns fromthe torturer’s fire. The skinover his pubis bears a puncture scar fromthe hook used to hold himinplace over the fire. His ankles are scarred byshackles, fromwhichhe was hungupside downinsolitaryconfinement. His right middle finger is cut offat the first knuckle, a guard’s punishment for droppinga sewingmachine ina camp garment factory. His shins, fromankle to knee onboth legs, are mutilated and scarred byburns fromthe electrified barbed- wire fence that failed to keep himinside Camp 14. Shinis roughlythe same age as KimJongEun, the chubbythird sonofKimJongIlwho took over as leader after his father’s death in2011. As contemporaries, Shinand KimJongEunpersonifythe antipodes ofprivilege and privationinNorthKorea, a nominally classless societywhere, infact, breedingand bloodlines decide everything. KimJongEunwas borna communist prince and raised behind palace walls. He was educated under anassumed name in Switzerland and returned to NorthKorea to studyinanelite universitynamed after his grandfather. Because ofhis parentage, he lives above the law. For him, everythingis possible. In2010, he was named a four-star generalinthe KoreanPeople’s Army despite a totallack offield experience inthe military. Ayear later, after his father died ofa suddenheart attack, state media inNorth Korea described himas ‘another leader sent fromheaven’. He may, however, be forced to share his earthlydictatorship witholder relatives and militaryleaders. Shinwas borna slave and raised behind a high-voltage barbed- wire fence. He was educated ina camp schoolto read and count at a rudimentarylevel. Because his blood was tainted bythe perceived crimes ofhis father’s brothers, he lived belowthe law. For him,

nothingwas possible. His state-prescribed career trajectorywas hard labour and anearlydeathfromdisease brought onbychronic hunger – allwithout a charge or a trialor anappeal, and allin secrecy. Instories ofconcentrationcamp survival, there is a conventional narrative arc. Securityforces stealthe protagonist awayfroma lovingfamilyand a comfortable home. To survive, he abandons moralprinciples, suppresses feelings for others and ceases to be a civilized humanbeing. Inperhaps the most celebrated ofthese stories, Night, byNobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel, the thirteen-year-old narrator explains his torment withanaccount ofthe normallife that existed before he and his familywere packed aboard trains bound for Nazideathcamps. Wieselstudied the Talmud daily. His father owned a store and watched over their village inRomania. His grandfather was always present to celebrate the Jewishholidays. But after the boy’s entire familyperished inthe camps, Wieselwas left ‘alone, terriblyalone ina world without God, without man. Without love or mercy.’ Shin’s storyofsurvivalis different. His mother beat himand his father, who was allowed byguards to sleep withhis mother just five nights a year, ignored him. His brother was a stranger. Childreninthe camp were untrustworthy and abusive. Before he learned anythingelse, Shinlearned to survive bysnitchingonallofthem. Love and mercyand familywere words without meaning. God did not disappear or die. Shinhad never heard ofhim. Ina preface to Night, Wieselwrote that anadolescent’s knowledge ofdeathand evil‘should be limited to what one

discovers inliterature’. InCamp 14, Shindid not knowliterature existed. He sawonly one book inthe camp, a Koreangrammar text, inthe hands ofa teacher who wore a guard’s uniform, carried a revolver onhis hip and beat one ofhis primaryschoolclassmates to deathwitha chalkboard pointer. Unlike those who have survived a concentrationcamp, Shinhad not beentornawayfroma civilized existence and forced to descend into hell. He was bornand raised there. He accepted its values. He called it home. NorthKorea’s labour camps have nowexisted for twice as longas the Soviet Gulagand about twelve times longer thanthe Nazi concentrationcamps. There is no dispute about where these camps are. High-resolutionsatellite photographs, accessible onGoogle Earthto anyone withanInternet connection, showvast fenced compounds sprawlingthroughthe rugged mountains ofNorth Korea. The SouthKoreangovernment estimates that there are about one hundred and fifty-four thousand prisoners inthe camps, while the US State Department and severalhumanrights groups have put the number as highas two hundred thousand. After examininga decade ofsatellite images ofthe camps, AmnestyInternationalnoticed new constructioninside the camps in2011 and became concerned that the inmate populationwas increasing, perhaps to short-circuit possible unrest as power beganto shift fromKimJongIlto his youngand untried son.1 There are sixcamps, accordingto SouthKorea’s intelligence agencyand humanrights groups. The biggest is thirty-one miles long

and twenty-five miles wide, anarea larger thanthe cityofLos Angeles. Electrified, barbed-wire fences – reinforced byguard towers and patrolled byarmed men– encircle most ofthe camps. Two ofthem, numbers 15 and 18, have re-educationzones where some fortunate detainees receive remedialinstructioninthe teachings ofKimJongIland KimIlSung. Ifprisoners memorize enoughofthese teachings and convince guards theyare loyal, they canbe released, but theyare monitored for the rest oftheir lives by state security. The remainingcamps are ‘complete controldistricts’ where prisoners, who are called ‘irredeemables’,2 are worked to death. Shin’s camp, number 14, is a complete controldistrict. By reputationit is the toughest ofthemallbecause ofits particularly brutalworkingconditions, the vigilance ofits guards and the state’s unforgivingviewofthe seriousness ofthe crimes committed byits inmates, manyofwhomare purged officials fromthe rulingparty, the government and the military, alongwiththeir families. Established around 1959 incentralNorthKorea – near Kaechon CountyinSouthPyonganProvince – Camp 14 holds anestimated fifteenthousand prisoners. About thirtymiles longand fifteenmiles wide, it has farms, mines and factories threaded throughsteep mountainvalleys. AlthoughShinis the onlypersonbornina labour camp to escape and tellhis story, there are at least twenty-sixother labour camp eyewitnesses who are nowinthe free world.3 Theyinclude at least fifteenNorthKoreans who were imprisoned inCamp 15’s edificationdistrict, and who wontheir release and later turned up in SouthKorea. Former guards fromother camps have also found

their wayto SouthKorea. KimYong, a former NorthKorean lieutenant colonelfroma privileged background inPyongyang, spent sixyears intwo camps before escapingina coaltrain. Adistillationoftheir testimonybythe KoreanBar Associationin Seoulpaints a detailed picture ofdailylife inthe camps. Afew prisoners are publiclyexecuted everyyear. Others are beatento deathor secretlymurdered byguards, who have almost complete license to abuse and rape prisoners. Most prisoners tend crops, mine coal, sewmilitaryuniforms, or make cement while subsisting ona near-starvationdiet ofcorn, cabbage and salt. Theylose their teeth, their gums turnblack, their bones weakenand, as theyenter their forties, theyhunchover at the waist. Issued a set ofclothes once or twice a year, theycommonlywork and sleep infilthyrags, livingwithout soap, socks, gloves, underclothes, or toilet paper. Twelve- to fifteen-hour workdays are mandatoryuntilprisoners die, usuallyofmalnutrition-related illnesses, before theyturnfifty.4 Althoughprecise numbers are impossible to obtain, Western governments and humanrights groups estimate that hundreds of thousands ofpeople have perished inthese camps. Most NorthKoreans are sent to the camps without anyjudicial process, and manydie there without learningthe charges against them. Theyare takenfromtheir homes, usuallyat night, bythe Bowibu, the NationalSecurityAgency. Guilt byassociationis legal inNorthKorea. Awrongdoer is oftenimprisoned withhis parents and children. KimIlSunglaid downthe lawin1972:‘[E]nemies of class, whoever theyare, their seed must be eliminated throughthree generations.’ Myfirst encounter withShinwas at lunchinthe winter of2008.

We met ina Koreanrestaurant indowntownSeoul. Talkative and hungry, he wolfed downseveralhelpings ofrice and beef. As he ate, he told mytranslator and me what it was like to watchas his mother was hanged. He blamed her for his torture inthe camp, and he went out ofhis wayto saythat he was stillfurious withher. He said he had not beena ‘good son’, but would not explainwhy. Duringhis years inthe camp he said he had never once heard the word ‘love’, certainlynot fromhis mother, a womanhe continued to despise, evenindeath. He had heard about the concept of forgiveness ina SouthKoreanchurch, but it confused him. To ask for forgiveness inCamp 14, he said, was ‘to begnot to be punished’. He had writtena memoir about the camp, but it had received little attentioninSouthKorea. He was jobless, broke, behind onhis rent and uncertainwhat to do next. The rules ofCamp 14 had prevented him, onpainofexecution, fromhavingintimate contact witha woman. He nowwanted to find a proper girlfriend, but said he didn’t knowhowto beginlookingfor one. After lunch, he took me to the small, sad apartment inSeoulthat he could not afford. Althoughhe would not look me inthe eye, he showed me his chopped-offfinger and his scarred back. He allowed me to take his photograph. Despite allthe hardship he had endured he stillhad a babyface. He was twenty-sixyears old – three years out ofCamp 14. I was fifty-sixyears old at that memorable lunch. As a correspondent for the Washington Post inNortheast Asia, I had beensearchingfor more thana year for a storythat could explain howNorthKorea used repressionto keep fromfallingapart. Politicalimplosionhad become myspecialty. For the Post and

for the New York Times, I spent nearlythree decades covering failed states inAfrica, the collapse ofcommunisminEastern Europe, the breakup ofYugoslavia and the slow-motionrot in Burma under the generals. Fromthe outside lookingin, North Korea seemed ripe – indeed, overripe – for the kind ofcollapse I had witnessed elsewhere. Ina part ofthe world where nearly everyone else was gettingrich, its people were increasinglyisolated, poor and hungry. Still, the Kimfamilydynastykept the lid on. Totalitarian repressionpreserved their basket-case state. The problemwithshowinghowtheydid it was lack ofaccess. Elsewhere inthe world, repressive states are not always successful insealingtheir borders. I had beenable to work openlyin Mengistu’s Ethiopia, Mobutu’s Congo and Milosevic’s Serbia, and had slipped inas a tourist to write about Burma. NorthKorea was muchmore careful. Foreignreporters, especiallyAmericans, were rarelyallowed inside. I visited North Korea onlyonce, sawwhat myminders wanted me to see and learned little. Ifjournalists entered illegally, theyrisked months or years ofimprisonment as spies. To winrelease, theysometimes needed the help ofa former Americanpresident.5 Giventhese restrictions, most reportingabout NorthKorea was distant and hollow. WrittenfromSeoulor Tokyo or Beijing, stories beganwithanaccount ofPyongyang’s latest provocation, suchas sinkinga ship or shootinga tourist. Thenthe drearyconventions of journalismkicked in:Americanand SouthKoreanofficials expressed outrage. Chinese officials called for restraint. Think-tank experts opined about what it might mean. I wrote more thanmy

share ofthese pieces. Shin, though, shattered these conventions. His life unlocked the door, allowingoutsiders to see howthe Kimfamilysustained itself withchild slaveryand murder. Afewdays after we met, Shin’s appealingpicture and appallingstoryranprominentlyonthe front page ofthe Washington Post. ‘Wow,’ wrote Donald G. Graham, chairmanofthe Washington Post Company, ina one-word e-mailI received the morningafter the storyappeared. AGermanfilmmaker, who happened to be visitingWashington’s Holocaust MemorialMuseumonthe daythe storywas published, decided to make a documentaryabout Shin’s life. The Washington Post rananeditorialsayingthat the brutality Shinendured was horrifying, but just as horrifyingwas the world’s indifference to the existence ofNorthKorea’s labour camps. ‘Highschoolstudents inAmerica debate whyPresident Franklin D. Roosevelt didn’t bomb the raillines to Hitler’s camps,’ the editorialconcluded. ‘Their childrenmayask, a generationfrom now, whythe West stared at far clearer satellite images ofKim JongIl’s camps, and did nothing.’ Shin’s storyseemed to get under the skinofordinaryreaders. Theywrote letters and sent e-mails, offeringmoney, housingand prayers. Myarticle had onlyskimmed the surface ofShin’s life. It struck me that a deeper account would unveilthe secret machinerythat enforces totalitarianrule inNorthKorea. It would also show, throughthe details ofShin’s improbable flight, howsome ofthat oppressive machineryis breakingdown, allowinganunworldly youngescapee to wander undetected across a police state and into China. Just as importantly, no one who read a book about a boy

bred byNorthKorea to be worked to deathcould ever ignore the existence ofthe camps. I asked Shinifhe was interested. It took himnine months to make up his mind. Duringthose months, humanrights activists in SouthKorea, Japanand the United States urged himto cooperate, tellinghimthat a book inEnglishwould raise world awareness, increase internationalpressure onNorthKorea and perhaps put some muchneeded moneyinhis pocket. After Shinsaid yes, he made himselfavailable for sevenrounds ofinterviews, first inSeoul, theninTorrance, California, and finallyinSeattle, Washington. Shin and I agreed to a fifty-fiftysplit ofwhatever the book might earn. Our agreement, though, gave me controlover the contents. Shinbegankeepinga diaryinearly2006, about a year after his escape fromNorthKorea. InSeoul, after he was hospitalized for depression, he continued writinginit. The diarybecame the basis for his Korean-language memoir, Escape to the Outside World, whichwas published inSeoulin2007 bythe Database Center for NorthKoreanHumanRights. The memoir was a startingpoint for our interviews. It was also the source for manyofthe direct quotations that are attributed in this book to Shin, his family, friends and prisonkeepers duringthe time he was inNorthKorea and China. But everythought and actionattributed to Shininthese pages is based onmultiple interviews withhim, duringwhichhe expanded uponand, inmany crucialinstances, corrected his Koreanmemoir. Evenas he cooperated, Shinseemed to dread talkingto me. I oftenfelt like a dentist drillingwithout anaesthetic. The drillingwent onintermittentlyfor more thantwo years. Some ofour sessions were cathartic for him, but manymade himdepressed.

He struggled to trust me. As he readilyadmits, he struggles to trust anyone. It is aninescapable part ofhowhe was raised. Guards taught himto sellout his parents and friends, and he assumes everyone he meets will, inturn, sellhimout. While Shinremained waryofme, he responded to every questionabout his past that I could think of. His life canseem incredible, but it echoes the experiences ofother former prisoners in the camps, as wellas the accounts offormer camp guards. ‘EverythingShinhas said is consistent withwhat I have heard about the camps,’ said David Hawk, a humanrights specialist who has interviewed Shinand more thantwo dozenother former labour camp prisoners for ‘The HiddenGulag:ExposingNorthKorea’s PrisonCamps’, a report that links survivor accounts withannotated satellite images. It was first published in2003 bythe US Committee for HumanRights inNorthKorea and has beenupdated as more testimonyand higher-resolutionsatellite images became available. Hawk told me that because Shinwas bornand raised ina camp, he knows things that other camp survivors do not. Shin’s storyhas also beenvetted bythe authors ofthe KoreanBar Association’s ‘White Paper onHumanRights inNorthKorea’. Theyconducted extensive interviews withShin, as wellas withother knowncamp survivors who were willingto talk. As Hawk has written, the only wayfor NorthKorea to ‘refute, contradict, or invalidate’ the testimonyofShinand other camp survivors would be to permit outside experts to visit the camps. Otherwise, Hawk declares, their testimonystands. IfNorthKorea does collapse, Shinmaybe correct inpredicting that its leaders, fearingwar crimes trials, willdemolishthe camps before investigators canget to them. As KimJongIlexplained, ‘We

must envelope our environment ina dense fogto prevent our enemies fromlearninganythingabout us.’6 To tryto piece together what I could not see, I spent the better part ofthree years reportingabout NorthKorea’s military, leadership, economy, food shortages and humanrights abuses. I interviewed scores ofNorthKoreandefectors, includingthree former inmates ofCamp 15 and a former camp guard and driver who worked at four labour camps. I spoke to SouthKorean scholars and technocrats who travelregularlyinside NorthKorea, and I reviewed the growingbodyofscholarlyresearchonand personalmemoirs about the camps. Inthe United States, I conducted extended interviews withKoreanAmericans who have become Shin’s closest friends. InassessingShin’s story, one should keep inmind that many others inthe camps have endured similar or worse hardships. Accordingto AnMyeongChul, a former camp guard and driver, ‘Shinhad a relativelycomfortable life bythe standards ofother childreninthe camps.’ Byexplodingnuclear bombs, attackingSouthKorea and cultivatinga reputationfor hair-trigger belligerence, the government ofNorthKorea has stirred up a semi-permanent security emergencyonthe KoreanPeninsula. WhenNorthKorea deigns to enter into internationaldiplomacy, it has always succeeded inshovinghumanrights offthe negotiating table. Crisis management, usuallyfocused onnuclear weapons and missiles, has dominated Americandealings withthe North. The labour camps have beenanafterthought. ‘Talkingto themabout the camps is somethingthat has not been