Monthly Archives: April 2009
What Repatriated NK Refugees Must Endure
Below is our interview with a North Korean defector.
“I escaped into China on November 27, 2008. This is my fifth escape. I have no place to go. Let me die here or please help me.”
The temperature outside is already down to -10°C and it will continue to fall. Hong Song-man, 65 years old, begged the interviewer (an LFNKR local staff member) for help, pleading with tears in his eyes. He said he had previously stayed in a village in Helong, Yanbian Korean-Chinese autonomous state of Jilin Province, where villagers helped him.
Experts Urge Japan to Accept All NK Defectors
Could Resolve Abduction Issue
On March 11, in Pusan, South Korea, the family of Yaeko Taguchi, one of the Japanese victims abducted by the North Korean government, met with Kim Hyun-hee, the woman who was once sentenced to death for bombing a KAL airliner in 1987. People in Japan watched, enthralled, as they hugged each other on TV. Testimony by Kim Hyun-hee had revealed that Yaeko Taguchi, the Japanese woman abducted in 1978, was forced to train Kim Hyun-hee to pass as a Japanese. Read that news story here.
SK President’s Policies Ignore Refugees
Nothing New from Lee Myung-bak
South Korea’s pro-North stance, including its Sunshine Policy and its Engagement Policy implemented by the regimes of Kim Dae-jung and Roh-Moo-hyun, has caused untold suffering for the North Korean people and North Korean defectors due to rampant human rights violations.
Japanese Wives Victimized By Brokers
Brokers ‘help’ through threats, intimidation
Ms. Hiroko Saito, the Japan-born wife of a North Korean, was arrested in Japan on March 8 this year by Osaka Prefectural police. The woman, who had earlier escaped from North Korea and made her way to Japan, was arrested together with a Chinese couple on suspicion of violating the Immigration Control Act. She is suspected of falsely stating that the Chinese couple are relatives so that they could enter Japan illegally.
Tokyo Seminar on Refugees and Human Rights in Asia
On March 14, the Tokyo Seminar on Refugees and Human Rights in Asia was held at the JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) Global Space.
LFNKR (Life Funds for North Korean Refugees) co-hosted the seminar with the Society to Help Returnees to North Korea. Also participating were speakers from Kachin Women’s Association in Thailand, Overseas Chinese Democracy Coalition Japan, Human Rights Watch Tokyo, and Japan Association for Refugees.
First Hints of Free Journalism for North Korea
Japanese Language Magazine Reports from inside North Korea
North Korea is increasingly attracting world attention because of its recent missile launch and the issue of who will succeed Kim Jong-il. These issues should motivate us to step up our efforts to discover what is happening inside North Korea and how the common people are doing there.
The flood of news about the missile launch, which usually depends on official North Korean announcements, helps hide signs that the badly weakened Kim Jong-il regime cannot afford to feed its soldiers and that the majority of common people see their leader’s policies as failures. I believe that, to deal with North Korea, it is increasingly urgent to focus on the real picture there, rather than possibly over- or under-estimating the regime.
North Korea suffers from a serious ailment. All the neighboring countries in East Asia, as well as the US are very well aware that the country’s illness is critical, and they are willing to help North Korea. They hope for the nation to become a healthy, normal country as soon as possible. However, none of the concerned countries has been able to identify the cause or locate the wound. Therefore, they have not yet been able to properly diagnose or treat the condition.
Although the international community is very willing to find the cause of this serious illness, the patient, North Korea, will not disrobe, will not even allow its pulse to be taken.
The North Korean regime has confined itself inside a deep hole, with no sign that it wishes to come out. The regime, completely isolated from international society, is unlikely to heal itself without outside help.
What is needed first is a proper diagnosis of the illness. This requires that highly accurate, reliable information on the internal condition of North Korea be consistently supplied to the outside world. A diagnosis based on inaccurate or inadequate information could lead to a misdiagnosis, leading to a delayed cure or even a worsening of the illness.
This is why I decided to plant the seeds of journalism in North Korea.
North Korea is currently going through a dramatic change. During the past 15 years, the commercial transactions started by common people after the economical failure of the nation have enormously developed with a resultant rapid growth of market economy.
Concurrently with the growth of the market economy, more people are beginning to go for self-sustained living. More people think for themselves, make their own decisions and take action. In other words, the people’s way of thinking and their sense of values are significantly changing.
The magazine features comments from common people in North Korea collected by Rimjingang reporters living underground while in the country. The comments represent true public opinions of the people living under this tyranny.
These public opinions may help provide the materials to help reach a proper diagnosis of the serious illness of the North Korean society.
Report by Jiro Ishimaru
(Publisher of Rimjingang, Asiapress)
Go here to read a brief introduction of Mr. Jiro Ishimaru and the “Rimjingang” magazine.
LFNKR Comments:
Even while North Korea still has many helplessly starving people, a growing number of individuals have begun to take matters into their own hands, setting up to sell small goods along roadsides or under bridges. They are seeking a private income for survival in response to the collapse of the government’s economic policy.
To discourage the spread of private selling, the government has set up public markets for small merchants, such as the one shown below.
The owner of each 1-sq-meter booth sells food in a publicly-run market in Kang-dong, a suburb south of Pyongyang. (Photo by Chang Jung-gil, a reporter with Rimjingang, the magazine published by Jiro Ishimaru, Asiaoress.)