The Inaugural Fred Iklé Lecture Featuring Justice Michael Kirby and Roberta Cohen

CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

WASHINGTON D.C.

FEBRUARY 19, 2016

NORTH KOREA: THE HUMAN RIGHTS AND SECURITY NEXUS

INTRODUCTION TO THE INAUGURAL FRED IKLÉ LECTURE

By Roberta Cohen, Co-Chair Emeritus, HRNK

It gives me great pleasure to introduce the first Fred Iklé Lecture sponsored by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK). This lecture is to become an annual HRNK event to honor Fred Iklé as principal founder and intellectual architect of our organization and its first chair. When HRNK was established in 2001, Dr. Iklé was well known as a defense and foreign policy specialist and a nuclear strategist. But what was not so well known was his passionate interest in promoting democracy and human rights in countries where people were closed off from their basic freedoms–in particular North Korea. He was one of the first to recognize that because North Korea was so isolated, a research and advocacy organization was needed to document the human rights situation and draw international attention to it. As Chair, he kept HRNK focused and steered a tight ship. HRNK went on to produce groundbreaking reports on North Korea’s prison camps, the plight of refugees, and the devastating famine. He saw the linkage between human rights deprivation and peace and security, which was recalled in a eulogy by NED President Carl Gershman, another distinguished co-founder of HRNK. 

Further, Dr. Iklé recognized the importance of broad based bi-partisan support to strengthen undertakings on human rights in North Korea. In founding HRNK, he initially joined hands with Stephen Solarz, a well-known former Democratic Congressman who had visited North Korea and later became Co-chair of our committee. The cultivation of a broad spectrum of political support has contributed immensely to HRNK’s effectiveness. 

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Categories: China, crimes against humanity, DPRK, HRNK, hrnkus, humanrights, Justice, Michael Kirby, NKgulag, North Korea, South Korea, UN, UNCOI

An HRNK Interview with Justice Michael Kirby, Former Chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the DPRK

Please click here to view the video.

Q1: In regards to an improvement in North Korean human rights, what was your original expectation of the impact of the Commission of Inquiry and how has it either been met or fallen short?

Justice Kirby: The situation in North Korea has been going on, as the Commission of Inquiry found, for a very longtime—decades. Therefore, we didn’t expect things would change overnight. We did not expect that the Commission of Inquiry would be permitted to come into North Korea and we, therefore, prepared our methodology on the assumption that we would not be given access to the country, but that didn’t stop us doing our job because there were 26,000 people from North Korea who had fled from that country, living in South Korea and many others living in other countries. So we had plenty of testimony. To what extent were things different from what we expected? Well, I think the value of the inquiry was that it connected a great deal of information from people, who in many cases quite recently, had recently been in North Korea and they could give their testimony and indicate what they went through, what their experiences as human beings were. And they demonstrated that very serious offenses to human rights had occurred and some of those were crimes again humanity, which the international community has promised to react to and respond to. So, that is where the Commission of Inquiry led us. It led us to fact-finding and to reaching conclusions on a high level of standard of proof and making recommendations for the improvement of the human rights situation in North Korea.

Q2: What role does China play as a member of the P5 (US, UK, France, Russia, and China) in the UN Security Council in regards to North Korean human rights?

Justice Kirby: Well, the Commission of Inquiry understood right from the start that the cooperation of the People’s Republic of China was really a key to getting progress in respect of human rights in North Korea. That is because, in part, of the economic links between the DPRK and China, also the historical and fraternal party links between the two countries, the geographical contiguity—China has a border with the DPRK—and the large Korean minority, many of them themselves descended from, or in person, refugees from North Korea who live on the border on China.

Q3: The Commission met with roughly 300 witnesses during its investigation. What struck you as the most compelling and significant issue that victims of the Kim regime face today?

Justice Kirby: The situation in respect to their testimony was graphic. I think the aspect of the testimony that I will never forget was the sheer necessity of food in the human being. Human beings can last for so long without literature, without art, and without the accoutrements of ordinary life, but food is absolutely essential. In our report, there is a very important chapter—very well written if I can say so—explaining how the daily grind of getting food is, for most people in North Korea or outside of the elite, a continuing grave burden on the people. We heard testimony, which was extremely graphic, of the situation of the lack of food in the detention centers. One person, who gave testimony, had the job of leading a wheelbarrow around the encampment to pick up the emaciated bodies of the people who had died overnight and put them in a vat, where they were burned. Their ashes and the body parts were then scattered on the nearby fields in order to help grow the rudimentary needs of food for the detention centers. I am of such an age that I remember seeing vivid images of emaciated bodies at the end of the Second World War, when the Allied soldiers opened up parts of the Nazi-occupied Germany. Sitting there, listening to this testimony, brought home to me that here was I, decades later, listening to testimony of a somewhat similar kind. Therefore, that was the most vivid testimony that I heard. The testimony of women and the suffering they had undergone; the testimony of disadvantaged groups; of disabled people; the testimony of people who could not practice their religion without very grave punishments—all of this was horrific in this day and age that this goes on, and in a country that is a member of the United Nations and has signed up to the United Nations treaties. So there is a job to be done here and it is the obligation of the whole world to make sure that those who are responsible for the crimes against humanity are rendered accountable before the bar of humanity for their crimes.

Q4: What were some of the findings of the Commission of Inquiry regarding North Korean detention camps?

Justice Kirby: The forms of torture that were inflicted on people in the detention camps in North Korea were all horrible: the motorbike torture, the airline torture, but the most horrible of all was the pigeon torture—when people were manacled and held above the floor so they couldn’t stand; they couldn’t rest; they couldn’t sleep; they vomited; they defecated; and they didn’t want to continue to live.

Q5: Do you foresee the public release of the names of the alleged perpetrators as part of an accountability or transitional justice measure?

Justice Kirby: We recommended that the matter should be referred by the Security Council to the International Criminal Court, where there is a prosecutor, who could have access to the material of the Commission of Inquiry and that prosecutor’s own investigations. That was the correct way to go about it. This is yet another instance of the fact that the Commission of Inquiry on North Korea acted with great propriety and care. We were prudent and we were careful. We thought that the step of launching a prosecution was a step that should be taken by a prosecutor, not by the Commission of Inquiry. Our job was to find facts, and that is what we did and all that we did.

Q6: What do you believe HRNK and other NGOs can do to ensure accountability for crimes against humanity in North Korea as an international goal?

Justice Kirby: Make sure that the world hears your voices. The voices of the people of North Korea cannot be heard. They cannot have access to the Internet. They cannot speak to us, but we can speak out for them and to them. It’s important that the United Nations should make our voices heard in North Korea and that is an important message that we should bring. Civil society should bring it and they should remember the motto: never give up; never give up; never give up. That is the motto they should accept for the voices of North Korea and they should become the voice of North Korea today, tomorrow, and until the human rights situation in North Korea is radically changed for the better.

Q7: What message would you like to send to HRNK’s board of directors, staff members, interns, volunteers, and supporters?

Justice Kirby: I have completed by duties in respect to North Korea, but your duties continue. Your duties involve lifting your voices, not being satisfied with inaction on the report. Getting a report is a good thing. It has put this matter on the agenda of the international community, but a report of itself does not change things in North Korea. It’s important that the change agents should be you. The change agents within North Korea are difficult to organize because of the totalitarian regime that exists there. Therefore, they need friends. They need friends outside North Korea. They need people who will lift their voices and pursue their actions peacefully in order to promote the changes that the Commission of Inquiry recommended. My recommendations and my words to those in HRNK would be to:

Stay the course, continue your efforts, and never give up in your efforts to bring human rights to North Korea. Be absolutely sure that in the end, human rights will come to North Korea. We humans are genetically programmed to search for rationality and to love one another and because of that fact, we will ultimately see an end to the oppression of human rights in North Korea. When that happens, HRNK will have an honored place in those who have worked for human rights for the people of North Korea.


Edited by Rosa Park, HRNK Director of Programs and Editor

Original transcription by Caitlin Lenzner-White, HRNK Research Intern

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Categories: China, committeehrnk, crimes against humanity, DPRK, Germany, Holocaust, HRNK, hrnkus, humanrights, NK, NKgulag, North Korea, NorthKorea, Torture, UNCOI, UNHRC

An HRNK Interview with Robert Collins, Author of "Pyongyang Republic: North Korea's Capital of Human Rights Denial"

Please click here to view the video. 

Q1: What was your motivation to be a leader on North Korean human rights?

Robert Collins: When I decided to retire from the army six years ago, I felt that my knowledge could be useful in writing materials that would contribute to an overall understanding of how North Korea makes its decision and to how they carry out their policies. And so, since retirement, I’ve just continued with what the army taught me to do over those decades at the end of the 20th century and doing it unilaterally. And now I’m doing it in support of HRNK.

Q2: What do you think is the relationship between human rights issues and security concerns for the U.S. – R.O.K. relationship regarding North Korea?

Robert Collins: The deplorable human rights condition of North Korea has a direct impact on their military. They have a million man army that can’t be composed of everybody in the country that is on the positive side of the political classification system—songbun. Many, if not close to half, are recruits—those that receive a denial of human rights through their entire life because they have been classified, socially and politically, as enemies of the state. Therefore, they have grown up with inadequate food, poor education, poor housing, and the opportunities that they receive in the military are very, very limited. Those in the lower songbun classifications can’t become officers. The few that do can’t go past the company grade. And even up until a few years ago, many of the individuals in the North Korean military that were regarded as low songbun—low trust on the political scale—weren’t even allowed to carry weapons because they didn’t trust them.

Q3: What is most striking to you about the structure of the Kim Regime?

Robert Collins: The Organization Guidance Department (OGD) of the Korean Workers Party is the party within the party. It is the center of power, the center of regime governing administration that compels everybody in North Korea to follow supreme leaderism and to follow supreme leader guidance. Every leader is evaluated for their ability to do that and that evaluation comes from the Organization Guidance Department or the OGD. So, it is this organization that compels the regime and the population to carry out all regime orders. For NGOs, when and if they ever have an opportunity to enter North Korea and try to help the North Korean population, they must understand that the front people they are talking to are controlled by the OGD.

Q4: How difficult is it for North Korean defectors to resettle in South Korea?

Robert Collins: The problem is that the two countries have developed a different understanding of societal norms. And so, when North Koreans come to the South, they have a problem adjusting. It’s a severe problem and the South Korean leadership is well aware of it.

Q5: Do you believe that the closure of the Kaesong Industrial Complex will impact human rights policy for North Koreans?

Robert Collins: The closure of the Kaesong Industrial Complex leaves a lot people without a job in North Korea. Tens of thousands of people were employed in that complex so quality of living is going to be severely decreased for those individuals. At the time, that’s not President Pak’s responsibility. Her population is her responsibility. So the issue would be not so much human rights, but overall quality of life is going to deteriorate and there will be no improvement of human rights to try and make that improvement in their quality of life happen in the Kim regime.

Q6: What do you believe is the most compelling human rights issue elucidated from your interviews with North Korean defectors?

Robert Collins: Well, when you do a number of these interviews, you quickly learn that life in North Korea is very, very difficult and much of it is based in sorrow. And during these interviews, it’s compelling to watch the sorrow come out of their life story about how they got from what kind of lives they led in North Korea, how they escaped, and how they came to South Korea. These are very compelling and a lot of sorrow and unhappiness that is related to malnourishment, starving to death of family members, basic denial of human rights, and not even understanding that some of those human rights are denied. And so, over the years, one can see that these stories become even more and more sorrowful or even more and more compelling and sad. That drives one to believe that situations are just getting worse in North Korea for individuals—for populations in North Korea. The quality of life continues to deteriorate in North Korea for those that live in the provinces, particularly those in the northeast.

Q7: Do you see a time when the Kim Regime’s policy of human rights denial is no longer sustainable?

Robert Collins: Yes, as a matter of fact I do. That time would be the fall of the Kim regime. Until that time, the Kim regime will continue to carry out its aggressive policies towards the United States and the Republic of Korea, and at the same time, carry out the human rights denial for the North Korean population. Those go hand in hand. He’s got to—in his mind with the concept of Suryong-jui or supreme leaderism—compel the population to support him personally in not only the survival of the regime, but also in policies that are relevant to peninsula security issues, R.O.K.-U.S. relations, North Korea-U.S. relations, and North-South relations.


Edited by Rosa Park, Director of Programs and Editor

Original transcription by Liz Cheek, HRNK Research Intern

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Categories: committeehrnk, crimes against humanity, defector, dictatorship, DPRK, HRNK, hrnkus, humanrights, Kaesong, KIC, KimJongUn, military, NK, OGD, RobertCollins, southkorea

The Korea Society Featuring HRNK Executive Director Greg Scarlatoiu

The Korea Society
"North Korean Human Rights: Two Years beyond the COI Report"
February 18, 2016

Stephen Noerper: Welcome to the Korea Society. We’re delighted to have you here this afternoon on a very important anniversary—that of the second year since the release of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry (UNCOI) on Human Rights Abuses in North Korea. This is an area that we know many of you in our studio audience here feel very strongly about and we welcome all of our viewers online as well as those listening via podcast or watching the video. We are delighted to have with us Greg Scarlatoiu, who is the Executive Director of HRNK, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. And we are absolutely delighted to welcome a member of his Board, Ambassador Winston Lord, who is in our audience today as well.

Before we begin in our discussion with Greg, we wanted to offer a few minutes of commentary from Seoul with a frequent guest to the Korea Society, Ambassador Lee Jung-Hoon, who is the South Korean Ambassador for Human Rights. He was unable to join us physically here today, but is very much with us in spirit and wanted to offer a few comments to kick us off. So, this will be about seven minutes of his thoughts on where we are at two years since the release of the UNCOI. Peter? Thank you.

Peter Stuehmke: Welcome Ambassador Lee. What do you make of the COI anniversary and current state of play?

Ambassador Lee Jung-Hoon: February is a very important month because it commemorates the second anniversary of the Commission of Inquiry report, which really stands as a landmark event. It really changed not only the way the international community views the North Korean human rights issues in a comprehensive way, but also, I would say that it really changed how the North Korean regime also deals and handles the human rights issue. It really, I think, was a game changer and it remains so. I think it’s very good that we’re addressing this second anniversary and really looking at so many things that were addressed by the COI report.

What has been done? And what still needs to be done? It is a very important gauge as to where we stand and what we still need to do as we move forward. We all know that crimes against humanity is one of the four major violations of international law. But the United Nations, after one year of very intensive investigation, has concluded that in North Korea, crimes against humanity are being committed and that this is something that needs to be referred by the Security Council to the International Criminal Court (ICC) so that those people who are responsible and who are committing these crimes against humanity ought to be prosecuted. It is on the agenda of the Security Council. It has been discussed in the most recent Security Council as well. So, we still need to get to the ICC, but I believe that the foundations are still there. And I think it is very important for the international community, whether it’s individuals, NGOS, churches, or whoever it may be, to keep raising these issues so that a lot of the points that have been raised by the COI can be followed up with.

Peter Stuehmke: What of the North Korean response?

Ambassador Lee Jung-Hoon: North Korea is responding to this issue as it’s never done so before—even at the Security Council level. For example, Ri Su-yong, who is the North Korean Foreign Minister who never came to the UN General Assembly for 15 years, all of a sudden shows up at the General Assembly and addresses the General Assembly by giving a speech. And he did that again in 2015. So, two years in a row. We see high ranking North Korean diplomats making rounds in Europe, meeting with, for example, the EU head of human rights, Mr. Lambrinidis. We have incidents of North Korea inviting Special Rapporteur Darusman to North Korea on the condition that he help to take out those conditions of referral to the ICC. This is hitting the core of the North Korean leadership because they know that now the international community is watching over them. For three years, the North Korean human rights issue will remain as an agenda item so that at any time it can be discussed. But just the fact that a North Korean human rights issue sits as an agenda item at the Security Council is a source of very significant pressure on North Korea. It's fully aware now that the UN, not only the General Assembly, but also the Security Council and the wide spectrum of the international community are scrutinizing the human rights conditions in North Korea. Increased pressure on North Korea is making North Korean violators of human rights think twice. And I think that’s a very important first step towards actual improvement in the human rights condition.

Peter Stuehmke: What of the new Seoul UN office on human rights?

Ambassador Lee Jung-Hoon: Just the fact that the field office was set up is a very significant development. The most important function of this office, number one, would be to continue to get testimonies and collection of data of human rights violations so that it can be kept as records for future reference. Just in case that, let’s just say, the issue does get referred to the ICC or if there is finally reunification on the Korean peninsula. There have to be measures to deal with what has happened in the past. It also serves the purpose of gathering people as a venue for discussions and trying to come up with better policies: improvement of relations so that we can actually begin to see improvements in human rights conditions in the North; just the advertisement factor; or just keeping the issue on the radar so that there’s a greater amount of media coverage. It’s very important, I think, to keep sending the message that the world is looking out.

Peter Stuehmke: What of new US sanction legislation?

Ambassador Lee Jung-Hoon: Once this Sanctions Enforcement Act of the US is in place, I think that it will just add to the pressure that North Korea will feel because it is about a secondary boycott. So it’s not just North Korean individuals and companies, but whoever else deals with North Korea will also be subject to sanctions.

Peter Stuehmke: And [South] Korea's human rights legislation?

Ambassador Lee Jung-Hoon: We remain hopeful that it will pass in the next general election. If it does, it will only add to, for example, the funding of a lot of the NGOs that do great work to deal with human rights problems.

Peter Stuehmke: And in closing, international efforts?

Ambassador Lee Jung-Hoon: I believe that there has to be a comprehensive global campaign. For example, what we have seen against South Africa’s apartheid system, where there was really a concerted effort made by the international community to really target South Africa to get rid of this system of constitutional segregation. And the sanctions, of course, applied to sports, culture, financial investments, and so on. I believe that it will take that kind of concerted effort by the international community to make a dent.

Peter Stuehmke: Thank you, Ambassador Lee.

Ambassador Lee Jung-Hoon: I hope you continue with this effort and I thank the Korea Society for all that you do. Thank you.

Stephen Noerper: And we really do thank Ambassador Lee for taking the time for that. And I’d like to thank Nikita Desai and Peter Stuehmke, part of our staff, for putting all of that together. Thank all of you for your attention.

Greg, we are honored to have you here. You are both a nationally and internationally recognized expert in this area. Your service with HRNK is remarkable as Executive Director and we’re so very pleased to have you on the stage of the Korea Society. Welcome.

What in this very eloquent and concise summary that Ambassador Lee has shared with us grabbed you the most?

Greg Scarlatoiu: Steve, first and foremost, the honor is all mine. Delighted to be here with you today and delighted that Ambassador Winston Lord is in the audience. Ambassador Lee Jung-Hoon visited all of the key points pertaining to the UNCOI and implementation of the UNCOI recommendations. I was extraordinarily impressed with his remarks about the need for a campaign on par with what was done to do away with South Africa’s apartheid. Many of us may have been under the wrong impression that North Korea was one of the most sanctioned countries in the world. It is not. And the sanctions regime as it stands today only addresses counter-proliferation—efforts to counter the proliferation of North Korean nuclear and missile technology. It has nothing—absolutely nothing—to do with North Korea’s crimes against humanity or egregious human rights violations. Now, HR 757, the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act, will be most likely—surely I would say—signed by President Barack Obama. This is a piece of legislation that factors in human rights concerns. This is going to be a first. This is a very important part of the story if implementation is adequate and if others participate in implementing these sanctions.

A second point that I would like to make is that yes, a campaign on par with what was done to do away with South Africa’s apartheid is important and if we are to see that, we really need the grassroots organizations. The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea does not have that capacity. We are a research organization. Of course, there is an embedded advocacy element in everything that we do since we deal with North Korean human rights, but we need the large international grassroots human rights organizations to engage in a global campaign to end crimes against humanity and bring improvement to the North Korean human rights situation.

Ambassador Lee Jung-Hoon was right on the mark in his comments on accountability and the need for accountability in North Korea. The UN Commission of Inquiry recommended that the North Korean case be referred by the UN Security Council to the International Criminal Court. As Ambassador Lee said, we’ve had good progress in 2014 and 2015. Both the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and the UN General Assembly here in New York City had two very strong resolutions on North Korean human rights, addressing both accountability and the ICC referral. Indeed, the Security Council held two meetings on North Korean human rights. North Korean human rights was placed on the agenda. Just a couple of months ago in December 2015, our own Ambassador to the United Nation, Ambassador Samantha Power, gave, I would say, one of the most powerful speeches ever given by U.S. a government official on North Korean human rights. We begin to understand that North Korean human rights violations and crimes against humanity in North Korea pose a threat to regional and international peace and stability. Yes, we are fully aware that merely including an issue in the agenda of the UN Security Council is a procedural issue that requires 9 out of 15 votes of permanent and nonpermanent members. Now, taking up the issue is a different matter. It becomes a substantive matter subject to a veto by a P5 member (a permanent member): potentially China or even Russia. We are fully aware of that difficulty. However, one has to remember that every time China attempts to block an initiative to address the egregious human rights situation in North Korea, China places itself in a position where it’s aiding and abetting a regime that’s committing crimes against humanity. Moreover, I think we have to remember, Steve, that the North Korean Kim regime has been a master of playing one super power against another: the Soviets against the Chinese during the Cold War and arguably, after the end of the Cold War, possibly the United States against the European Union and China regarding humanitarian assistance and other issues on a smaller scale. The point that I would like to make is that this is not a comfortable position for the Kim regime. The Kim regime cannot be comfortable knowing that China is the only one standing between Kim Jong-un and referral to the International Criminal Court.

In addition to the UN Security Council referral, in his most recent report to the UN Human Rights Council submitted just a few days ago, the UN Special Rapporteur, Mr. Marzuki Darusman, reminded us that the UN General Assembly can also rely on its residual powers to establish a tribunal dealing with crimes against humanity in North Korea. If this is done in response to the Security Council’s incapacity, an inability to address a situation that poses a threat to international peace and security, this would go to the precedent of Resolution 377 uniting for peace, which we all recall in relation to the Korean War.

Speaking of Special Rapporteur Darusman’s report, another point that he makes is that one of the recommendations of the UN Security Council was to establish a panel of experts, which would examine the applicable legal standard—a panel of experts that would prepare the ground for accountability in North Korea. The point that the Special Rapporteur makes in his most recent report is that there is no amnesty for crimes against humanity. Moreover, we cannot prepare overnight. We must be prepared when faced with a contingency—with a situation that most likely will require immediate procedures pertaining to accountability. And thus, once again, the Special Rapporteur has called for the establishment of a panel of experts. An international NGO consortium or several international NGOs are sure to push in this direction. This could be another step that we could see in the near future. And of course, as emphasized by Ambassador Lee Jung-Hoon, one very important recommendation of the UNCOI report was implemented: the establishment of a field office of the Office of the High Commission of Human Rights in Seoul. That office has been there just a few months. They’re already doing an extraordinary job collaborating with NGOs in South Korea and beyond, and also continuing to document human rights violations happening in North Korea.

Stephen Noerper: Thank you, Greg. That’s a very comprehensive and bold overview, and we appreciate your eloquence on that. You’ve given us a lot to work with here and I’m sure a lot will come out in the Q&A as well with those in the studio. I’d like to focus in on a few points and ask you for a bit more. One is this issue of China, where South Korea has put a tremendous amount of effort into its diplomacy and where you do have to ask the question about whether China gets to a point where there are trade-offs and whether its defense of the North Korean regime is really worth it. What are the practicalities of where you see China in terms of opposing further movement on this front? Where do you think there might be flexibility? And how does this relate to the broader security dynamic we see now given the January 6 nuclear test, the February 7 missile test, and the movement for stronger sanctions?

Greg Scarlatoiu: Now certainly, fundamentally, China is opposed at the UN to the so called “country-specific mechanisms”: UN Commissions of Inquiry and UN Special Rapporteurs. It’s not only China. It’s the Russian Federation, Venezuela, and others. Of course, the reason is simple: this establishes a precedent. Some other countries might be next. So, the point that China has made, time and time again, is that it opposes this type of country-specific mechanism, but it’s going beyond that. Of course, we could surely have a discussion about the traditional ties between the DRPK and China. We know that this has not always been a love story. There have been great times in this relationship. There have been terrible times in this relationship and in particular, during the days of the Cultural Revolution in China. China continues to be a fairly pragmatic actor. Its approach to North Korea is that it wants stability on its borders and unfortunately, under the current circumstances, China still believes that the only arrangement that can maintain stability on its border is the Kim Jong-un regime—as terrible as it might be. And I hope that China would see how terrible this regime is and what a liability it is. Secondly, China does not want to see any massive refugee inflows. Thirdly, if China can create a couple of business opportunities in the process, so be it.

Doing business in North Korea, of course, is not easy for China either and I’m speaking of those investors who go there for business reasons, for economic reasons. It’s a tough environment: bad infrastructure; the investment has to be front loaded; once you’ve front loaded it, they take you prisoner; informal taxation is a big problem; and North Korea is highly corrupt. So it’s not easy from China’s viewpoint either. Every time North Korea conducts another provocation—a missile launch or a nuclear detonation—China cannot be too happy to see U.S. B-52s, F-22s conducting nuclear bombing exercises so close to Chinese airspace. So China is not happy with North Korea, but at the same time, China has not reached a point where it’s ready to change its fundamental strategic stance on North Korea.

On human rights in particular, China could be tremendously helpful. This is a point made by the UNCOI. China forcibly repatriates North Korean refugees. Of course, China does not repatriate all North Koreans. There are North Korean workers officially dispatched to China by the North Korean government as part of their moneymaking operations. They work under terrible working conditions. This is pretty much bonded labor or forced labor; many organizations see it as slave labor. I’m speaking about those refugees who try to escape those dire circumstances in North Korea. If apprehended, they are forcibly repatriated to the North. China does this because it claims they are "illegal economic migrants" and not political refugees. It claims that many of them are in China because they are hungry and in search of economic opportunity. Are many of them in China in search of economic opportunity? Possibly, but what matters is that China is a party to the 1951 UN Convention Concerning the Status of Refugees, which stipulates that if a person has crossed an international border and upon repatriation faces a credible fear of persecution based on a political rational, then that person clearly qualifies to gain access to the process leading to acquiring political refugee status. As you know, leaving the country without the government’s approval is a criminal act in North Korea. Those returned to North Korea, in particular if they came across South Korean nationals and in particular if they came across Christian missionaries, are subjected to very aggressive interrogation and if it turns out that they did come across South Koreans or Christian missionaries, the punishment is extraordinarily harsh: imprisonment in the political prison camps or re-education camps and in some instances, even death. We’ve had terrible terrible reports, fully confirmed, of women who became pregnant with Chinese men along the road of defection. They were subjected to forced abortions and we’ve had reports of infanticide.

"...what matters is that China is a party to the 1951 UN Convention Concerning the Status of Refugees, which stipulates that if a person has crossed an international border and upon repatriation faces a credible fear of persecution based on a political rational, then that person clearly qualifies to gain access to the process leading to acquiring political refugee status."

So once again, there is a very simple step that China can take by protecting these refugees: allowing them access to the process leading to acquiring political refugee status. If China is afraid of increased numbers of ethnic Koreans in its border areas, the best way to ensure that they leave is to allow them access to this process because if they can approach the High Commission for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross, they won’t stay. They’ll leave. Probably, China’s fear here is a process similar to the “European Picnic” of 1989, when the Hungarians opened their border to East Germany and East Germans were flowing out of West Germany and this is what eventually brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall. Possibly, China might see this as opening the door to a process similar to what happened in Europe in 1989. Thus, bringing about the collapse of the Kim regime in North Korea.

Stephen Noerper: It seems, Greg, there have been two things in recent memory that have elicited a strong response from the North Koreans. One has been the restrictions around Banco Delta Asia and the other has been this and the frequent mention of ICC referral. The regime seems to be taking it very strongly and very personally. Do you have any sense or any intelligence that the behavior of the regime has at all altered in the last two years? Or that there has been any movement within North Korea relative to the camps? Has there been any easing of the gulags as far as you and the community are aware?

Greg Scarlatoiu: Unfortunately, as far as we are aware, there hasn’t been an easing on the gulags. What we have seen is a transformation of the gulag that may be related to international efforts to focus attention on North Korea’s political prison camps. As you know, there are at least four fully functional political prison camps in North Korea where anywhere between 80,000 and 120,000 people are imprisoned. A couple of years ago, one of the camps, located close to the border with China, Camp No. 22 in Hoeryong North Hamgyong Province, was shut down. It ceased to function as a political prison camp. Why? We can speculate that this happened because of international efforts to focus attention on North Korea’s gulag and also because it was so close to the border with China. It was bad PR. There were Chinese businesses in the area. There were Chinese tourists visiting the area. And also, the last thing North Korea wants is another escapee from a political prison camp managing to cross the border into China to tell his or her story about the horrors witnessed in the prison camps: the forced labor, the induced malnutrition, the torture, the rapes, the public executions, and the secret executions happening at the camps.

Most unfortunately, what we also know is that a few thousand inmates, a few thousand prisoners, went unaccounted for. We had reports from sources inside the country that they were put on trains and taken away in the middle of the night. We had reports that many of them were starved to death. They simply went unaccounted for. What we know is that other detention facilities—and this is based on satellite imagery research that we’re conducting corroborated with testimony by witnesses, former prisoners, former guards, former officials in charge of running the camps—have expanded. For example, Camp No. 25 in Chongjin, North Hamgyong province expanded pretty much twofold. These are reports by our organization, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, in collaboration with AllSource Analysis in Colorado; this is a satellite imagery company. Amnesty International and others also focused attention on Camp No. 14, for example. That facility has also expanded. It has actually expanded into the adjacent village. So, we have seen a transformation of the political prison camp system in North Korea. It may be in response to international efforts to address North Korea’s human rights situation.

Unfortunately, as pointed out in the UNCOI report itself, the Kim regime still sees these human rights violations as part of its modus operandi. These are not unfortunate side effects. These are at the very core of how the Kim regime operates.

Stephen Noerper: I know tomorrow in Washington you’re participating in a larger event. I was wondering if you could say a few words about that. And also, tell us here and to those viewing and listening, within the field, who do you consider to be the most effective actors right now? And I’m thinking primarily of suggestions in terms of the NGO world. How are they helping to move the agenda along?

Greg Scarlatoiu: Tomorrow we’ll be having an event in Washington DC hosted by CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, our second anniversary of observation of the UNCOI report. It’s a large conference and very well attended. We still have room for more attendees I hope. Basically, this is a collaborative effort. It’s us, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea; CSIS; the National Endowment for Democracy; our good and dear friend Ambassador Lee Jung-Hoon and the Human Liberty Center at Yonsei University; and the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas, Texas. This event will feature experts; witnesses; Justice Michael Kirby, the former Chief Commissioner of the UNCOI; and Mrs. Sonja Berserko, another member of the UNCOI. Unfortunately, Mr. Darusman will be unable to join us this time. He was there last year. So this conference will not only focus on the celebration of the UNCOI, but we will also discuss all of these key issues, which are part of the process of moving forward. Anything from the panel of experts to possible future efforts at the General Assembly and to the “rights up front” approach put forth by the UN Commission of Inquiry as a recommendation to those UN agencies involved on the ground in humanitarian operations in North Korea.

This main conference will be followed by our first ever celebration of the memory and legacy of one of our founding board members, Dr. Fred Iklé, who is well known for having been a great American who kept America safe and developed the nuclear deterrence strategy during the years of the Reagan administration in particular. We remember Dr. Iklé as one of the founding board members of our organization and as a board member who was extraordinarily dedicated to North Korean human rights. The stars aligned and our first keynote speaker at the Fred Iklé Lecture is going to be none other than Justice Michael Kirby. This will also happen at CSIS from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. tomorrow in Washington, DC.

Stephen Noerper: And that’s open to the public?

Greg Scarlatoiu: That is also open to the public.

Stephen Noerper: And so, other than HRNK, other bright lights in the NGO community and other people and organizations we should be paying attention to?

Greg Scarlatoiu: There are different organizations playing critical roles. What HRNK does, primarily, is to investigate and to publish on the North Korean human rights situation based on interviews with witnesses, based on satellite imagery, based on interviews with experts, and based on work out in the field. This is a very important role because this is what those engaged in advocacy need in order to move forward with their advocacy. Of course, there is an advocacy element embedded in what we do because, after all, what we deal with is North Korean human rights. But there are organizations tasked exclusively with advocacy. Their role is extraordinarily important. These are organizations that brought us the UNCOI. This was an effort, I want to say, spurred by NGOs. NGOs were also involved in efforts to push for the passage of HR 757 here in the United States, the North Korea Sanction Enforcement Act. NGOs have been fully engaged in efforts to persuade the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea to pass the North Korean Human Rights Act. This has been going on for more than 10 years now as Ambassador Lee Jung-Hoon said. All we can do is hope to see this act pass.

There are NGOs that have performed, I would say, the most important role of all. These are the NGOs that have been engaged in rescuing North Korean refugees or North Korean escapees. Remember that prior to the great famine that decimated North Koreans in the mid- to late-1990s, we had just seen a handful of refugees or a handful of defectors in South Korea. The numbers have increased sharply during and after the famine, and there are now 29,000 North Koreans, or former North Koreans, living in South Korea. Without their testimony and without their courage, we would not have had the UNCOI, we wouldn’t be seeing all of these efforts going on at the UN and elsewhere. I would say that organizations tasked with rescuing, protecting North Korean refugees, and enabling them to adapt to their new life—in South Korea, in Europe, in the United States, or Canada—perform an extraordinarily important role. And I would also say that NGOs that endeavor to provide training to former North Koreans—in particular, to young former North Koreans in their teens, twenties, and thirties—perform an extremely important role. I’m not trying to say that they should all become political leaders of a reunified Korea, but they need all the help they can get to become leaders and experts in their chosen areas of expertise. This is a mosaic of organizations performing very important roles that are complementary, I want to say, at the end of the day.

Stephen Noerper: Very important. Thank you. And before I turn to the audience, let me just ask quickly if you can say a few words about your work with Radio Free Asia in that I know that support for broadcast into North Korea has been one of the primary emphases both with the new legislation and in terms of some of the debate on how to move things forward.

Greg Scarlatoiu: I want to say that my work with Radio Free Asia is a labor of love just like my work with HRNK. I have had a weekly Korean language column for the past 13 years since 2003. Initially, I was building on my own personal experiences as one who was born and raised in Nicolae Ceausescu’s Romania, and this was the one country most similar to Kim Il-Sung’s North Korea, as you recall, and also as one who had lived for 10 years on a divided Korean peninsula while living, studying, and working in South Korea. I think that broadcasting is extraordinarily important. What we all want to see on the Korean peninsula is change. And change in North Korea can only come from the people of North Korea themselves. What we can do in order to enable them to see that there are alternatives to the current political arrangement in North Korea is to tell them three basic stories.

First and foremost, to tell them the story of their own human rights situation. They don’t know it. They don’t understand it living under such an oppressive regime. Religious freedom and freedom of speech and association have all been embedded in the constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, but North Koreans never read their own constitution. That’s the story we need to tell them. We need to tell them about international obligations North Korea has assumed by being a UN member state and thus, bound by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by being a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic and Social and Cultural Rights; the Convention of Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; and the International Convention of Rights of a Child.

Secondly we must tell them the story of the corruption of their leadership, in particular, the corruption of the Kim family regime.

Thirdly, we need to continue to tell them the story of the outside world, in particular, the story of South Korea, which is, as we all know, a miraculous success story. Once one of the poorest countries in the world just a few decades ago, [South Korea is] now the world’s 12th largest economy and moreover, a liberal democracy that’s a model for others in the region and beyond. Yes, a noisy liberal democracy, but that’s how we like liberal democracies—noisy. It’s very important to keep telling these stories to North Koreans and what we know based on surveys conducted by InterMedia and other companies tasked to monitor radio broadcasts into North Korea, former North Koreans interviewed state that about one third of them did listen to foreign broadcasting while they were in North Korea. South Korean broadcasting is also classified as foreign broadcasting. So here we’re talking Radio Free Asia, Voice of America, stations based in South Korea staffed with North Korean defectors, Kookmin TV (Korea TV), KBS, and so on and so forth. So, some North Koreans are listening, but probably not one third of all North Koreans. After all, these were the North Koreans who actively sought out information from the outside world. These are the North Koreans who had the courage to escape. But, nevertheless, we’ve seen the percentage of those who state that they listened to foreign broadcasting on the increase. We have to remember that there are new media storage devices. We know that USBs, DVDs, memory chips—in particular, memory chips and USBs—are very popular in North Korea today. We know that some North Koreans are familiar with the Hallyu (with the South Korean wave), the South Korean pop culture, and soap operas. Extraordinarily important.

Stephen Noerper: Greg, thank you for this very rich hour. Before we close, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share a few thoughts on Ambassador Steven Bosworth, who passed away earlier in January. Those of you who have been with us for programs over January and February know that we have tried to make frequent mention of Ambassador Bosworth’s very deep commitment to and effort for Korea-U.S. relations. We have on our website on koreasociety.org a tribute to Ambassador Bosworth. But I know that he was a mentor and friend to you, and was wondering if you would offer a few thoughts on his guidance and contributions in your life.

Greg Scarlatoiu: Ambassador Bosworth will always be remembered as an extraordinary diplomat. To us, those who graduated from the Fletcher School, he will always be remembered as the Dean who brought the Fletcher School into the 21st century. This has always been an extraordinary school, but he has added new programs, he has brought a true sense of strategic vision, I would say into the next century as well. For that we are all grateful to him. Personally, I am extraordinarily grateful to Stephen Bosworth. It so happened that we arrived at Fletcher at about the same time—both of us from Korea. I also happened to sit on the student council and I got to meet him regularly, at least a couple times a week, and work with him very closely. He was extraordinarily supportive. He was a friend; he was a mentor; he was a role model; and his personal support went to the extent that years after my graduation from Fletcher as I was applying for a position, he picked up the phone and called my employer to provide a recommendation that was tremendously helpful. I will dearly miss Stephen Bosworth. I was deeply saddened to hear the news of his passing. And I think that the best way for all of us to honor the extraordinary legacy of Steven Bosworth is to continue performing our mission. In our case, addressing this extraordinarily difficult situation in North Korea. I’m certain that Stephen Bosworth would be extraordinarily happy to see all of us here today. And what you have done here today, Steve, is an extraordinary way of honoring the legacy of Stephen Bosworth.

Stephen Noerper: Well, thank you very much. Please join me in thanking Greg for his keen insights. We do hope that you join us at koreasociety.org to become a member or to find out about future events. We would also note that this is our twelfth program on North Korean human rights leading up to and since the UN COI, so please feel free to consult and share any of those programs, which are available online, free of charge, in both audio and video form. And we would welcome you back next Thursday for a very interesting discussion on political forecasting: Korea and regional relations that will feature Ralph Casa, the President of Pacific Forums CSIS; Victor Cha who is the Korea Chair at CSIS and Korea Foundation Professor at Georgetown University—Victor will be hosting you tomorrow in Washington; and Scott Snyder of the Council on Foreign Relations. And so, really, three of our nation’s top analysts on political and security issues. Again, 12:30 next Thursday and we look forward to seeing you then. Thank you again for your attention today. Thank you, Ambassador Lord, for sharing your time with us and we’re delighted to have you here.

Greg Scarlatoiu: Thank you.


Edited by Rosa Park, HRNK Director of Programs and Editor

Original transcription by Liz Cheek, HRNK Research Intern

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Categories: China, committeehrnk, crimes against humanity, HRNK, hrnkus, humanrights, KimJongUn, KoreaSociety, NGO, NKgulag, Sanctions, southkorea, SpecialRapporteur, UN, UNCOI, UNGA, UNHRC

An Interview with HRNK Report Author David Hawk

HRNK Hidden Gulag series report author David Hawk discussing North Korea’s prison camps with HRNK.

© 2015 Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

On August 24, 2015, HRNK Director of Programs Rosa Park and Outreach Coordinator Raymond Ha traveled to David Hawk’s home in New Jersey to interview the author on his upcoming report for HRNK, The Hidden Gulag IV: Gender Repression and Prisoner Disappearances. This report, along with North Korea: Imagery Analysis of Camp 15 “Yodŏk” –Closure of the “Revolutionizing Zone”by AllSource Analysis and HRNK, was launched on September 18, 2015 at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

Interviewer: How did the first Hidden Gulag come about?

David Hawk: Well, when the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea was first formed, it was known generally but vaguely that there were prison camps of some sort or another in North Korea, and they hired me to go to South Korea at a time when there were 3,000 refugees or defectors from North Korea who had gone to China and come around to South Korea via Mongolia or via Southeast Asia. Among the 3,000 refugees or defectors, there were several score who had been imprisoned while they were still in North Korea. So, I was hired to go to Seoul and interview them and prepare a report on political prison camps in North Korea.

The Committee [for Human Rights in North Korea] had decided that rather than hire a Korea specialist or a Korean speaking scholar, they wanted someone with a broad background in human rights and a broader background in phenomena of repression in a variety of countries and political situations. Since I had previously worked on documenting the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia and the massacres in Rwanda, I had experience with documenting worst case violations. So, they asked me if I would be interested in undertaking a study, and I was very much interested because when I was Executive Director and then on the board of Amnesty [International] and on the board of directors of Human Rights Watch Asia in the 70s and 80s, we both at Amnesty and Human Rights Watch did a lot of work on South Korea at a time when South Korean students and workers and pastors and journalists were very actively engaged in protesting the military dictatorship. While we were doing that work in the late 70s and 1980s, we were aware that it was probably much worse in North Korea than it was in South Korea in terms of human rights violations, but there was no information or the possibility to get information on North Korea in those decades.

So, when they told me that there were several dozen former North Koreans who had been in various prison situations in North Korea, I thought this would be a very interesting challenge and opportunity to fill in that gap in our knowledge of repression around the world. That is, if you go back and look at the annual reports of Amnesty International or the annual reports of Human Rights Watch when that NGO was started, and you look in the annual reports for the entries on North Korea, mostly what you see is a paragraph saying, “We don’t have any information.” Yet, you’d have pages and pages on human rights violations in South Korea because we were able to get the name, information, and circumstances of pretty nearly every student, pastor, or worker who was arrested protesting the military dictatorship. So I thought this would be a unique challenge and an opportunity to fill in that gap in our knowledge of repression around the world.

Interviewer: You are now on the fourth edition of The Hidden Gulag. What got you interested in the topic of North Korean political prison camps?

Hawk: Well, it was known, vaguely, generally, that there were prison camps of one sort or another in North Korea. This was known primarily by the Korea scholars who had looked at the purges of the Workers’ Party, the army, and the general populace in the late 1960s and 70s. But it was a consensus, a global consensus, that these sorts of concentration camps, labor camps, political prison camps, were a phenomena associated with the totalitarian regimes of fascism and communism that were supposed to have gone from the scene at the end of WWII or following the death of Stalin. So, the idea that there were ongoing political prison camps or concentration camps or forced labor camps, as they are variously called, was something that struck the members of the committee as something that should not be existing in the 21st century, as this was part of the awful residue of the 20th century.

Well, it was initially the members of the Board of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea that selected the topic, and the reason they were interested was that it was widely thought that concentration camps, forced labor camps, and political prison camps were a phenomena that were associated with the terrible human destructions in the 20th century with European fascism or Soviet communism. It was known vaguely and generally that there were prison camps of some sort in North Korea because the Korea scholars had tried to document Kim Il-sung’s purge of the party, the army, the government, and the general populace of Korea. There was a consensus certainly in human rights and much broader circles that these kind of gross human rights violations are something that should have passed from the scene at the end of WWII, certainly by the end of the 20th century.

Interviewer: How has The Hidden Gulag research methodology changed over the years?

Hawk: The biggest change in research methodology was the availability of Google Earth. For the first edition of The Hidden Gulag, what we did was obtain very detailed maps of North Korea basically dating to the 1950s. These were maps of North Korea by the U.S. Army that were by this point unclassified; they were very detailed and had degrees of latitude and longitude. These were very large maps; we’d roll them up and send them in mailers to our colleagues in Seoul, who would bring the former North Korean prisoners to their offices, and they’d look at the map, try to find the prison camp on the map, plot the coordinates, and we then would call up one of two commercial satellite photograph companies and see if they had any footage available for those coordinates. We’d then print out the footage—these were about 2 feet wide and 12 feet long— and we’d roll up those, send them to our colleagues in Seoul, who would again call the former political prisoners to their offices, and they’d then pore over for hours the satellite images of the camps. They were quite surprised because they could find their houses and their work units and other landmarks in the prison camps and identify them. 

We then used computers to input their identification onto the satellite photographs. It was a bit of a hit or miss process in that sometimes they picked the coordinates of the nearest town and they could recognize the road, but the prison camp itself was a little further away. So we’d get another set of coordinates and call back the satellite companies to see if they had in their storage discs any satellite imagery for the new coordinates, send the new coordinates, and mail them back over to Seoul. This was a very arduous process. It took an extra six months to do this process of getting the satellite imagery.

The author at home in New Jersey looking at satellite imagery provided by AllSource Analysis.

© 2015 Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

The satellite imagery was enormously important because it backed up the prisoners’ testimony about places that the regime denies exists. Of course, the regime won’t allow the ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] to have access to any of these facilities; nobody gets to see these places. It was very important to have the satellite images. After Google Earth came online, it became very, very easy. In fact, the Korean language version of Google Earth is very good and very precise. If you take the English language version and type in a romanized Korean name, you don’t get very much. But if you’re working off the Korean language Hangul script in Google Earth, and you type that in, it just zooms right to it. It’s now very, very easy for North Koreans to go online and look at their hometowns and places they visited, and, in this case, the prison camps where they were detained and subjected to forced labor.

The reason that it is important to do periodic updates is because we’re in the odd situation of only being able to find out about human rights violations in North Korea between two and five years after the violations occur. So we’re constantly playing catch up, as it were. What has to happen in terms of arbitrary detention, political imprisonment, and forced labor is that you have to wait until after the prisoner is released or, in a couple of cases, escapes, and then spends several months or even several years inside North Korea plotting the escape to China. The refugees in China spend months or several years getting enough money, making enough connections for the journey from Northeast China through Mongolia, or down through south China and Southeast Asia to get to Seoul. It’s not until the former prisoners get to Seoul that they’re really accessible to foreign journalists, or particularly Western journalists, scholars, or human rights investigators.

Because North Korea doesn’t allow North Korean citizens to make international phone calls or to have access to the Internet, there is a two to five year time lag between the time when violations occur in North Korea and when the outside world can find out about it. The prisoners have to be released, and they spend several months, possibly several years, in North Korea organizing their defection, their escape to China. Most of the North Korean refugees in China need to spend months, or even several years in China obtaining the funds and making the connections necessary for the onward journey from Northeast Asia down to south China and then through Southeast Asia or sometimes through Beijing and then Mongolia. It is not until these former victims of human rights violations reach South Korea that they’re available to Western journalists or scholars or human rights investigators. This process can take two to five years, so we’re in a constant catch-up game trying to find out recent developments. Recent developments aren’t like in the rest of the world where recent developments are something that happened yesterday or ten minutes ago that just was put on YouTube or over the Internet. There is this long delay, and up to now, there was no way around that, really.

Interviewer: What is the most interesting thing you found while interviewing these three women?

Hawk: Actually, I interviewed seven or eight women, but three from this particular kyo-hwa-so prison where they just built a new wing of the prison to accommodate the increasing number of women prisoners. Jongo-ri Kyo-hwa-so is written up in the first and second editions of The Hidden Gulag when it was a men’s prison. But we learned that, six years ago or so, the authorities constructed a new area of the prison to accommodate around 1,000 women prisoners. I interviewed three women prisoners from the Kyo-hwa-so Number 12. 

Google Earth and © 2015 DigitalGlobe image of Kyo-hwa-so No. 12 Jongo-ri, 6/29/2015

© 2015 Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

What was most interesting was the senselessness and the perniciousness of punishing these women for having gone to China in search of food because of the chronic food shortage, particularly in the northeast provinces of North Korea, or for employment so they can get the money so that their families back in North Korea can buy food in the markets. It’s actually one of the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that people have the right to leave and return to their country of origin. This right is also included in the international law forum–the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights extends the right to leave and return to one’s country of origin. But North Korea makes that a crime. Previously, tens of thousands fled at the height of the famine in North Korea. 

Currently, large numbers of North Korean women who, because of the food shortage and because there is no work in North Korea, go to China and work in service industries of various kinds. They are treated as illegal immigrants once in China. The Chinese police catch them and repatriate them to North Korea where they are punished, severely in many cases, for having left their country of origin in search of food or money to buy food. Those North Koreans who are repatriated and investigated by the North Korean police after they are repatriated, if the North Korean authorities believe there was the intent to defect to South Korea, then those forcibly repatriated North Koreans are sent to the kwan-li-so political prison camps. There are tens of thousands of North Korean women who were in China not with the intent to flee to South Korea but to get food or to find a job. Because of the harshness of the punishment, it sets up a terrible situation for these North Korean women in China. There is a separate report on this: Lives for Sale by the Committee [for Human Rights in North Korea] which came out several years ago. 

This process is also detailed in the 2nd edition of The Hidden Gulag that discusses where the North Korean refugees in China are repatriated from and the different kinds of punishments that are meted out to them. But the fact that the punishment is so severe sets up a terrible situation where North Korean women in China are subjected to trafficking and a lot of other violations and very difficult situations. This happens because of the senseless punishment of the North Korean women who have gone to China in search of food or employment. So, the most interesting thing about the three women from Jongo-ri Kyo-hwa-so was the senselessness of their imprisonment and their severe punishment under very brutal conditions and the perniciousness of the risks that this exposes North Korean women to in China. It’s senseless and it is pernicious. 

They were using prison labor to make wigs and eyelashes that were probably being sold in China or shipped somewhere else. 

The other interesting thing about the women’s section at Jongo-ri Prison was that in addition to the normal forced labor, which is mostly agricultural production or mining or timber cutting, at Jongo-ri there was a work unit to make wigs and one to make eyelashes. The prison was getting boxes of hair that were sent from Pyongyang, but the prisoners believe that the hair was being collected in China, and the women prisoners would sort the hair into color and length, thread the hair into needles, sew the hairs into the fabric that was going to go next to the head, and then the wigs would be returned and sent somewhere else for finishing. They were using prison labor to make wigs and eyelashes that were probably being sold in China or shipped somewhere else. I hadn’t encountered that kind of forced labor for those purposes. There was another women’s prison in Kaechon where there were textile units that made clothing for sale abroad, but I hadn’t encountered the forced labor for wig making or eyelash production previously. I found the women’s testimony about the production techniques for making wigs in a terrible North Korean prison interesting to hear about.

Interviewer: Why should we, as the American public, care about these political prison camps halfway around the world? Why should we keep track of ongoing changes?

These are not your run-of-the-mill prisons. 

People are being persecuted and subjected to forced labor under extremely brutal conditions for having exercised their rights. 

They are being detained arbitrarily, and their detention constitutes crimes against humanity. 

Hawk: The severe violations that are the phenomena of repression associated with these prisons, prison camps, forced labor in North Korea are gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, and they are what are considered to be worst-case violations, which are really atrocities and are recognized in international law as atrocities, as crimes against humanity. These are not your run-of-the-mill prisons. People are being persecuted and subjected to forced labor under extremely brutal conditions for having exercised their rights. They are being detained arbitrarily, and their detention constitutes crimes against humanity. The same reason that international public opinion as a whole should care about the crimes against humanity in North Korea is for the same reason that people care about genocides in Cambodia or Rwanda, or the anarchy, the dreadful situation in eastern Congo. These are worst-case violations, they shouldn’t be occurring in the 21st century. The only recourse available is to try to mobilize international public opinion and the governments of other nation-states around the world to try to put pressure or try to persuade the North Korean authorities that it has to improve the human rights situation in North Korea.

Interviewer: On that note, why should the international community be concerned about the North Korean political prison camps and the ongoing changes?

Hawk: As I mentioned before, there is a two to five year delay from the time violations are committed until the outside world can find out about it. We know that there are enormous changes going on in North Korea from the bottom up, primarily with the creation of markets, which the regime in the 1990s and first decade of the 20th century tried very hard to suppress but did not succeed in suppressing. Now, the real life situation of most North Koreans is very different from what it was a decade ago because they now get their food and their clothing not through the Public Distribution System or from factories or mines that aren’t working but from markets. We know that there are changes. We also know that information from the outside world is increasingly seeping into North Korea in the form of video, radio broadcasts, and on DVDs and thumb drives, so we want to try, even though there is a time delay between when the violations are committed and we find out about it, we still want to see what these developments are, and particularly, hopefully, if there are some improvements. 

I have, it’s only a general sense, but I believe there are less public executions going on in North Korea than was the case in the 1990s and the early part of the 21st century. I believe that the number of public executions has gone down. It is my sense also that there are fewer North Koreans who are being imprisoned for the political offenses of their parents or their grandparents. It is a very unusual phenomena of oppression that was unique to North Korea, although it was practiced during the Chosun dynasty in the 18th and 19th centuries. We hear fewer reports of people being imprisoned and subjected to forced labor for the political offenses, real or imagined, of their grandparents. Since the North Korean authorities won’t allow human rights investigators or the Red Cross or NGOs like Amnesty or Human Rights Watch to go in and make on-site confirmations of either the claims of the government or the testimony of the refugees, we need to as best we can keep track of the most recent developments, even if the most recent developments are two to five years previous.

Interviewer: You include a list of 121 missing people in your report. How do you recommend that we find these missing people?

Hawk: Well, let me first explain what the missing people are and how we come by their names. The report that the Committee [for Human Rights in North Korea] put out a year and a half ago talked about the dismantlement of Camp 18 and the closure of Camp 22. When Camp 22 closed, the prisoners at night were trucked to a train station in Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province. The trains departed going south. We don’t know what happened to those people. There are sketchy reports that they were transferred to Camp 16 or Camp 14 when they closed Camp 22, but the satellite imagery of Camp 14 or 16 doesn’t show the expansion of those camps sufficient to accommodate the former prisoners of Camp 22. But in the case of Camp 22, we don’t have the names of individual prisoners. Our information about Camp 22 came from former guards who defected to South Korea, who told us, “We have no names of the prisoners who were in the past imprisoned in Camp 22.” 

Another one of the kwan-li-so prison camps is called Camp 15, or it’s called Yodok Camp, after the name of a local town. Camp 15 was unique in that it had portions of the prison camp that they called “total control zones,” where the prisoners were held for life. They were brought in as children or grandchildren of political offenders, or as the presumed or real political offenders themselves, and would spend the rest of their lives, as short or long as they were, in forced labor. But in addition to these total control zones, there were what the North Koreans called “revolutionizing zones,” where people who were not deemed implacable “counter-revolutionaries” were sent for a period of three to ten years of forced labor, after which they were potentially eligible for release back into North Korean society. These revolutionizing zones are sometimes called “re-education camps.” I don’t like that terminology because they’re essentially not receiving education. It’s forced labor; they are being brutally punished. Even in the re-revolutionizing zones, many prisoners die from malnutrition. There are executions. There is torture. There is nothing going on in these revolutionizing areas of Camp 15 that merit the term “educational.”

The North Korean technical term is “revolutionizing zone,” and what’s unique about this particular revolutionizing zone called Sorimchon is that one of the prisoners who was released after three years had a photographic memory. When he was first imprisoned for being forcibly repatriated from China, he was assigned to an agricultural production unit. But then he was reassigned to assist in the administration and record keeping of the Sorimchon revolutionizing section of Camp 15. As part of his work in the record keeping section, he got to see the records of prisoners, and he got to meet a lot of them in discussing their individual work assignments with them and their production experiences. This particular prisoner had a photographic memory, so when he was released and later escaped to South Korea, he, with South Korean activists, sat down and made a list of 181 former prisoners. Of those 181, some were released, a number were executed, and quite a number died of starvation and malnutrition while in the labor camp. 

Of the 181, there are 121 whose whereabouts are unknown. We know that they were imprisoned, and it is really unusual to have the names and biographical information, the prior occupation, the age, of these prisoners. Of the 181, the status of 121 are unknown. Some of them could have been released, some of them could have died in detention, some of them could been moved to the lifetime imprisonment total control zones within Camp 15. We don’t know the fate or the whereabouts of the 121 former North Korean prisoners. That is highly unusual that we have the names of any of them at all. 

In a sense, these North Korean political prisoners have doubly disappeared. They were sent to Camp 15 without any trial or judicial process or sentencing or charges. They were not imprisoned according to the DPRK Criminal Code and criminal procedure provisions. They were just abducted by the political state security police and deported to the camps. They are held in incommunicado detention. Their families or their friends or former work colleagues are provided no information about what happened to these people after they were deported to Camp 15. The technical human rights term is “enforced disappearances.” These people were grabbed by police operating on the authority of the state and simply deported or deposited in the camps, and their fates and whereabouts are unknown. That was their first forcible disappearance. Then [based on] what we saw in recent satellite imagery about actually a year ago on Google Earth, it became apparent that the prisoner residence units in the Sorimchon section of Camp 15 and the animal, it was agricultural production and animal husbandry, but the pens for the animals, the warehouses for agricultural implements, and machinery were destroyed and demolished, as were all of the prisoner housing units. The Sorimchon section of Camp 15 does not exist anymore, and so we don’t know what happened to the former prisoners from the Sorimchon section of Camp 15. But in this case we have their names and some of the personal identification about these 181, including these 121 doubly disappeared North Korean prisoners.

Interviewer: How can we hold the North Korean regime responsible for the 121 missing people included in the report?

Hawk: We actually want to hold them responsible and accountable for a lot more than the 121; it’s just that in this case, we have their names. It is a well established principle of contemporary international law that those who commit atrocities should be held accountable and should be asked to account for the violations of human rights that are so severe that they are considered to be atrocity crimes. That has do be done primarily through the efforts of other UN Member States. It’s at this point only other governments that can demand from North Korea that North Korea hold accountable those who are responsible. There are institutions and mechanisms for doing this that, as of December of last year, are employed. An overwhelming majority of Member States in the [UN] General Assembly passed a resolution requesting the UN Security Council to refer the North Korean human rights situation to the International Criminal Court for its investigation and its prosecution of those who are responsible. It’s the Member States of the UN that have to continue to pressure North Korea to improve its human rights situation and to cease these criminal violations and to bring those who are accountable to justice. We are a long way from that happening, but it’s only since the international community took these measures in 2014 to raise the issue of accountability and obtain an account of these dreadful ongoing violations that the North Korean regime has responded at all to the concerns of the international community. 

Prior to this, there had been a decade of resolutions at the UN Human Rights Council. There had been a decade of reports by the Special Rapporteur. There had been a decade of resolutions at the General Assembly, and North Korea ignored all of that, all of those resolutions, all of those reports. It’s only when the international community raised the issue of accountability that the North Koreans responded. They responded in a variety of ways, none of which are the responses that are desired, such as allowing the ICRC to conduct on-site investigations, or for the regime to admit that these violations are taking place, that these prison camps exist. It’s only when the international community, other governments raised the issue of accountability that North Korea responded at all, which is why it’s important to continue to update the situation and continue to request that other governments continue to persuade the North Korean government to change its policies.

David Hawk representing HRNK at the UN Human Rights Council’s 30^th Session on Sept. 21, 2015 in Geneva, Switzerland. © 2015 U.S. Mission Geneva

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