ONE of the bravest men I have ever met is locked in a Chinese prison this
weekend, facing the risk of being sent back to certain execution in his
native North Korea.
His story stands for the human suffering that endures while diplomats craft a
controversial agreement to disarm North Korea of its nuclear weapons and to
grant its dictator, Kim Jong-il, the peace treaty and the recognition that
his regime has sought for decades.
The man is Yoo Sang-joon, a refugee from North Korea who lost his wife and
younger son in a famine under Kim’s Stalinist system in the 1990s, and who
then escaped across the border into China.
His personal tragedy did not end there, for his surviving son, Chul-min, aged
10, perished in the Mongolian desert in a forlorn attempt to evade Chinese
security forces and North Korean agents hunting down the refugees. After
that numbing bereavement, Yoo, who is about 36, found solace in the
Christian religion, fell in with a group of South Korean missionaries and
devoted himself to helping others escape to freedom.
He could have stayed in comfort and safety in South Korea but he chose to
return to hostile territory as a rescuer.
Yoo hid people in chilly apartments, smuggled food to families living like
troglodytes in pits concealed in snow-covered fields, bought clothes for the
escapees and taught them how to get past checkpoints.
One year ago he took the risk of meeting me to explain how the underground
network smuggled people from the frozen wastes of northeast China to the
border where the slow-flowing Mekong River divides Laos from Thailand.
“Helping other people makes it easier to deal with my grief for my son,” he
explained, as we huddled in a dank hotel room. “I try to get the orphans out
first. You will understand why.”
Cool, dispassionate and dignified, he trusted to elaborate security
precautions – The Sunday Times agreed to call him Nam Hong-chul, informing
readers that this was a pseudonym – and to luck.
However, his luck ran out a few weeks ago when he was caught in a dragnet to
sweep up the escape network.
It is not known exactly how they got him but the North Korean and Chinese
security services have taken new measures to block the escape routes across
the Tumen and Yalu rivers, which become narrow, fordable streams in summer
and freeze solid in winter.
The Chinese have used software and security technology bought from the West to
watch the internet and trace mobile phones; it is all part of their
preparations to stifle dissent in the run-up to the Olympic Games next year.
They have also built wire fences and installed surveillance cameras along the
riverbanks. Both sides have deployed patrol boats to prowl the rivers before
they freeze.
The North Korean boats, moored alongside the city of Sinuju, include a
brand-new vessel equipped with radar and a high-speed launch that can be
lowered from its stern.
On the surface the alliance between the two authoritarian states, forged in
the era of Mao Tse-tung and Kim Il-sung, the founder of North Korea, looks
solid.
China denies its obligations under the 1951 refugee convention, calling the
fugitives illegal immigrants. It refuses to allow the United Nations high
commissioner for refugees any access to these border areas.
Yet thousands of North Koreans are still hiding on farms and in towns all over
China’s three Manchurian provinces of Jilin, Liaoning and Heilongjiang.
Those caught are detained in special jails, then escorted under armed guard
across one of the bridges linking China to North Korea.
Horrifying scenes have been witnessed even here. Chinese soldiers have told
their relatives of watching, nauseated, as the North Koreans force thick
wire through the hands of the prisoners or under their collarbones, yoking
them like animals to the slaughter.
In one well documented crime, North Korean security agents beat a man to death
in front of the Chinese as soon as he was handed over, recognising him as a
dissident.
The only thing standing between Yoo and a fate like that is his slender
green-and-gold South Korean passport.
The South Korean embassy in China is aware of his case and the government in
Seoul has said that it does all it can to help its citizens.
However, refugee campaigners fear that the left-leaning administration of
President Roh Moo-hyun is prone to appease both the Chinese and the North
Koreans in its quest for a diplomatic agreement before general elections
next month.
“We have good reason to believe that the Chinese have on occasion in the past
ignored the naturalisation of some former refugees, thrown away their South
Korean passports and just returned them to the North Korean authorities,”
said Tim Peters, a Christian pastor who runs a charity to aid refugees.
“That would mean instant execution for someone like Yoo Sang-joon, known to be
helping escapees.”
Demonstrators on his behalf picketed South Korean government offices last
week, just as the prime ministers of North and South Korea held talks to
promote the south’s “sunshine policy” of conciliation towards Kim.
Peters hopes that behind the scenes foreign governments will be making the
case to the Chinese that their interests are best served by respecting Yoo’s
South Korean citizenship.
Chinese lawyers have said that the mere act of helping refugees does not break
any article of the penal code and the Chinese have apparently begun to heed
calls for decent behaviour towards the refugees.
Reliable sources say that a few months ago the Chinese government issued a
directive that pregnant women were not to be sent back to North Korea.
It came after a weight of testimony that women were subject to forced
abortions on return, that babies born to them in prison were left to die
and, in some cases, the infants were murdered or their mothers forced to
kill them by prison guards.
The Chinese decision appears to follow diplomatic representations and private
lobbying to persuade the authorities in Beijing that the situation was
intolerable for a nation proposing to welcome the world to the Olympic Games
next summer.
However, its most telling aspect is that the Chinese must have accepted that
the stories of child killings were true. That has profound legal
implications. Human rights groups are trying to collect evidence that may
one day be used against Kim’s underlings in prosecutions for crimes against
humanity. “Despite the directive to cut back on repatriating pregnant
refugee women, the policy is not being enforced uniformly,” Peters warned.
“There are reports that unless refugee women are aware of the directive and
strongly protest on their own behalf, many are still being sent back to
North Korea by police who ignore the directive.”
The North Korean regime’s abuse of women and children was one of the factors
that impelled President George W Bush to include it in his January 2002
“axis of evil” speech.
Bush’s personally expressed loathing for Kim, as well as the US president’s
Christian faith, are thought to have made it all the more difficult for him
to authorise the American detente towards Pyongyang. But after North Korea
tested an atomic bomb in October 2006, Bush accepted the arguments of
Christopher Hill, his chief State Department negotiator, that engagement was
the only way to deal with the regime.
On November 9 technicians began disabling Kim’s main nuclear reactor at
Yongbyon. By the end of the year, say diplomats in Beijing, North Korea may
be struck off the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The United States may also suspend the Trading with the Enemy Act, allowing
North Korea access to international finance. Critics of the process believe
that it rewards Kim with no requirement that he surrender his nuclear
weapons and stockpile of plutonium.
Hill and his supporters argue that without a settlement that brings North
Korea back into the international community there is no prospect of
improving the lot of its people.
The fate of Yoo, who has done all that he humanly could to help his own
people, now poses an immediate test of the proposition that diplomacy gets
results from authoritarian regimes.
What an absolute betrayal of principle. The Republicans and the Bush Administration made some noise about human rights for a few years and then sold out the North Korean people for a few good headlines.
The Democrats, whether in or out of power, are blind to the horrors inside North Korea; they've always taken a "three monkeys" approach so as not to disturb the Sisyphean purchase of more lies from Kim Jong Il. Witness "Kim Jong Bill" Richardson's use of his photo-ops with the North Koreans to try to boost his third-tier presidential campaign. I doubt he -- or Bush's negotiator, Chris Hill -- will ever bother to mention the place where Mr. Yoo's life will likely end, along with tens of thousands of men, women, and children before him: Camp 22.
http://freekorea.us/2007/02/18/holocaust-now-looking-down-into-hell-at-camp-22/
Let's not bicker and argue and who killed who. And it should go without saying that, the U.N. and the EU are completely useless.
Joshua, Rockville, Maryland
I also pray for God's hand acting for North Koreans. Perhaps the hearts of Chinese leaders might be sovereignly turned toward compassion. This would be wise, since many Westerners have become unsettled concerning trade with China. 'Dear Lord of the universe, hear our prayers! Mercy please!
MW, Florida
Mikki Webster, Homosassa, Fl. USA
God, You are good and compassionate. You execute judgement and righteousness for all the oppressed. Please release Yoo Sang-joon to freedom and safety, in Jesus' name.
Audrey, Drogheda,
I think the best thing to do is to write letters to your nearest Chinese embassy requesting Mr Yoo's release!!!
Tash , Seoul,
This is truly horrific. Have asked Amnesty International what they are doing about a campaign to prevent this man being sent back to N Korea.
There must be a petition or some other way of applying pressure on China. We are culpable if we sit on our hands and do not even protest at this shocking situation.
Thank you for this article - very timely. China's sensitivity due to the upcoming olympics may be of use.
CW, London , UK
Eventually the North Korean regime will fall. It will go too far, much as the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia did. Remember that Pol Pot wasn't overthrown out of indignation at his slaughtering so many of his people. He was overthrown because he had begun attacking Vietnam. Also remember that many governments on our side condemned the Vietnamese for overthrowing Pol Pot because the Vietnamese were aligned with the late unlamented USSR.
Admittedly the Chinese, South Koreans, Japanese, and Americans don't have a free hand and can't do what they would like to do with Kim Junior. Regimes such as his can't survive unless they are propped up, and eventually his will disappear and everyone will know who it is that has been propping him up simply to avoid the expense of feeding his starving people.
Christopher Hobe Morrison, Pine Bush, Ulster County, NY, USA
May those involved is this terrible tragedy receive their just reward. Our hearts and prayers are with Yoo Sang-joon, may his name live forever and may the North be free from the madness it lives under. The world should hold China accountable at the Olympic. FREE Yoo Sang-joon and all North Koreans held in China NOW.
Tim, Liverpool,
Much as I disagree with President Bush on 99% of what he says and does, I have to wholeheartedly back him in his loathing of Kim Jong-Il .. one of very few modern leaders who can make a claim to being worse even than Robert Mugabe in his willingness to inflict poverty and suffering on his own citizens.
Denis O'Sullivan, Brussels, Belgium
I pray God sends Yoo Sang-joon help from His Sanctuary, and strengthens him out of Zion. Soon we will see the deliverance of the righteous, and the destruction of God's enemies.
anita, SA,