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Post by Admin on Jan 19, 2015 22:35:05 GMT
Shin Dong-hyuk's horrific descriptions of his time in a North Korean prison camp became a best-selling book, made him a key witness before the United Nations and grabbed headlines around the world. He was one of the most high-profile North Korean defectors, winning several human rights awards and inspiring a documentary as his memoir was translated into 27 languages. Now the publisher of the book and its author say Shin -- who claims to have been born in and escaped from a North Korean prison camp -- has revealed that parts of the story he told weren't true. Shin may have spent most of his life in North Korea at a different prison camp, rather than the total control zone that formed the title of his biography.  Shin's accounts of his time in the gulag have been widely reported in interviews with media including CNN. He also wrote an opinion piece describing his experiences for CNN Digital. Blaine Harden, author of the book "Escape from Camp 14," said in a statement on his website over the weekend that Shin had changed "key parts of his story." "On Friday, Jan. 16, I learned that Shin Dong-hyuk, the North Korean prison camp survivor who is the subject of 'Escape from Camp 14,' had told friends an account of his life that differed substantially from my book," Harden said. "I contacted Shin, pressing him to detail the changes and explain why he had misled me." Harden declined to provide additional details to CNN, but published a lengthy explanation on his website. A Washington Post story based on information Harden said he had provided to the newspaper said "the most horrific details" of Shin's story "still stand," but some of the times and places of the events in his accounts were wrong. "From a human rights perspective, he was still brutally tortured, but he moved things around," Harden told the Post, where he worked as a reporter for 28 years.  Shin did not immediately respond to a request from CNN for comment. In a post on his Facebook page, he doesn't go into details about the purported discrepancies, but he includes a link to the Post's story and apologizes to his supporters. "This particular past of mine that I so badly wanted to cover up can no longer be hidden, nor do I want it to be," he says. "To those who have supported me, trusted me and believed in me all this time, I am so very grateful and at the same time so very sorry to each and every single one of you." Inconsistencies highlightedShin "significantly revised details of his early life," said Harden in a statement. The inaccuracies include the following: • In the book, in his United Nations testimony and in interviews with media including CNN, Shin has detailed torture and abuse he claimed occurred in a notorious prison known as Camp 14. Shin told Harden on Friday that he'd actually been transferred with his mother and brother to a less restrictive prison camp, Camp 18, when he was six years old. It was there, not at Camp 14, where Shin now says he witnessed authorities execute his mother and brother. • Shin had previously said that he had lived his entire life in Camp 14 before escaping in 2005. He now says he escaped from Camp 18 twice before -- in 1999 and 2001, wrote Harden in his statement. During his second escape attempt from Camp 18, he was caught in China and repatriated to North Korea. First, he was sent to Camp 18 and later transferred to Camp 14 for torture and punishment, wrote Harden. • Shin now says he was 20 years old when he was tortured as a punishment for escaping, wrote Harden. His original account indicated that he was tortured when he was 13 for plotting to escape. Shin had been saying that he was tortured when he was a teenager since his arrival to South Korea in 2006. • Shin had described in the book that his finger was chopped off by an angry guard after he dropped a sewing machine in Camp 14. Now, Shin told Harden that his finger was mangled as a guard pulled out his fingernails as punishment for escaping. |
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Post by Admin on Jul 3, 2015 20:31:00 GMT
A North Korean scientist who defected to Finland is set to disclose evidence of biological and chemical weapons tests being carried out on human subjects. The researcher, only identified by his surname Lee, was part of the nation's secretive weapons programme and was based at a microbiology centre in Ganggye - near the Chinese border. Mr Lee, 47, defected to the Scandinavian country at the beginning of June, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.  The scientist reached Finland via the Philippines after fleeing his country because he 'felt sceptical about his research', reports The Telegraph. In a groundbreaking development, he is said to have escaped North Korea with a data storage device carrying vasts amount of information on humans being used to test biological and chemical weapons.  A group which campaigns for human rights in North Korea says Mr Lee is planning to offer his testimony to the European Parliament next month to bring attention to the shocking issue. This is not the first time reports have surfaced of North Korea carrying out weapons tests on its own people. One of the country's special forces officers, who fled in the 1990s, said he was left traumatised after children with mental and physical disabilities were used in chemical weapons tests as part of his training.  Last year, defectors claimed North Korea was systematically purging its disabled population by making them disappear from public sight, subjecting them to chemical weapons tests and castrating them. Another defector told of a government programme where disabled people are reportedly sent for medical experiments such as 'dissection of body parts'. |
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Post by Admin on Aug 23, 2019 18:07:27 GMT
 Han Sung-ok, 42, seemed determined to pick through nearly every lettuce on the market stand. She turned each one over and examined it while her six-year-old son clambered on the fence nearby. The vegetable seller in the southern Seoul suburb looked on, annoyed. This was one picky customer and she didn't even buy a lot of vegetables - only one or two items for as little as she could pay. On this occasion it was a lettuce for 500 won (about $0.40; £0.33).  Uttering only a few words, Han handed over her money and left with her son. Just a few weeks later, both were dead. Having fled food shortages in her native North Korea and dreaming of a new life, Han and her son are believed to have starved to death in one of the wealthiest cities in Asia. Their bodies lay undiscovered for two months until someone came to read the water meter and noticed a bad smell. Escaping North Korea can feel almost impossible. More people have attempted to scale Mount Everest this year than leave the impoverished state. Even if you get past the soldiers and surveillance at the border, defectors face a journey of thousands of miles through China. Their aim is to get to a South Korean embassy in a third country. Usually in Thailand, Cambodia or Vietnam. But getting through China is a huge risk. If caught, they're sent back to North Korea and could face a lifetime of hard labour in one of its notorious gulags. Female defectors who hand money to disreputable brokers hoping for help often find themselves imprisoned and sold as brides or sex workers. |
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Post by Admin on Dec 12, 2019 20:52:43 GMT
 A high-level defector from Kim Jong-un’s regime has sent a letter to President Trump warning that he has been “tricked” into believing the North Korean leader will ever denuclearize and that Washington should instead ramp up a “psychological warfare campaign” aimed at inspiring North Korea’s elites to replace the young dictator from within. The U.S. should simultaneously impose “all-out sanctions” against Pyongyang and be prepared to carry out a “preemptive strike” against Mr. Kim’s nuclear sites, according to the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times. The warning comes as the White House seeks fresh momentum for Mr. Trump’s historic personal diplomatic outreach to Mr. Kim in the face of a slew of provocative military moves, rhetorical outbursts and more than a dozen ballistic missile tests by Pyongyang in recent months. “As long as Kim Jong-un remains in power, denuclearization of North Korea is permanently impossible because [Mr. Kim] regards nuclear weapons as the last means to defend his survival,” the defector warned Mr. Trump. “You have stopped Kim Jong-un from launching missiles and conducting nuclear tests, but he is still mounting nuclear threats behind the scenes of dialogue and is attempting to take advantage of the relationship with you. “The most effective way to resolve the North Korean issue is to conduct psychological warfare operations,” the letter continues. “It can have the same power as a nuclear bomb. It is also an ideal way to get North Koreans to solve their own problems by themselves.” The White House declined to comment on the defector’s appeal, and Mr. Trump has repeatedly cited the “beautiful letters” Mr. Kim has sent him personally over the past 18 months insisting that the young North Korean leader is sincere in seeking a denuclearization deal. Two sources verified that the defector’s letter was delivered to two of Mr. Trump’s top North Korea policy advisers: Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger and acting National Security Council Asia Director Allison Hooker. The Times obtained a copy on the condition that it not name the defector because of security concerns. Three sources confirmed that the person worked for many years in high rungs of the North Korean government. The letter writer says he served three decades as an “executive” in the ruling Workers’ Party of North Korea. In an interview, the defector told The Times that Mr. Trump should heed his warnings because “I know and worked with the top players in [Pyongyang].” One former U.S. official said the defector, who left North Korea more than a year ago, has played an integral role advising U.S. agencies and is well known in national security circles. The person said it would not be surprising if the White House sought to keep the letter to Mr. Trump a secret. “I don’t think they want any fingerprints on it,” the former official said. “If they acknowledge it and there’s a sense it is influencing U.S. policy or that Mr. Trump is taking the word of a defector over that of Kim Jong-un, it could undermine the president’s relationship with the North Korean leader.” |
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Post by Admin on Dec 13, 2019 2:44:58 GMT
Raising tensions
North Korea has raised tensions in the region by asserting that the Trump administration is running out of time to salvage stalled nuclear talks. Officials in Pyongyang say the U.S. must be the one to choose its “Christmas gift.”
National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien warned Sunday that it would be a “big mistake” if Mr. Kim moves to test another nuclear bomb. The North Korean leader has refrained from doing so since his precedent-shattering June 2018 summit with Mr. Trump in Singapore.
The high-level defector argues that Mr. Kim has no intention of abandoning his nuclear weapons because they are vital to his regime’s goal of absorbing South Korea into the “extreme socialist system” and to the survival of the “fanatical, pseudo-religious” society under the North Korean dictator.
Following the example set by his father and grandfather, Mr. Kim also “firmly believes that nuclear weapons are the last means to protect himself from the enemy’s preemptive strike and to maintain rule for another 50 years,” the defector said.
The defector urges Mr. Trump to authorize a multipronged “psychological warfare campaign” urging North Korea’s elites to rise up against Mr. Kim while appealing to ordinary North Koreans who “are anxious to be liberated from the yoke of oppression.”
The letter urges the dispatch of a U.S. delegation to offer the prospect of economic relations if the North denuclearizes and an intensive popular information campaign to inform ordinary North Koreans about the dangers of clinging to the country’s nuclear arsenal.
“If the psychological warfare information [is] poured into the areas where North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, major cities and military headquarters are located, it will deal a death blow to the nuclear-obsessed leader … leading to the birth of a new political system,” the defector predicts.
The letter asserts that Washington should be pressuring China and other world powers to impose and enforce wider sanctions against the Kim government.
“At this very moment, Kim Jong-un is avoiding sanctions against North Korea while securing governing funds through tourism and [cyber]hacking,” the defector wrote.
He said the diplomatic stalemate is increasing the risk that the regime’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities will proliferate, particularly toward clients in the Middle East, including Iran.
If Mr. Kim “makes another nuclear and missile provocation,” the letter said, “you must always retain the option to be able to strike the nuclear facilities and the dictator’s office where the nuclear command and control resides to end the vicious circle.
“If the U.S. launches a preemptive strike, in order to prevent counterattacks from the North Korean military, inform the North Korean generals and elites of the strong power of the U.S. military and undermine their faith in and morale in their leaders by dropping information pamphlets and through all electronic media,” the letter states. “Only by launch[ing] an effective psychological warfare campaign now can you influence the generals to make the right decision not to obey an order to attack during crisis.”
‘Tricking’ Trump
The defector said Mr. Kim was disingenuous in his 2018 meeting with Mr. Trump in Singapore, issuing only vague promises of eventual denuclearization while seeking immediate U.S. economic and security concessions. South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a liberal who has long backed rapprochement on the divided Korean Peninsula, participated in Mr. Kim’s deception, the letter says.
“Kim Jong-un signed on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, not the denuclearization of North Korea, at the Singapore summit,” the letter to the White House states. “Both Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un tricked the U.S. president. As we know, Kim Jong-un has promised to denuclearize but has not given up a single nuclear weapon in a year and five months.”
The allegation is not likely to sit well with the Moon government, although it is well known that many North Korean defectors sharply disagree with the South Korean president’s conciliatory approach to North Korea.
Analysts say there are grounds to be wary of claims by North Korean defectors. They say many exaggerate their status to enhance their legitimacy and influence upon fleeing the Kim regime. There are also concerns that even the most highly vetted defectors may be involved in some form of subterfuge designed to benefit the Kim regime in the long term.
But the letter-writing defector insisted in an interview that the goal of the letter was to give Mr. Trump “insight into why Kim Jong-un is not giving up nuclear weapons and then how to solve this problem.”
“President Trump always mentions that past U.S. administrations have been deceived by North Korea,” the defector told The Times. “I’m trying to tell Mr. Trump that he too is also now being deceived by North Korea, so that perhaps he can correct his mistake by taking my advice.”
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