 Two hundred fifty people gathered at an event in downtown Seoul Thursday, organized by human rights group Freedom and Life for North Koreans 2009. Thirty North Korean defectors also attended the event. |
By J.R. BreenContributing Writer
Robert Park, the U.S. missionary released by North Korea last month after a Christmas Day border crossing to protest human rights abuses, continues to maintain his silence about what happened to him during his six weeks of incarceration.
Associates say Park was slated to make a statement Friday, his first since being released from the communist North, in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C.
Park was a no-show. On the same day, however, an e-mail surfaced, apparently from Park, which shed some light.
The e-mail read, "(I) am very sorry to you. This is my first direct email. I have been tormented and I apologize for my insane behavior lately. A friend has been managing my e-mail account."
"I don't call people easily because of my spiritual condition -- I've had bouts of rage and intense temptations to kill myself (because of inner torture) since leaving DPRK (North Korea)."
When Park crossed into North Korea on Dec. 25, he was carrying a letter addressed to Kim Jong-il, demanding he "repent" and that he free political prisoners.
This would have provided authorities with sufficient reason to executive him, North Korea watchers say. But, on Feb. 6 after 40 days in the atheistic state, Park was released, flown from Pyongyang to Beijing, where he traveled to Los Angeles, the U.S., to reunite with his family.
In contrast to his entry into the country ― when he crossed the border shouting that he was an American bringing "God's love" ― he has maintained a grim silence.
The e-mail, circulated by Norbert Vollertsen, a prominent activist for North Korean human rights, indicates Park is under pressure.
Activists associated with Park attended an event last week hosted by the North Korean human rights coalition Freedom and Life for all North Koreans 2009.
The event, at Cheonggye Stream in downtown Seoul, was organized by Park before he entered the North. Around 250 people, including some 30 North Korean defectors, prostrated themselves and chanted in the wind and rain, beneath large signs reading "Let My People Go", "Freedom and Life North Koreans."
One activist suggested that Park was drugged when in North Korea, and therefore was suffering from a lack of self control when he was forced to renounce his previously held beliefs.
The mention of suicide recalls the case of Evan Carl Hunziker, the American who swam from China across the Yalu River drunk and naked, and was released three months later after then-New Mexico congressman Bill Richardson intervened and negotiated on his behalf.
Hunziker died one month later in a Tacoma, Washington hotel, in what authorities said was a suicide.
In the e-mail, Park refers to the event he planned to attend and asked for some material: "Here is what I need by tomorrow evening, if you can help me: DPRK flag, lighter," he wrote. He also requested a ``notebook of picture evidence of the North Korean Human Rights Crisis and Genocide (I will be going through the pages while speaking in the interview) Two Signs: `China -- International Lawbreaker,' `China -- Stop Murdering Refugees.'"
The e-mail emerged on the same day that North Korea announced it was questioning four South Koreans for "entering illegally." It is unknown whether they are linked to Park in any way.
The communist state is still supposedly holding a second U.S. citizen, who they announced on Jan. 29 was being held for crossing illegally into the country via China.
jrbreen@koreatimes.co.kr
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