North Korean gulags

By Chang se-moon

Human right violations in North Korea are one of those issues that most of us would rather not think about, partly because we know the situation is bad and partly because we feel that there is not much we can do about them. I can think of three organizations that think differently and try to do something about these violations.

One such organization is in South Korea. Led by former Judge Kim Tae-hoonof a Seoul district court, more than 50 South Korean legal experts organized in September 2013 the Lawyers for Human Rights and Unification of Korea to approach the human rights crisis in the North with a firm legal basis. The other is the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea, formed in January 2013 by a group of young activists, journalists, academics, and North Korean exiles.

The third is the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) that was established in October 2001 by a group of human rights activists to promote human rights in North Korea.The Committee is led by Greg Scarlatoiu, who has an experience of working with the Korea Economic Institute (KEI) in Washington, D.C., the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, and other world organizations.

The Committee specializes in issues of human right violations in North Korea through research and publication activities that are based more on facts than on opinions. I will be writing many more articles on the Committee activities in the future, but today, I would like to introduce one particular publication by the Committee, namely, Hidden Gulag. You may already know Gulag as a prison camp used in the Soviet Union, where prisoners were treated harshly in bad conditions. Hidden Gulag in the Committee publication refers to inhumane prison camps in North Korea that are hidden from the public view.

Actually, Hidden Gulag is not one publication, but a series of publications on the subject. So far, there are four publications in the series with the first one published in 2003 and the latest one on September 18, 2015. All four series are written by David Hawk of the Committee. David Hawk, a prominent human rights investigator and advocate, is a former Executive Director of Amnesty International/USA. His work experience includes the United Nations directing the Cambodia Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in 1996 and 1997, and investigation of massacres in Rwanda for the U.S. Committee for Refugees in 1995.My introduction today will be limited to Hidden Gulag I.

The full title of the 122-page long Hidden Gulag I is “The HiddenGULAGExposing North Korea’sPrison Camps: Prisoners’ Testimonies and Satellite Photographs.” This report has four parts. Part One explains labor camps called kyo-hwa-so in which prisoners are forced to perform hard laboras well as “the shockingly large number of deaths in detention from slave labor under dangerous circumstances and from starvation-level food rations.” Part Twodescribes a series of detention facilitiesthat are located in areas along the North Korea–China border and “used to interrogate and punish North Koreansforcibly repatriated from China.” Part Three of this report summarizes the methods of torture endured or witnessed by the former prisoners and detainees interviewed. Part Four covers recommendations to North Korea, China, South Korea, and the United Nations.

The summary of torture in Part Three is based on interviews with former prisoners and detainees. A sample of his findings include that “prisoners were beaten to death by prison work-unit leaders at DanchunKyo-hwa-so No. 77 in North Hamgyong Province”;that “at Kwan-li-so No. 22 there were so many deaths by beatings from guards that the guards were told to be less violent”; and that “minor rule-breakers were beaten by their cellmates on the orders of the guards.”

There are many more stories such as that “one woman, a former schoolteacher who had been caught in Mongolia and repatriated to China and North Korea, was beaten nearly to death at the Onsong In-min-bo-an-seong detention center”; and that “Former Detainee #26 witnessed three forced abortions and seven babies killed at the Nongpo jip-kyul-so (detention center), Chongjin City, in May 2000.”

I suggest that you read all four versions of Hidden Gulag that are available free of charge in PDF on the Committee’s website. I am grateful that the Committee continues to this date to open our eyes and ears that try to shy away from the harsh reality in North Korea. Roberta Cohen, the Committee co-chair emeritus aptly stated on September 18, 2015 that “Most people don’t want to know about the camps,” because these reports “provide inconvenient information. It puts a human face on the political prison and re-education camps by providing testimonies of survivors, satellite imagery of camps, and for the first time a list of 181 incarcerated prisoners from Kwan-li-so Camp 15.”

Chang Se-moon is the director of the Gulf Coast Center for Impact Studies.