Calls are mounting to hold those in the North Korean leadership accountable for crimes against humanity. The Center for Investigation & Documentation on Human Rights in North Korea was established in Seoul to document abuses perpetrated by the North Korean authorities and record the testimonies of victims of abuse. One of its major goals is to prepare the groundwork for a legal basis to prosecute those responsible in the North’s leadership. In order to understand the importance of why South Korea and the international community must undertake such work, we heard from victims of the North’s human rights violations themselves.
Today we hear the second part of the testimony given by Park Ju Yong, who was held at Camp 18 (Pukchang Political Prison Camp) for 24 years, from 1987 until 2010, charged under the North’s ‘guilt-by-association’ system.
– Once you complete serving your political prison sentence in North Korea, you are classified as a ‘cleared citizen.’ This, in effect, clears a political prisoner of their crime. Was it true that you were declared a cleared citizen? Were you able to leave the prison camp thereafter?
For clarity, cleared citizens aren’t released from political prison camps, but are able to apply for an off-site pass to go to the markets, or a travel pass to visit relatives. However, obtaining these passes involves many steps. The process starts with submitting a request for an off-site pass to your direct superior, and then that person asks their direct superior for permission. This sort of hierarchical reporting continues all the way up to the State Security Department (SSD), and an off-site pass can only be issued once the SSD has given its approval.
It is a very cumbersome process. This makes going off-site very difficult, and one is typically only able to do so once a month at the most. Additionally, you can only go outside the camp if your family has the financial means; a poor family cannot venture out freely. In truth, a poor family doesn’t really need to go outside the camp. The only practical reasons to go out are to buy something or to visit relatives. A poor person can’t buy anything if they go out, so they would normally stay at the camp.
– Why are cleared citizens confined to life inside a prison camp beyond their prison terms instead of being released into society?
That is what the cadres order us to do, so I’m not sure why. Even if you become a cleared citizen, you continue living with political prisoners. From my time at Camp 18, both cleared citizens and political prisoners attended the same school and lived together as neighbors. The only difference was the color of our identification cards. Cleared citizens had red colored cards and political prisoners had black. That being said, in 2009, a barbed wire fence was put up to separate cleared citizens from the political prisoners.
– Does discrimination exist between cleared citizens and political prisoners?
Often you would see the children of cleared citizens and political prisoners playing separately. This is understandable, as they are children after all, but their teachers were highly discriminatory. The teachers tell the children to play separately and children of political prisoners received harsher punishments compared to the children of cleared citizens. Even if they are both late for the same amount of time, the children of cleared citizens are given a verbal warning but the children of political prisoners receive corporal punishment. They frequently receive lashes to their calves.
– So are cleared citizens subject to somewhat less violence and forced labor?
That’s not necessarily the case. The degree of verbal abuse and punishment received by political prisoners at school or in other parts of society when compared to cleared citizens was slightly different. For example, if a worker was ordered to mine X amount of coal within their 8, or even 12-hour shift and did not deliver on time, naturally, the section leader would be angry. Now if the worker was a cleared citizen, they would only receive a stern reprimand. But a political prisoner would be ordered to continue mining even after their shift ended. All this depends on the section leader. On a good day, a section leader may only berate you, but on a bad day they force you to work for 24 hours.
Violence was pervasive, even if you were a cleared citizen. Among cleared citizens, the level of violence depended on whether or not your family had enough money. If your family had enough means to bribe the cadres, you received less verbal and physical abuse.
If bribed, even the camp director would acknowledge the presence of a cleared citizen at the start of a working day. Such basic acknowledgement is normal in South Korea but it is an extremely rare experience inside the inhuman environment of a North Korean prison camp.
– I heard you were able to go outside the camp after you became a cleared citizen. But upon return, you were beaten. What happened?
At the time, I had turned 19 and received an identification card, but that alone was not enough to be granted a travel pass. I had to make a request to my direct superior for a travel pass, but he would not do it for free. I had to bribe him. However, I wasn’t in a financial position to bribe anyone, so I decided to forge an off-site pass.
First, I borrowed my neighbors birth certificate, then I used some off-site pass sheets I stole from my former head teacher’s desk drawer back when I was attending school. I wrote my name and my former head teacher’s name on the forged off-site passes and used them to go out. After several outings, I ran out of off-site passes. Fortunately, I would always check [potential escape points] on the barbed-wire fence each time I went out. So one day, my next-door neighbor at the time, Keum Ok, and I escaped under the barbed-wired fence.
Living day to day was very difficult at the time. My mother had no time to take care of our family after work, and my older sister was working without pay after getting caught visiting relatives for help. It was a situation where I had to step up and become the breadwinner of the family, but there was a moment when it was too stressful and all I thought about was escaping. So Keum Ok and I attempted to escape the prison camp. After the escape, Keum Ok headed to South Hamgyong Province and I headed to Chongjin.
It was a very tough journey to my relatives house. After all the twists and turns, I arrived at my relatives house and as I lifted a spoonful of rice, tears fell down my face as I started thinking about my starving mother and my sister working without pay. I felt so guilty sitting there at my relatives house eating a meal without them. So I decided to return home the very next day.
My relatives were very surprised and were adamantly against my decision. But I stubbornly protested saying I would rather starve together with my mother and that if I didn’t go back now, she would be punished.
This argument went back and forth for a week or so, then my uncle decided to send me back. My uncle packed my bag with some food and other items. My uncle was a local manager at the time and had no problems securing a travel pass for me. I made my way to the camp and I bribed the guard at a guard post with the items my uncle gave me and pleaded to let me pass the guard post. At that point, I was able to enter without any problem.
But then when I got back to the camp, I realized that I had changed quite considerably in the last week. Before, I looked dreary but after a week in wider society, where I had clean clothes and ate well, I had gained some weight. People in my neighborhood couldn’t even recognize me. Then my next door neighbor reported me. My mother had already been taken away and was being beaten.
Normally, if someone doesn’t come into work, the camp director sends a monitor to bring the absentee back to work and my mother was beaten by that person. I was also taken away and beaten. Later on, I was also beaten by the director himself, and was even called up by the head of security.
– How severely were you beaten?
I was repeatedly hit with a club as thick as a baseball bat. Every cadre at the camp carried at least one of these clubs. I don’t remember anything after the first 30 minutes of the beating. I remember being told to open my mouth so they could pull out some of my teeth, and also having my front teeth broken after being hit with the club. I assume they sent me home after I passed out. When I regained consciousness, I looked like a corpse. My skin was severely lacerated and I was covered in bruises.
– That’s horrible. Did you experience any injuries while working?
Once I was mining and my leg got caught on a wheel while moving coal. It was so severe that the health clinic told me it had to be amputated. But I stubbornly refused. Back in my school days, there was an older girl with one leg and I remember how she used to get severely bullied by all the other kids. I was adamant on avoiding amputation in any way possible. I pleaded to be sent home.
When I returned home, I used methods close to what you would describe as physical therapy. In North Korea, we use a lot of salted radish in general, and we use salted radish or saltwater as disinfectants. Through this, I was able to walk again. The director at the health clinic used to call me a very strong woman. The director was amazed how I was able to walk on a leg that was about to rot. If I had amputated my leg back then, I wouldn’t have been able to defect to South Korea. Fortunately, I’m still able to walk well, but on rainy days my leg is particularly numb and even if I hit it hard – I don’t feel anything,
– Lastly, what thoughts come to your mind when you look back on your time as a cleared citizen, when you had to endure being forcibly imprisoned at a political prison camp despite being technically free?
I think my life has been extremely unfair. I wonder if I will ever get my lost time back. I would have never experienced the physical and mental pain had I not lived in North Korea, and I think I would have lived a normal life as a free citizen. This is why I detest the Kim family.
I appeared on this program in the hope that my story might inspire at least one more North Korean resident to defect to South Korea. I came here today with this hope in my mind.
Rejoining society after serving an appropriate sentence is a human right. However, the North Korean authorities prohibit ‘cleared citizens’ from freely rejoining society and confine them to a life bound to a political prison camp. We call upon the North Korean authorities to fully release all cleared citizens immediately.
