In the remote mountain village of Haengyong, in North-Eastern North Korea, lies the infamous concentration camp known as Camp 22. The camp is thought to hold tens of thousands of prisoners and is known for severely abusing the humanitarian rights of prisoners.
Sun-ok Lee, a former female prisoner at Kaechon political prison, claims the guards step on the heads of woman prisoners’ newly born babies. In testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, Lee stated: “A prisoner has no right to talk, laugh, sing or look in a mirror. Prisoners must kneel down on the ground and keep their heads down deeply whenever called by a guard.”
It is known that many of the prisoners are held in political camps because they are Christian or are a relative of someone that is a threat to the communist regime. The prisoners work as slaves, some are tortured on a daily basis, while others are reportedly subject to biological and chemical testing. According to Don Oberdorfer in his book The Two Koreas, if you are considered a threat to the communist regime and thrown into a political camp, the punishment will go down on your family for three generations.
However, some of them manage to flee from these dreadful political camps up north to China. With high hopes they escape to seek food and asylum, soon to find a rude awakening-the lifestyle in China is just as bad as North Korea. The Chinese government states that it does not recognize North Koreans as refugees in China but merely as economic migrants. The two countries have made an under-the-table agreement so that the Chinese authorities are ordered to actively seek, arrest, and repatriate the North Koreans that are living in China. When they are repatriated they are executed.
So how come no one knows about any of this? Clearly, there is a lack of global response. It is the responsibility of the international community to enforce humanitarian rights on countries like North Korea.
Even more infuriating are countries like the South Korea. They are the only nation to refrain from a UN vote condemning the North Korea of its violations of human rights. The South Korean government is hesitant to mention the humanitarian violations in fear that it may interfere with reconciliation between the two nations, as well as the disarmament of the North Korean nuclear weapon programs. How can they sit back and watch while their own people are being tortured and tested in political camps?
The world is focused on Kim Jong-Il and the nuclear weapons he continues to produce. South Korea worries about reconciliation with the North fearing that another war may break out on South Korean soil. But a blind-eye is turned on remote places like Haengyong. In an article (Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea’s gulag) in the Feb. 1 edition of the Observer, Antony Barnett reports that Kwon Hyuk, a former chief of management at Camp 22 (who has changed his name), watched as dying, vomiting parents attempted to give their children mouth-to-mouth in a hopeless attempt to save them.
Kim Sang Hun, a retired UN official, says the North Korean government has arrested all the families of the whistleblowers.
Will the international community ignore the abuse of humanitarian rights in North Korean political prisons, or will something be done?
Justin Gang is a Political Science student at U of T. He will be hosting an event on the abuse of humanitarian rights in North Korea with Senator Lois Wilson on March 8 at the Bahen Centre RM 1190.
