Essay on NK

North Korea is a country hidden in darkness from the rest of the world, and this is exactly what it means to be. Living up to its nickname, the hermit kingdom is surrounded by a cloud of mystery and dread. The government embodies that of George Orwell's 1984, holding complete control of a nation of people who only know what they are told, which is not much. The regime of Kim Il-Sung took Control of North Korea and has used it's totalitarian actions to maintain maximum authority over a captive people. Under the supervision of the past three Dear Leaders, the country has become a well oiled machine, perfect for oppressing and terrorizing. One of the most effective means of control the dear leader employs is that he is seen as the one and only God.



It is commonly believed by the North Korean people that Kim Il-Sung and his descendants can do no wrong. All good things come from the great leader and any hardship that may befall the citizens is the doing of the dear leaders enemy, the United States. U.S. citizens are seen as the epitome of evil, those selfish bastards and the rest of the world only wish to eradicate the Kim dynasty and enslave the only pure communist nation left. According to defectors, this is the type of propaganda perpetuated by the schools, the few television channels in existence, and every other form of media within the countries borders. The approved messages of the government cannot be contested because It is all that is known. The authorities do everything they can to make sure no other information is allowed in or out of the country.



The power game is further perfected by the dyer situation in which the North Koreans live. An official death tole is impossible with a country that would never admit weakness, but it is clear that the population has been ravaged by famine, malnutrition, and flood. There are countless numbers of people living on the streets. It is not uncommon for children to be orphaned at a young age. Either their parents cannot care for them, have died of malnutrition, or have been relocated to one of the countries many prison camps. It seems like the North Koreans have to be extremely careful not to do or say anything that could be misconstrued as an act against the regime. Everyone may be discontented with the quality of life within the country, but a complaint breathed to the wrong person could lead to imprisonment. Stealing a piece of food to keep yourself alive could lead to imprisonment. Conspiring to defect could lead to imprisonment. Even having a family member speak against the government could lead to imprisonment. Faced with the very real danger of being sent to a concentration camp, North Korean citizens would rather play along than acknowledge any problems. The citizens are also kept quiet by the Norths policy of immediately imprisoning not only the lawbreaker, but three generations of their family as well.



All of this information has only been speculated at until recently when North Korean defectors, who can be sure they are finally safe from the reach of angry government officials, have started to report just what was going on in the Hermit Kingdom. We now have information of at least 6 force labor camps where the conditions are worse than those of the country in general. The camps are home to political prisoners, religious traitors, and their families. Many children are born into these camps, never knowing the outside world. Public executions are a common practice within the camps. One defector, a twenty-some year old man remembers seeing his mother and brother publicly killed when he was a boy. Sadly, events like this occur too often to surprise the prisoners. It is the sadistic policy of the prison guards to dehumanize the prisoners. The believe is that once someone enters a camp, they have lost all privilege as a human being and are now seen as tailless animals.



No one was ever meant to escape North Korea and this is all radically different than what the country would wish to portray to the rest of the world. North Korea still desires reunification with its Southern counterpart. Perhaps this explains the facade that is Pyongyang. Pyongyang is the capital city and the only part of the North that can be seen from the DMZ, the border with South Korea. It is believed that Pyongyang was intended to make citizens of the South wish to defect to the North. Pyongyang is filled with big buildings, hotels, and some modern day amenities. Renovations are constantly being made to the city, and the standard of living there is the best you will find in North Korea. It seems the plan to tempt Southerners has failed and most of Pyongyang has been deserted. The few apartment units and schools still in use are occupied by high government officials and party members who have been appointed to live there.



Ether these North Korean elites are being awarded for their loyalty and a job well done, or are too high up to be trusted to live without monitoring. It has been reported that there are T.V. like screens mounted on the walls of Pyongyang home constantly streaming propaganda and songs of praise to the Dear Leader. It is unknown if these screens also listen for any decent ion against the countries ideology, but with all the secrecy and paranoia, I would not put it past the North. The Pyongyang front is also the only part of the country that is likely to be shown to outsiders. Some tourists from outside countries have been granted the ability to enter North Korea, a brave few have risked smuggling in video cameras and compiling documentaries of their experiences. In all of the, the information given to outsiders by defectors is confirmed. The city is mostly deserted, the tourists are usually the only patrons of the huge hotels, at meal times, massive amounts of food are set out on the tables to give the appearance of abundance, and minders are assigned to regulate what the tourists are able to see. The few people going about their lives in Pyongyang are not allowed to talk to the tourists. If a visitor poses an uncomfortable question about the prison camps or the unsavory living conditions, the minders quickly change the topic or threaten the asker with deportation.



 Of the 24 million people living in North Korea, not many have the privileges afforded to he lucked few Pyongyang citizens, if you can call them privileges. For most, their voices are never heard, their faces are never seen. Here in the U.S., we a large population of working poor, but even these know nothing of barely scraping by. Sufficient food is hard to come by, medical care is scarce, there are people dying in the streets and the North Korean people no longer find this unusual. What is the Kim family really doing for its country? The people are stuck in a world of fear with no idea that there is any other way. Some 200,000 people are reported to be held in the nations prison camps, but it is suspected that that number is under represented. We will never know how many poor souls are really held captive in these camps. The people of North Korea are a good people with hopes and dreams and fears just like anybody else. We cannot assume that they are lost to the political ideologies of the authorities, that they believe in the oppression and hatred of the party. They are slaves that only long to be liberated.

An article on prison camps

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/06/12/north-korea-cracks-down-on-defections-swelling-prisons-with-those-caught-trying/

Where does our information come from?/the reality of the camps

Since North Korea is very secretive, information is hard to come by. Most of the information about North Korea that the outside world has is from a few brave people that have escaped. The best chance these people have is to defect to South Korea, where they have rights. Unfortunately, it seems to be easier to get into China, where they have no rights. One of three things can happen for the people that get to China: they could be lucky enough to find help, they could be unfortunate enough to find someone who says they will help, but then sell them into human trafficking(actually common), or they could get caught by the authorities and sent back, a fateworse then death. There's no telling what the North Korean regime will do if they get a person back, I can imagine that they don't take kindly to anyone they perceive to be a 'traitor'.

So, can we actually believe the information about the prison camps? As nightmarish as it seems, yes, the camps have been confirmed. Not only have satellites been able to get pictures of them, the defectors that have successfully escaped North Korea attest to this fact. One such defector actually escaped from Camp 22, where he had spent his life since birth. As a young boy, he had seen his mother and brother publicly executed for discussing escape. It wasn't until he met a new prisoner (I think he was near 20 years old at the time) who told him stories of grilled meat that he finally decided to attempt escape. He and the new friend planned their escape. They chanced the electrified fence around the camp. The friend did not make it. Since then, the now free man has told the world his story and has become a human rights activist. 

This man has given us so much insight about how these camps are run. The guards are actually taught to see the prisoners as Tail-less animals. A lot of the prisoners are not there for anything they themselves have done, as it is a custom to purge 3 generations of the family of anyone convicted of treason. For instance, if your grandfather questioned the regime, he, your parents, and you would be taken. Pray for them!

Pray for this man, he has seen a lot. Pray for the people in the camps. Pray that God would open their eyes to His love for them. Pray that they would know that He has not left them. Pray that He would soften the hearts of the guards and the authorities.

The mysterious Pyongyang/DPRK:The Land of Whispers

This post is a response to watching DPRK: The Land of Whispers (North Korea Travel Documentary) (2013), produced and directed by Chrystian Cohen.

First off, Pyongyang is a very strange place. From what I have read, it does not accurately represent the rest of the country. The North Korean regime is all about propaganda and appearance. In another documentary (I do not remember which one it was), I pretty much gathered that since Pyongyang is all you can see from the DMZ separating North and South Korea, it was erected to look appealing to the South and tempt them to join the North once again. A very small percentage of North Korean citizens live in Pyongyang, ant of those that do, a lot of them are government workers or people who are huge supporters of the North Korean ideology. In essence, the people who live in the relative luxury of Pyongyang are the elect.
The regime has made huge efforts to make Pyongyang look like a normal metropolis. After all, it is where most of our footage comes from. It has skyscrapers, hotels, all the amenities of a busy city, but in actuality, most of it is deserted. It appears the children are mostly taught performance in school. The filter of this video included footage of a performance they were shown at one of the schools. He commented that these 5 and 6 year olds were better than most adults. He was right, they were very precise, which leads me to believe that they emphasize performance of the arts. He also included footage of a probably record setting performance acne they went to-over 100,000 people took part in it, a celebration of the anniversary of the great leader developing some ideology.

So, the documentary was filmed by Amanda who was able to travel to North Korea. Something new I learned is that 1000-2000 foreigners are allowed to visit a year. There is apparently a company that you apply with and they will organize a trip for you. Some of the stipulations are that you have to go with a group and you have to be lead by guides on a very set itinerary. The visitors see only what the government allows them to see, of course. They are basically in the care of minders who lead them from one sense of normalcy to another. There are a lot of rules they have to follow.
This group started out in Pyongyang in a 50 floor hotel with a revolving restaurant on top, empty except for their party. It had a casino, a pool, a karaoke room, and multiple restaurants, all deserted. This seems to be standard when entertaining foreigners. The entire city is pretty much a facade to make NK seem normal to outsiders, after all.
There are mythical, romantic stories about where The great leader was born, the group was taken to the place where he was rumored to have been born. He was actually born in Russia, but the citizens of North Korea appear to have been told a different story. The sites they were shown throughout the trip were mostly monuments to Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung. Statues, places they had visited, a poem one of them had written, a document signed by one. Other than visiting sights, watching performance s, staying at creepy deserted hotels and drinking, the only thing they could do was watch TV, a constant stream of propaganda perpetuated by the government.
The filter kept trying to speak with the guides, but they wouldn't really talk to him. After a while, one guy was willing to answer questions. He had agreed to give an interview when he was suddenly pulled away and sent to a different assignment. It is unknown whether this was a coincidence or not. Another one of the guides told the filter that it was very dangerous for him to be allowing the camera to document the trip.

It was actually one of the more upbeat documentaries I have seen on North Korea. The citizen (whether genuine, heavily brainwashed, or faking for the foreigners), seemed happy. The filmer made a point to speak of the attributes of the North Koreans, despite the strange circumstances.

Do they even know God?

I'm not sure they even know that there is a God.

In the first documentary that I saw on North Korea, an optometrist had gone into the country, promising to preform cataract surgeries on 1,000 government chosen citizens. One of the most disturbing scenes was at the end, filming what happened after the surgeries. When the patients once blinded by cataracts had received their sight again, they walked up to a picture of Kim Jong Il, the great leader, ant thanked him for giving them back their sight. He is their god. They are completely brainwashed to believe this. Even if there are a few who still know God, how do they reconcile this with their surroundings? My fear it that, even if they know God, they think He has forgotten them. They are not forgotten. Please pray that they will know this.

Why?

A few years ago, I signed up to receive prayer updates from a Christian organization. After a while, I stopped paying attention to most of them. When checking my email, I'd just skim the headlines and move on. Last summer though, I saw a headline saying that there were prison camps in North Korea. Prison camps don't happen anymore! They are just a terribly dark part of history. The email said an estimated 144,000 people were forced to live in these camps, most with no hope of getting out. Why weren't we doing anything about this? After researching, I saw that it was for a very complicated, horrible reason. We don't know what to do. North Korea is a loose cannon. The things they do are frightening. They are brainwashed and utterly controlled. It is the darkest nation in the world, and it's a wonder that we even have the little information we do about it. All those poor people, without hope or God in the world. Not just the 144,000 in the prison camps, but ALL of the North Korean citizens. They need to know that they are loved. Please pray for them. Please pray that God would give them the opportunity to learn of His great love.

Purpose statement

This past summer, God opened my eyes to the reality of North Korea and the sufferings of it's people. Since then, I have researched and watched documentaries on NK, wanting to help somehow. I've wanted to post my findings on a blog for a while, but had been afraid to. Now, it seems that things ate coming to a head. It seems NK is itching for a war and other countries are preparing themselves to fight. I want to remind people that no matter what terrible things the leaders of North Korea do, there are millions of innocent people trapped there. They may not know what their government is doing. Even if they do, they do not know it is wrong. All they know if that they are forced to live in extremely harsh conditions and they have been taught that is the fault of the U.S.. Not to demeanthe intellect  of North Koreans, but they are compatible to children, brainwashed by mentally abusive parents that they are not worth anything and that everyone else would hurt them. This way, they accept their terrible living conditions because they think they are being saved from some greater evil. This blog is to expose the atrocities happening in North Korea, as well as to remind people that they need our help. They are not all bad. I wish to also incite many to pray for the people of North Korea. Prayer is incomprehensible powerful. God can do such amazing things, even turn a nation like North Korea into a nation of Pauls.