Voices from the North

The passed week I attended a seminar organized by the US Army and held at Youngsan Base; two defectors from North Korea told their views and life story.

                

Brave men that gave us an insight from what is said to be the most closed society in the world – DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic Korea)

We got information about the living conditions in the North both described and with pictures. 

Kim Kwang Jin, a former operative in Kim Jong Il’s financial network, sees a society at the point of collapse. Economy is in very bad shape, millions of people have died and are still dying of starvation, suicide rate is sky-high and hope does not exist. 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/17AR2009061703852_2html 

What a defector says of Kim Jong II, see kinks above, is "complete nonsense," a lawyer for the North's firm says.

The Kim-Jeong Il dynastic is about to be hand over to the third generation and intelligence reports a lot of unrest and instability, for the leaders aren’t able to feed their population.

http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/article.aspx?id=3696

The few people that manage to defect, mainly through China, take enormous risks and leave their family with not much chance to ever see them again.

Joseph Park (not his real name) greeted us by asking “Good afternoon, did you have lunch”? and explained that it’s the normal way of North Koreans to greet each other. When he was 15 his father told him that he needed to get out of the country after finishing high school, for then he would be drafted to do his military service, which is twelve years. At the age of nineteen this young man fled with his life at stake and only taking with him the clothes he wore a hand full of rice and  ten dollar. He got three advices from his father with him before undertaking this difficult trip and leaving his family.

1.   Do not sleep on the train

2.   Always be polite

3.   Have big dreams

Joseph made it over the boarder due to his persistence, a great deal of good luck and helpful people. This was ten years ago and he adapted to his new surroundings describing it as him being “Tarzan” for he had to learn all the new techniques. He’s finished he studies at a prestige’s university in Seoul is now looking for a job. His family doesn’t know if he made it, he doesn’t know how his family is doing for no contact has been established with his family since he fled. But Joseph has HOPE that this will be happing in the future.