by Kenneth Bae
“I am a man of my word,” I said.
“Your word? Ha. Why should I believe anything you say?” Prosecutor Min said. He pointed down at the stack of papers in front of him. “You admitted to trying to overthrow our government and to spreading lies about our Great Leader. You signed this confession. You yourself said you are guilty of everything.”
His voice did not rise in anger as Mr. Park’s had done. Instead, he had a very cold, calculating quality about him.
“You confessed you are a liar. And now you are telling the truth when you say you are sorry? No, you are not sorry, and I’m going to make sure you get what you deserve for what you have done. We’re going to make an example of you so that no other ‘missionary’ dares come into our great nation and tries what you did.”
“Okay,” I said. I did not react. I had heard threats many times before. I was starting to get used to it.
“Now as for you and your case: Where were you born?” he asked. This was followed by more of the same questions I had answered a thousand times in Rason. “When did you move to the United States? . . . Tell me about your father . . .”
Min’s line of questioning sounded like he had decided to start the whole process over from the beginning. I did not understand why. He came back the next day and went through the same routine, and then the next day and the next and the next. Every morning I expected Mr. Lee to walk through my door, but it was always Mr. Min who came in to question me.
I started worrying about what might have happened to Mr. Lee. I was afraid he had gotten into trouble for treating me too well. Giving a dangerous criminal candy and soda can land you into a lot of trouble in this place.
For weeks Prosecutor Min came to question me every day. Each session followed the same pattern. He asked me more questions I had already answered, and then he threatened me. “You are the worst American criminal since the Korean War. You not only tried to overthrow the government but you have mobilized, trained, and sent people here to participate in such an act,” he told me. “I am going to make sure you get what’s coming to you.”
The daily grind of his berating took its toll. Not only did I have to listen to Prosecutor Min rail against me, my nights were filled with hours of anti-American propaganda on North Korean television. I felt a spirit of warfare all around me.
Late one night the warfare became very personal. I was sleeping when I felt hands around my throat, choking me. I struggled to breathe. I tried to reach up and pull the hands off of my throat, but my hands refused to move. My entire body felt pinned to the bed, as if someone were sitting on top of me. The weight grew heavier and heavier. I gasped for breath.
Finally, I managed to open my eyes. No one was on me. No hands were around my neck, yet the choking continued, and the weight grew heavier.
“Jesus!” I yelled.
Whatever had me let go.
“In the name of Jesus, get out! You filthy, evil spirit, get out!”
The oppression and warfare I had felt in my room evaporated as the peace of God filled the place. I went back to sleep and slept like a baby.
During the pretrial period I decided to put some order into my day. I wanted to have a schedule: three hours of worship, three hours of prayer, three hours of Bible reading, and three hours of exercise.
Whenever the prosecutor was not in my room, I sang praise songs to God in both English and Korean. Then I spent time praying. I didn’t have anyone else to talk to, so three hours of talking to God went by really fast. Then I spent time reading my Bible. Finally, I spent three hours a day exercising. The guards didn’t like it, but the chief prosecutor gave me permission to walk around my room.
My room was five meters wide, so one trip back and forth equaled ten meters. I started off doing one hundred laps a day, or one kilometer (about six-tenths of a mile). Eventually I increased this to two hundred laps, then three hundred and five hundred, until I eventually got up to one thousand laps, or ten kilometers, which is around six miles. I also did some push-ups and other calisthenics.
I did not get to follow this routine every day, but I tried. Having order and a schedule to my day helped me cope with the pressures I faced. However, the intensity of the pressure grew until I didn’t think I could hold up any longer. But then God showed up again in a very surprising way.
One morning during my worship time, I started to crave a certain cold noodle soup for which one of the Pyongyang restaurants is famous. I’d had it on an earlier trip to Pyongyang. For some reason I could not stop thinking about this soup. I could almost smell it and taste it. However, I didn’t dare ask the guards or one of the prosecutors to bring it to me, not with all the talk of war flying around. I didn’t even pray for something so small. Instead, I just said to myself, I really wish I had some of that cold noodle soup.
The next day, when lunch arrived, I discovered a bowl of the exact cold noodle soup I had craved. The guard told me that they had someone bring it from the very restaurant I had in mind.
I could not believe my eyes. The soup was the first meal I truly enjoyed since my arrest. I savored every drop.
A day or so later I had a strong craving for some kimchi fried rice. Again, I did not dare ask for it, nor did I let anyone know I craved it. I didn’t even pray for it.
That night when they brought in my dinner, I found the kimchi fried rice I had craved in the morning. It was almost as if I had phoned room service and placed my order directly.
The next day I craved tofu soup. When it came in my next meal, I realized it was more than a coincidence. Psalm 37:4 says, “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” God was doing exactly that for me.
Over the course of my five months in the Pyongyang detention center, I counted at least forty times when God gave me the exact food I craved. By providing the food I desired, he let me know that he had not forgotten me. God not only gave me the desires of my heart but also of my stomach! He was with me, and he was not going to let anything happen to me that didn’t go through him first.
Prosecutor Min walked into my room one morning in February 2013 and started in on me as he always did. “You are going to go to trial, and you are going to get the maximum penalty!” he said. He waved my confession at me. “You are going to get what you deserve. I will see to it.”
Finally I could not take it any longer. “You know what? I’m done. I’m not going along with this anymore,” I said.
“You what?” Min asked, shocked.
“The confession, the questions, all of it. I am done.”
“What do you mean you are done? You signed this. You cannot take it back.” Min was indignant.
“I signed it only because I was promised I would go home if I did. I didn’t come into your country to try to overthrow the government. I brought people in to pray. All I ever wanted to do was help the North Korean people and let them know God loves them. The North Korean people with whom I worked will tell you that I always operated my business with integrity and respect for your country and culture. This whole mess started because I accidentally brought in an external computer hard drive that would never have been taken out of my briefcase until I got back to my home, except your people pulled it out and made a big deal about it. I apologized for bringing it in. I was not going to share anything on it with anyone in this country. So that’s what I mean by I am done. I am not going along with this anymore.”
“Are you accusing our people of forcing you to sign false documents?” Min said, seething.
“I’m not accusing anyone of anything. I’m just telling you what happened. And what happened was I was told that if I signed those papers and went along with everything, I was going to get to go home,” I said.
“You are going to get what you deserve, and I will see to it,” he growled. With that he stormed out of the room.
The chief prosecutor came to see me the next day, along with two other official-looking men in suits. The two new guys did not introduce themselves to me.
“What is this I hear about you changing your mind?” the chief prosecutor said, his voice rising. Clearly I had made him angry. “Now you are denying everything, are you? You say you don’t have to do this anymore. Well, neither do we. We can just end it all right here and now if we want.”
He did not explain what he meant by that, but I had a pretty good idea.
“You know,” he continued, “I may just move you to a prison right now, today. We are pretty much done with this whole pretrial process.” He stopped for a moment as if he were thinking about what he was going to say next. “I don’t think I will do that, not until we decide what we need to do with you permanently. But I do think we need to make some changes. I think you must be too comfortable here. That’s why you say the things you do. You think you can just take advantage of our kindness. So I’ve decided you will receive no more letters from your family.”
Since my initial stack of letters I had received more mail every couple of weeks.
“You say you don’t want to cooperate. Fine. But I have the power to make you suffer, and you are going to suffer.” He then spun around on his heels and left, the two men in suits with him.
The next morning Mr. Lee returned for the first time in weeks. I was very glad to see him. “Where have you been?” I asked.
“I had to attend some other business in another city. It seems things went poorly while I was away. Come, let’s go for a walk and have a little talk.”
Mr. Lee led me out of the building and into an adjacent courtyard. I didn’t think he just wanted to give me a little fresh air and sunshine. My room, like the one in Rason, had cameras. Mr. Lee needed to get me to a place where we could have a private conversation.
“So what happened?” he asked. “Why did you say you are no longer going to cooperate?”
“I thought you were gone, and the new prosecutor kept telling me I was going to go to trial and get what was coming to me. And that means I am going to have to serve whatever sentence they give me. I thought that if I was going to go down anyway, I might as well take a stand.”
“No, no, no,” Mr. Lee said. “You do not understand the seriousness of the situation in which you find yourself. These people are very angry. The whole country is. They are serious when they say they may apply a real-time resolution to you, which means taking you out into the square and shooting you as a war criminal. The war with America is about to start. They are angry. If you keep this up, you will die.”
By this point I had heard so many threats against my life that I had a hard time taking them seriously. But Mr. Lee did. He truly believed my life was in danger.
“The best thing you can do is to cooperate and go along with everything to the end. You are not the first American we have held here. Every one of our previous prisoners eventually went home. You will, too, but not if you choose the route you announced to Mr. Min. If you stick with that, there’s no turning back.”
I thought about what he was saying as we walked back and forth through the courtyard. “Okay,” I said, “I will cooperate. I will not take back my confession. I’ll do whatever it takes to just end this and get me home.”
Mr. Lee looked very relieved. He let out a small sigh. “You have made the right choice, Mr. Bae.” I hoped he was right.
I returned to my room, sat down in my chair, and reflected on all that had just happened. I did not know who or what to believe. I did not know if the anger and threats were just part of a show to scare me, or if Mr. Min and the chief prosecutor meant business. The very idea that all these officials and the entire country believed war with the United States was imminent was hard for me to believe. But if they truly believe it, anything might happen to me, I thought.
As I sat there, reflecting on the uncertainty surrounding me, Graham Kendrick’s song “Knowing You” started playing in my head, as if someone had just turned on a radio. Before I knew it I found myself singing, softly at first, then louder and louder.
I kept singing “Knowing You” over and over and over. I did not know if I would ever see my family again or even if I was going to get out of North Korea alive, but one thing I did know: I was not alone. My Savior was with me. He was all I had. And right now, he was enough.
TWELVE
GUILTY AS CHARGED
The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
—PSALM 121:7–8
IN SPITE OF all the talk of my imminent trial, I still held out hope that one day Mr. Lee or the chief prosecutor might walk into my room and tell me I was going home right away. I kept marking off the days on my countdown calendars. I’d gone through several thirty-day countdowns so far. Mr. Lee did come in one day in late March to talk about my trial, but instead of letting me go home, he made it clear why the DPRK was so intent on me answering for my crimes.
“You must go on trial if anyone is going to take our laws seriously,” he explained. “If we do not try you, we will encourage more missionaries to come into our country, thinking that if they get caught, the worst that will happen is they will be sent home. It has already been decided that we will make an example of you.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. He told me in February that I was to stand trial in March. Yet with March winding down without a trial, I entertained thoughts that perhaps I had been made example enough.
The chief prosecutor put those thoughts to rest. “There was no trial in March because of the current situation with the United States,” he said. Apparently everyone was so preoccupied with preparing for war with America that they didn’t have time to mess with a nobody like me.
The delay in the trial worked out well for me. The prosecutors rarely came around anymore, which gave me more time for worship, prayer, Bible reading, and exercise. Pyongyang television started broadcasting two hours earlier, which meant I had to cut everything off at three o’clock to spend the next seven and a half hours in front of the television. Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un’s face was all over every channel for much of the time. I was never so thankful for anything as I was for the power outages that cut off the television so that I didn’t have to look at him.
I caught a break from time to time thanks to the Science and Technology Channel, which broadcast only at night. It sometimes featured foreign education programs and even foreign films. One day I could not believe my eyes or ears: the channel showed Finding Nemo in English. Apparently they put it on the air to help students improve their English skills. I didn’t care why they showed it. After sitting in the room all by myself, watching nothing but propaganda for seven hours every single day, to see an actual American animation in English was like finding a cool stream in the desert. I wept all the way through Finding Nemo. It was something from home, a taste of America.
In late March the chief prosecutor finally allowed me to receive mail from my family again. I went to meet the Swedish ambassador at the Yanggakdo Hotel again, and he brought a large stack of mail along with some packages.
I read my wife’s letters first. My heart could hardly take it. She wrote:
This winter we have had to walk in the dark tunnel where we could see no end. It has been so difficult for us, and it still has not ended yet. However,
we are walking together in this unbearable journey. As you know, the sunshine is hiding behind the cloud and the rainbow will be appearing after the storm . . . I desperately await good news from you, under the North Korean sky. Remember your family is waiting for you, full of love and cheer.
I reread over and over the line, “We are walking together in this unbearable journey.” Her words made me feel as if she were right there with me. Knowing we were walking this journey together gave me strength not to give up.
Lydia also mentioned that she had shut down my ministry, closed my office, and removed all my furniture. Reading that was also hard for me. I’d been in custody for nearly six months with no end in sight. Closing my office was the right thing to do, and I knew I could reopen it when I resumed my work, but that seemed very far off now. I started to wonder if my work in China was ever going to continue, much less my work in North Korea.
Tucked into the stack of letters from my family was one from someone whose name I did not recognize. I opened it only to find it was not just one letter but several short notes from students at a church that had financially supported my missionary work. A group from the church had even joined me on one of my earlier Rason tours. I don’t know how they learned I was in prison or even how they knew where to send the letters to get them to me. Not that it mattered.
Reading their short, encouraging notes recharged my spirit. “You are not forgotten but the eyes of the Lord are fixed upon you,” one read. Another said, “God always has a plan, and even though right now it’s a struggle, you’ll definitely pull through.” One wrote just to thank me for my faithfulness, while several more reminded me that God loves me and so did they.
Now I knew I really wasn’t in this alone. God was already working in other people’s lives through my imprisonment. I was excited to see what he was going to do next.
In late April the chief prosecutor came back to see me. “You will stand trial on April 30,” he said, “so you need to prepare yourself.”