Not Forgotten

by Kenneth Bae

  After I finished, the judge said, “I will now go and consider my decision.”

  Fifteen minutes later he returned. In a decision that surprised no one, he said, “I find the defendant guilty and sentence him to fifteen years hard labor. Court is dismissed.”

  Prosecutor Lee responded to the fifteen-year sentence as though I had just been acquitted. Later I learned that before the trial he had worked hard for a lighter sentence for me. The other prosecutors really had planned on trying me as a war criminal and sentencing me to life in prison. But Mr. Lee pushed for leniency. By the time my trial started, tensions with the United States had cooled somewhat, which helped the other prosecutors go along with Mr. Lee.

  Later in the summer, the chief prosecutor said to me, “You owe your life to that man.”

  I had to agree.

  THIRTEEN

  103

  Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ.

  —PHILIPPIANS 1:12–13

  A FEW DAYS after my conviction, I was taken to a local hospital for a full medical evaluation. I’d had a similar examination right after my arrest to determine whether I was strong enough to withstand the rigors of the weeks of interrogation before me. I had thought the earlier examination was primarily designed to rattle me and make me believe I would be tortured if I did not talk. All of that was now behind me. This examination would determine if I was physically fit enough to spend the next fifteen years working on a prison farm in a labor camp.

  I believed the answer was a foregone conclusion. With my long list of medical conditions, I did not believe there was any way a doctor would deem me fit for a hard labor camp. Mr. Lee even told me as much in a conversation right after my conviction.

  A day or two after my medical examination, and before I got the results back, I was allowed to call my family. However, the chief prosecutor wrote out a script I had to follow in the calls to my wife, mother, and sister.

  “You must tell them to contact your government and tell them to make the most ardent efforts for the following: the United States needs to validate the DPRK legal system; they must acknowledge your guilt; they must apologize for your crimes; and they must promise that these types of illegal acts by Americans will not happen again,” he told me.

  I had so much I wanted to say to my family that I didn’t get to. Once I recited the lines the chief prosecutor gave me, he told me to hang up and make the next call. However, I was able to reassure my wife, mother, and sister that although I faced a fifteen-year sentence, I didn’t think I was going to be sent to a camp.

  “Their doctors have examined me, so my chances of going to the camp are small. Don’t worry,” I said. “Everything will work out. I will be fine.”

  The next day the Swedish ambassador came to see me. I gave him a list of my medical conditions, and he seemed very concerned. The embassy then made a formal request of the DPRK government that my conditions be treated before my sentence was carried out.

  We all thought that there was no way any doctor would clear me to go to the camp, but I was still nervous when Mr. Lee and the chief prosecutor took me back to the hospital for a meeting with the hospital director and the primary doctor who had examined me. The five of us sat down in a hospital conference room. The chief prosecutor seemed anxious to get on with the proceedings, so there were no introductions. He opened with, “So what did you decide?”

  The hospital director, a woman in her fifties, took the question. “Based on the results of our tests, we have determined that the patient, Mr. Bae, is not fit to work in the labor camp.”

  I wanted to give her a huge hug. I felt as though she had just saved my life.

  “Can he at least do some light labor in the camp without doing everything other inmates might be asked to do?” the chief prosecutor asked.

  I held my breath. I did not know the difference between light labor and hard labor in the North Korean system. The answer to this question was going to determine whether I was on my way to the prison.

  “No,” the director said. “He needs regular exercise for his diabetes, but his overall condition, including his injured back, makes him ill fitted for even light labor.”

  I looked the director in the eyes and gave her a look that I hoped expressed my extreme gratitude. I dared not say a word. In this system one never knows what might be perceived as insubordination. Instead I sat, took in her words, and thanked her in my heart. Outwardly I showed no emotion.

  The chief prosecutor did not want to give up. “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yes, we are sure,” the director said. “This man is not fit for the labor camp, not now at least.”

  With that, the meeting ended. I was taken back across town to the detention center. Mr. Lee came to see me in my room. As soon as he walked in, he said in an agitated voice, “Why didn’t you speak up and tell the chief prosecutor that you are too weak to go to the labor camp?”

  His question surprised me. “I didn’t think I needed to say anything, because the director was saying that for me. What am I going to add that is going to carry more weight than the director?”

  “You should have said something,” Mr. Lee insisted. “You need to complain a little more and make it clear that you cannot stand up to the rigors of the labor camp.”

  “Do you think that would matter?” I asked.

  “Very much,” Mr. Lee said.

  I did not understand Mr. Lee’s logic until three days later, when the chief prosecutor walked into my room and shouted, “Gather your things. You are going to the labor camp today to begin serving out your sentence.”

  “What?” I asked.

  The chief prosecutor was very upset. Steam came out of his ears. “Your Western media is mocking our judicial system. They think it is a joke and reported it was an unjust trial because it lasted only an hour and a half. We went through four and a half months of pretrial procedures. They think you are an innocent man who is being held as a political bargaining chip! No. You are clearly guilty and deserve to go to the labor camp! So that’s where you are going. Now!”

  I had not anticipated hearing these words. The North Korean government was clearly upset about the way the Western media reported the results of my trial. Now they had decided to raise the stakes by actually sending me to the labor camp in spite of the doctor’s recommendation.

  I realized the North Korean government wanted to see how far they could push the US government. Because I was caught in the middle of a high-stakes game of chicken, I was about to become the first American sent to a labor camp since the Korean War.

  The prosecutor spun around and walked out of the room. A guard came in as soon as he left and said, “Sit down in the chair.”

  I started to argue that I had just been told to gather my things, but I thought better of it. Another guard brought a barber to my room. “Sit down,” I was told again.

  I sat. The barber put a sheet around me, pulled out his clippers, and shaved my head. I felt as if I were in an old army movie.

  The chief prosecutor returned a few minutes later to take me out of what had been my home for nearly six months. “Don’t you think you should say a good-bye prayer over this place before you go?” he said in a mocking tone.

  “I’ve prayed enough here already,” I replied. I felt certain he was thinking, And look where all that prayer got you—fifteen years in a labor camp!

  With that, the prosecutor and guards escorted me out of the Pyongyang detention center for the last time and placed me in a minivan with black curtains covering the windows. Once again I was stuck in the middle of the backseat, only this time I was handcuffed. I had never been handcuffed before.


  To be honest, I was a little excited about going to the prison. I did not want to be in prison, obviously, but after being isolated for the past six months, I looked forward to interacting with the other inmates.

  I thought back to a conversation I had had with one of the guys in my tour group during our train ride from Dandong to Yanji six months earlier. Like I always did, I had gone over all the things they should not do in North Korea. The guy had joked, “I guess if something happens, we can start a prison ministry.” I had laughed.

  Riding to the prison, my head down between my knees so I could not see where I was being taken, I remembered the conversation. That’s exactly what I am going to do, I told myself. If I was going to have to spend time in a labor camp, I was going to do what I had come to North Korea to do. I was going to be a missionary. Inmates will probably be more receptive to what I have to say than the guards and prosecutors back in Rason and Pyongyang were, I thought.

  About twenty-five minutes after we had left the detention center, our van came to a stop. “Get out. We’re here,” a guard said.

  It took my eyes a moment to adjust once I was out of the van. I expected to see the kind of prison I had seen in the movies, something with large walls and guard towers and inmates milling about the yard. Instead, I found myself inside a fence, with a single-story building off to one side and a taller building, perhaps four or five stories tall, next to it. The single-story building was not large for a prison, perhaps five thousand square feet. To the side of the building was a large agricultural area that stretched up a hill. The fence around us was topped with razor wire and what looked to be an electric wire.

  Both the chief prosecutor and Mr. Lee had come along for the ride. I expected them to get back in the van, but they walked beside me as one of the prison guards led me into the single-story building. Another man in a suit followed us with a video camera, taping everything that happened. When I happened to glance his way, he said, “Don’t look at me!” He seemed to be in a very bad mood. Other officials and guards came in and out of the buildings, watching me. It seemed everyone had turned out to see the famous American criminal.

  Once we were inside the building, I was escorted down the hall and into a small room. A large man in his fifties, who had to be at least two hundred pounds and was dressed in a suit and tie rather than a uniform, was in the room, along with guards and other officials. I had yet to see another inmate. No inmates were out in the prison yard. No inmates were working out in the fields. And I could not see any other inmates anywhere near this reception room.

  The man in the suit told the guards, “I will take care of him from here.” Because he told the other guards what to do, I at first thought he was the chief guard. But judging from his size and the way everyone jumped when he issued a command, I decided he must be the warden. No guard, even the chief guard, would be high enough in the party to be so heavy.

  Turning to me, the man I believed was the warden said, “You need to change into your new uniform. Strip off your clothes.”

  “All my clothes?” I asked.

  “Yes, everything. Even your underwear.”

  Once I was completely naked, a guard brought me a prison uniform. Over the left breast of the shirt was a patch with the number 103 stitched on it. The number became my new identity.

  After I changed, I was handed a list with an inventory of all the items I had brought with me to the prison, including clothes, my Bibles, a handful of books my wife had sent me, and a few magazines the Swedish embassy had given me. I had to sign it. “All these things will be returned to you when you are released,” I was told. I could not help but notice the list was already missing several personal items I had brought into North Korea back in November.

  The man I assumed was the warden then started his welcome speech. “While you are here, you will answer to your inmate number, 103. No one is going to call you Junho or Mr. Bae or anything else. Your name is 103. And when one of the officers calls you 103, you are to respond, ‘Yes, sir.’ Do you understand, 103?”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied.

  “We expect no trouble out of you while you are here. To make sure of that you must memorize the ten rules for this prison camp and the daily schedule you will follow.” He pointed to two signs on the wall. “Memorize them now, 103.”

  The rules were simple enough. As best I can remember, they were:

  1. You must obey the guards’ commands and instructions perfectly at all times.

  2. Do not call the guards by name. You must address the guards as master or teacher.

  3. Do not talk back to the guards.

  4. If you are sick, you have the right to see a doctor.

  5. You must finish your work according to the assignment given. If you do not finish your work, you will be punished.

  6. You may read books, including the Bible, newspapers, and magazines, and watch TV during assigned hours only.

  7. You have the right to ask to see your country’s consulate member. (This one told me I was in a special prison where only foreigners were held.)

  8. You must clean your room and wash your clothes.

  9. You must keep your hygiene clean and healthy at all times.

  10. If you have any reasonable request, you can always ask the guard with respect.

  “If you need something, 103, speak to me or one of the guards about it and we will do what we can,” the warden said. “Your time with us does not have to be difficult. If you do what you are told and do not make any decisions on your own without first asking one of the officers, then you will be fine. How your time goes here is really up to you.”

  “Yes, sir. I understand,” I replied. Causing trouble was the last thing on my mind. I was convinced I was going to be one of the only Christians the warden and guards and other officials in the prison would ever interact with. I was very aware that my behavior would either open doors to the gospel or close them, depending on how they viewed me.

  There’s an old saying: “You are the only Jesus some people will ever see.” For me, this was actually the case.

  After the warden’s little welcome speech, the guards escorted me outside to the outer courtyard. One placed me next to a wall and said, “Stand still.” Another official came over and snapped my official prison mug shot. I was then escorted down the hallway and to my cell. My new home was room 3—hence my new name, 103. However, I did not figure this out until right before I was released. I even asked one of the guards about my number. “Am I the 103rd inmate in this prison? Were there 102 people kept here before me?”

  The guard told me to shut up. “It’s not for you to know!” he told me in no uncertain terms.

  Room 3 was about three hundred square feet and was made up of three small rooms. There was a living room area with a desk and a chair. On the opposite side was a television, which told me my reeducation was not yet complete. The room also had a window with bars across it. The window looked out to the interior hallway and on to the gate. There was also a bedroom with a twin bed, and a small bathroom. In addition to the camera hung in plain sight in the middle of the living room, more cameras hung on all the walls. Apparently, when it comes to prison accommodations in North Korea, this was as nice as it gets.

  The prison doctor came into my room to check up on me. When I found out who he was, I said to him, “The doctor at the hospital said I was not fit enough to work here.” I started to go through the list of my conditions when the doctor cut me off.

  “Don’t worry,” the doctor said. “Everybody who comes here gets better. The work will make your symptoms go away. So will the healthy food you will eat here. You will be fine.”

  “I have medications for my diabetes and gallstones I need to take. My wife sent them to me,” I said.

  “I will take care of your medications,” the doctor answered in a way that told me I didn’t
know what I was talking about.

  “But—”

  “Work is the best medicine. Your work will begin tomorrow,” he said, ending the conversation.

  The warden returned. “Again, 103, if you need something, just tell the guard. But make sure you do not harbor any illusions about escape. If you escape you will be shot.” He motioned toward the guard standing just outside my door. “All the guards have real bullets in their guns, and they will use them on you.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “I will let you settle into your room. You will start work first thing in the morning.”

  “What kind of work will I do?” I asked.

  “You will work on the farm to help grow the food that we feed you. In juche, everyone must work and provide for their own needs. You will be no different.”

  Uh-oh, I thought. If my eating depends on my agricultural skills, I am in serious trouble.

  The warden left, and lunch was brought in. It consisted of some simple noodles with a bit of pickle on top. In the evening they served me a dinner of some rice and two fish that were just a little bigger than anchovies. Mixed in with the rice I found two or three pieces of what I assumed was pork, but it was about 90 percent fat with just a tiny sliver of actual meat on one side. They also gave me a couple of vegetables and some broth. Breakfast the next day was more of the same. Compared to what I had eaten at the detention center, the meals were much simpler. I didn’t know how long I could do hard labor with such meager meals.

  Around ten o’clock on my first night, the guard finally gave me permission to go to bed. I lay down on my bed and pulled the thin blanket up over me. My overhead light was still on. I looked for a switch to turn it off but could not find one. I tried closing my eyes tight, but the light shone right through.