Not Forgotten

by Kenneth Bae

  Two weeks later Mr. Disappointment came to see me. “You’re going to get your wish to do an interview with the Western media,” he said.

  “Who is coming?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe the AP, maybe CNN. I don’t know. Whoever it is, you must do this one right. Maybe something good will happen if you do.”

  On September 1, 2014, I reported for work just like any other day. Before my first break the deputy warden came out to get me.

  “We’re going to give you a haircut before your interview,” he said.

  I was disappointed. They were going to shave my head again. I had hoped to grow my hair out a little before I was released. He led me back to the barber, but the regular guy who cut my hair wasn’t there. Someone else took over. Unfortunately, the new barber wasn’t much of a barber. He didn’t have the right clippers, and he didn’t know what he was doing.

  The replacement barber had cut maybe two-thirds of my hair when Mr. Disappointment came in and said, “It’s time.”

  “That’s enough, then. Stop the haircut. Let’s go,” the deputy warden said.

  I looked at myself in the mirror. My half-shaved head made me look like some kind of mad scientist. “Can’t he finish first?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “There’s no time.”

  “Can I at least wash my hair to get all the loose hair off me?” I asked.

  “There’s no time. You look fine,” the deputy warden said.

  One of the guards brought some clothes for me to change into. I recognized them as some my mother had sent me. I was happy to get to wear real clothes for a change. However, when I put on the pants, they basically fell off me because I had lost so much weight. In the month that I had been back in the labor camp, I had dropped another fifteen pounds.

  “Do you have my belt?” I asked. I had had a nice belt when I had entered North Korea.

  The warden said, “Here, you can use mine.” He handed me his belt, and I put it on. I had to cinch it up really tight, and even then it felt like my pants might fall off.

  Once I changed my clothes, I was transported from the labor camp to a hotel that also had a restaurant in it. Mr. Disappointment and the guards led me to a second-floor private room, just off the restaurant. There I sat and waited with the guards for a solid hour.

  “See, I told you I had time to get my hair cut,” I said, but no one listened.

  All of a sudden, a CNN crew walked into the room. Until I met them I had no idea with whom my interview might be. I later learned that the other two American prisoners were in rooms just down the hall. The CNN crew interviewed each of us, one at a time. One, Jeffrey Fowle, was arrested when he left a Bible behind in an international sailors’ club bathroom. I later learned he was released three short weeks after this interview. The other, Matthew Miller, entered the country legally with a tourist visa. However, as soon as he arrived, he tore up his visa and asked for asylum. The North Koreans arrested him as a spy. He went to trial and was sentenced to six years of hard labor. I did not know any of this at the time.

  Will Ripley, the CNN reporter, told me at the outset that we had only five minutes. He was very nice and tried to give me as much time as possible to address my family as well as the United States government. I made it clear that I believed the only way my situation would ever be solved was through a special envoy coming over to negotiate my release. I also chose my words very carefully so as not to antagonize the DPRK government. When asked about my conditions and treatment, I said I was being treated humanely.

  After the interview I was transported back to the labor camp. The warden immediately came to see me and asked, “What did they ask you?”

  I joked with him and said, “The CNN reporter asked if I was being treated humanely or inhumanely. What else can I say but humanely?”

  “What do you mean? We haven’t violated your human rights,” he replied.

  “Nothing counts until I leave the country. That’s all people in the United States care about. As long as I am here, they see it as inhumane treatment. Sure, I haven’t been beaten up, but that doesn’t count for much with Americans.”

  I guess I made him feel a little guilty, because the next day he told me, “We have a new job for you. Instead of moving rocks outside, we have an indoor job for you. You are going to peel corn.”

  Then he added, “I just want you to know that we are treating you as humanely as possible. You make sure you say that when you get out of here.” His last statement told me something was up. The warden expected me to be gone soon.

  A buzz came over the prison two weeks after my interview. Guards rushed about, carrying blankets into one of the rooms. When it came time for me to go to work, they gave me a broom and had me sweep room 7. That was on a Saturday. The next day I was told to go to the bedroom part of my room and stay away from my door. They didn’t want me to see something, and I had a pretty good idea what it was. My lunch came, but they pushed it to me through my window rather than bringing it to my door. Finally, a couple of hours after lunch, I was told I could come out of my bedroom. They did not let me go down the hall toward room 7.

  The next day, September 15, I was sent back outside to work for the first time since the CNN interview. I was pretty sure someone new had arrived in the labor camp, but I never saw him. Well, if someone is here, I may not be able to see him, but he can hear me from outside. His window has to be open just like mine, I thought.

  I started singing loudly in English, “God is so good.” I paused and listened, hoping whoever was hearing might sing along with me to let me know they were there.

  I didn’t hear anything.

  After a couple of days of trying to make contact, I asked one of the guards, “So who is in room 7?”

  “No one,” he snapped.

  “Come on. I know someone is there. I heard someone cough a few times.”

  “Nobody coughed,” he said.

  “I even saw you bring two trays of food in during lunch. Someone else has to be here,” I said.

  “No. Nobody is there. You are the only prisoner in the camp.”

  I didn’t argue the point.

  The same day I had this conversation, the warden came to me and asked about my health. I went down my usual list of ailments.

  He replied, “Maybe we should think about sending you to the hospital.”

  This was on a Tuesday. That Friday he asked me the same questions and ended the conversation by saying, “I think it is time for you to go spend some time in the hospital. You have lost a lot of weight.”

  In my two months back at the labor camp, I had dropped twenty-five pounds. I had lost ten just since the CNN interview. The warden’s questions made me think something had to be up, but the rest of the day passed and nothing happened.

  The next day, Saturday, September 20, I went outside and worked all day. I dug up rocks from the streambed and carried them back to the front of the building. The weather was scorching hot, and I was covered in sweat. Around three in the afternoon, the guards suddenly took me back to my room.

  The warden was waiting there for me. “You’re leaving to go back to the hospital. So pack now.”

  I still had not seen the newest prisoner, so I asked the warden about him, telling him that I had hoped I might have some company working out in the field.

  “What other person?” the warden asked. “There is nobody else here but you.”

  Later I learned that Matthew Miller started working in the field the Monday after I left the camp.

  When I left my room, several guards met me in the hallway to tell me good-bye. I found it hard to say good-bye to some of them. One told me, “You know, under different circumstances, I think we could have been good friends.” I agreed.

  Because no one had e
ver been in the camp three times, I felt it very unlikely I was going to come back for a fourth. Every parting had felt like the last good-bye, but this one really did. I felt very strongly that, barring an act of God, this was the last time I was ever going to see these guys. I prayed in my heart for them and hoped that my time with them might bear fruit.

  On the drive back to the hospital I allowed my hopes to go up, thinking my nightmare might finally be coming to an end. When we arrived I was ushered back to the same room and given the same diagnosis. I had malnutrition—again. My bad back was still bad. My arm still hurt. I woke up every hour because of numbness and sharp pain in my hands. With the exception of my diabetes, everything that had been wrong with me on April 30, 2013, when I was first sent to the labor camp, was still wrong with me now.

  The doctor prescribed rest, rest, and more rest. Her prescription struck me as funny because the camp doctor always prescribed work, work, and more work as the cure for everything wrong with me. I did get the feeling that they wanted me to be in peak health for some reason. I hoped the reason was my release.

  Mr. Disappointment did his best to destroy my hopes of release. He came to see me in the hospital, and just as he had done for a year, he told me, “Nothing is being done to get you home. Your government has forgotten you. People have moved on. You are going to be here a long time. I will treat you to some special noodles on your sixtieth birthday.”

  As September ended and October wore on with no apparent changes in my situation, I found it hard not to believe him, even though I still received mail from my family telling me to stay strong.

  As time dragged by I didn’t think about giving up. Instead, I found myself tempted to become what the North Koreans had always accused me of being. More than once I told myself, If I don’t get out this year, maybe I will become a freedom fighter.

  I had asked God to make me a bridge to North Korea. Now I didn’t care about being a bridge. I was angry about all I saw in this country. Every day I still had to sit in front of a television, watching more of their propaganda. A year earlier I had found their lies annoying. Now they made me very angry.

  If I ever get out of here, maybe I will become the spokesman for human rights they fear I might become. I will let the world know the truth of how this entire country is enslaved by a system of lies.

  In my earlier interactions with Mr. Park, Mr. Lee, Mr. Min, and even Mr. Disappointment, I had done my best to maintain a gentle and humble spirit. I wanted to show people Jesus to open their hearts to him. Now I was ready to become one of the prophets of old.

  I’m just going to start preaching the gospel really loud and see what happens, I told myself.

  October was a real spiritual struggle for me. I prayed less than I ever had since I was arrested. Nor was I reading the Bible as much. Over the course of the two years I was in North Korea, I read the Bible through seventeen times. Now I hardly touched it. I was depressed. I was angry. I was tired and ready to go home.

  And then Mr. Disappointment came in and started in on his “No one cares about you, no one remembers you, you are never going home” speech. It was nearly more than I could bear. I wanted to tell him what my mother always had told me: “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

  The two-year anniversary of my arrest was just around the corner. I did not know how much more I could take. Oh, Lord, help me, I prayed. I am at the end of my rope.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I WILL BRING YOU HOME

  “Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him;

  I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.”

  —PSALM 91:14

  ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2014, Mr. Disappointment came into my room for his weekly pep talk. His message had not changed: “No one is coming for you. No one remembers you. You are going to be here until we celebrate your sixtieth birthday together.”

  I did not respond. I just listened and hoped he would leave soon. His message hit me hard. Since the day I returned to the hospital, I had hoped a special envoy from the United States was on its way. Six weeks had passed without the slightest hint that one was going to come. After Mr. Disappointment left, I spent the rest of the day down and depressed.

  I woke up Sunday, November 2, realizing I had to make a choice. I could either listen to Mr. Disappointment, or I could listen to the voice of God. I started to grab my Bible, but for some reason I picked up the stack of more than three hundred letters I had received from people all over the world. Mr. Disappointment had worn me down by telling me I was forgotten. Then I read a note from a family in Northern Ireland: “You are not forgotten, Kenneth, so we stand with you and your family to get justice for you. Keep looking up, Kenneth.”

  Another letter from Tina, whom I have never met, said, “I pray for you to stay strong. Don’t be defeated. You need to stay strong. Don’t give up your fight.”

  Nick from Seattle told me, “Remember that no one can hurt your soul. I pray that you would feel the presence of God all the time. Thank you for your courage and your love for the North Korean people.”

  Tears flooded my eyes as I read. I wiped them away and kept reading. “I struggle to understand what the reason must be for you to endure such hardship,” Jennifer wrote. “All I can offer you is that your story is giving many, many people hope and a renewed sense of faith here in the U.S.” God bless Jennifer M., I prayed.

  Anna wrote to reassure me, “God is good. Yes, in the midst of this severe pain, God is still good. He is still just. He is still on his throne . . . I don’t know if this e-mail will help you in any way. I don’t know if it will even be read. But just in case it is read and it serves as a reminder of the greatness of God, I thought I’d send it.”

  Kelly wrote, “I encourage you today to stay committed to the ‘mission’ laid on your heart. That mission of compassion.”

  Yes, Lord, I am a missionary, and I was sent here for a reason, I prayed.

  I spent most of my morning reading letters from supporters I had never met. After an hour or so, I laid them down and got down on my face before God.

  Lord, I need your peace, I prayed. I need your strength. You said that when we are weak, you are strong. I need you to fill me with your strength today, Lord, because I feel very weak.

  The more I prayed, and the more letters I read, the less I heard the voice of Mr. Disappointment and the more I heard the voice of God. I didn’t know how much more I was going to have to endure, but I knew through God’s strength I would make it. Too many people were praying for me; I would not fail.

  The next morning, Monday, November 3, I awoke at six o’clock. I had never awoken that early in the hospital, but I was wide-awake. Then I heard the voice of the Spirit of God say to me, Open your Bible to Zephaniah 3:20. I had no idea what Zephaniah 3:20 said. Hope washed over me as I read the first two lines:

  At that time I will gather you;

  at that time I will bring you home.

  In my spirit I sensed God say, Now is the time. Now I will bring you home.

  Four days later, on Friday, November 7, around 9:30 p.m., Mr. Disappointment came to see me. He had never come at such a late hour before.

  “You’re going to have another interview tomorrow morning,” he said. “You need to be up and ready to go by 7:30. But this time, instead of pleading with the United States for help, you need to thank the North Korean government for treating you so well and apologize one more time for what you have done. Maybe this will be the last thing you will have to do before you go home.”

  “Does this mean someone came from the US government?” I asked, hopeful.

  “No. No one came. It’s just an interview,” he said.

  “With whom? CNN again?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. But if you do well, maybe good things will happen. Prepare
yourself tonight so that you can do a good job tomorrow,” Mr. Disappointment said.

  I could not sleep that night. He never comes this late. And I have never done an interview at 7:30 in the morning. This must be urgent. Something must be up. Then I remembered that a flight from Beijing lands in Pyongyang at six in the evening. Maybe someone had come on that flight, and that’s why Mr. Disappointment came to see me so late. The flight out of Pyongyang back to Beijing leaves at ten in the morning. Maybe I had to do an early interview to make the flight.

  These thoughts ran through my head all night. I think I dozed off for two or three hours at the most.

  Mr. Disappointment walked in right on time the next morning. He took one look around and asked, “Why didn’t you pack?”

  “You didn’t tell me to pack,” I said.

  “Don’t worry about it. We will pack for you.” He handed me some clothes. “Here is a clean prison uniform. You need to put this on.”

  “Okay,” I said. I knew this meant that I was either going home or going back to the prison camp.

  A van took me to the Potonggang Hotel, where Mr. Disappointment and a group of guards escorted me to a suite. My mother had stayed at this very hotel one year earlier when she came to see me. On the drive to the hotel, my sense of anticipation rose. The guards were decked out in their dress uniforms. I took that as a good sign.

  Once we got into the suite, Mr. Disappointment told me, “Take a seat.” It was around eight o’clock.