Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader

by Martin, Bradley K.

  “At 1 A.M. we would put a blanket over our heads and listen to South Korean broadcasts. A department store in Pyongyang deals in foreign goods, including radios that are not fixed to a single channel. You need foreign exchange to buy them, and they’re intended for foreigners. I had a short-wave radio.”

  Q. What do you think of Radio Free Asia?

  A. “Very good idea.”

  Q. What percentage of people would have access to it?

  A. “I guess about 6 to 7 percent, usually high officials—the ones with the power.”

  Q. Does it make sense to try to reach those people?

  A. “Of course. They already know a lot about the Western world and about discrepancies involving the Kim Il-sung regime. I knew some people working at Nodong Publishing Company [publisher of the party newspaper, Nodong Shinmun, and the party journal, Kulloja]. In front of other officials they would hail Kim Il-sung, but in private they would criticize him. They don’t know as much as they need to know, though. Giving them more access to the facts would change them more. The trend today is to listen secretly to foreign broadcasts. Since there are so many fabrications in North Korea, they’re interested in getting information from the outside world. All they get now is KBS, and it can only be tuned in from 11 P.M. to 2 A.M., so it’s not very convenient. Usually KBS broadcasts talk just about South Korea. North Koreans sometimes can’t even imagine what they’re talking about. What’s needed is to report on what happens in North Korea.”

  Q. What kind of equipment do the potential listeners have available? Do many have short-wave radios as you had?

  A. “Most of them have AM/FM radios with cassette decks.”

  Q. You were in the camp at the same time as Ahn Hyuk, and you two defected together. Did you know him in the camp?

  A. “We were in different parts of the camp, so we didn’t know each other there. He was in the central part, and I was in the family complex. Anyway, he went in about the same time I got out. But one of my friends in the camp got out at the same time as Ahn, and he introduced us in 1989. Ahn and I talked a lot. Both of us were dissidents, so we had similar ideals and we grew close. We were listening together to KBS, singing popular songs and dancing disco. That caused problems, because rumors spread. One day we wanted to have fun. We went to the mountains with some other friends, taking our stereo and some drinks. We started listening to South Korean popular music and dancing. A passerby reported us. We had some talks with State Security but used bribery to get out of it. That’s when the intensive surveillance started, though.

  “After some more bribery we were able to move to Pyongsong city a ‘science city’ very near Pyongyang, late in 1990. Before going to the camp, my youngest uncle had graduated in science with a grade average of 4.0. North Korean law says if you get a perfect score, you can have a job at any university in your field. So he worked at the Institute of Science and Technology at Pyongsong. That took a lot of bribery too, but this time we handled it ourselves with money from our relatives. North Korean society is very corrupt. From top to bottom in the society, all ranks are linked with bribery. Without bribes you can’t get anywhere.

  “At Pyongsong I tried to get a job at the Institute of Science and Technology as a lab assistant, but the job didn’t come through so I didn’t work there. I got caught by State Security again after I moved there because one of my supposedly close friends there was a spy sent by State Security. He reported all my criticisms of Kim Il-sung. I was taken in for questioning and was under surveillance. I knew I would be sent to a camp again. Ahn was in trouble, too, since we had been to the mountains together and hung out together.

  “We were close to one Public Security guy we had bribed a lot. From him we got travel passes. In January 1992, we took a train from Pyongyang to Haesan on the Chinese border near the Yalu River. We bribed some border guards, telling them we were traders and wanted to buy some goods in China to resell in North Korea. The river was frozen then, and we were able to walk across it. We had thought of going to South Korea, but our first priority was just to get out. We went to China and hung around there. We heard that it was better to go to South Korea.”

  Q. You said most university students have anti-regime feelings.

  A. “Just by watching as China has changed to a free-market system they can see that people are living better. And look how well the Japanese live. University students believe that if the regime stays in power, it will be the downfall of North Korea.”

  Q. How would the regime lose power?

  A. “The only way to get rid of them is a united uprising. If it were a scattered uprising, they could suppress it and send the people involved to camps. The problem is, it’s impossible to get a united movement together. Even your closest friend may be a spy from State Security. To have a united force you need to talk with each other, and that can’t happen. There’s no one in North Korea who has hope for the future. North Korea is as good as ruined.

  “Most North Koreans don’t even care about the nuclear issue. All this attention to the nuclear issue is not important. What people should focus on is human rights, saving people from the camps. As a citizen, I knew there were nuclear weapons. So why all the fuss about whether North Korea has them or not? Why all this fuss about inspection?”

  Q. How should we deal with the human rights question?

  A. “I don’t have any specifics. I was shocked when [South Korean] Unification Minister Han said, ‘We should not talk about human rights at this point.’ The essential reason reunification doesn’t come is a matter of human rights. Everything in North Korea is done for just two people, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. They have no consideration for the people. We can only reunify the country if North Korean society opens, so that people can stand up and talk freely about their complaints. The whole world should focus on human rights in North Korea.”

  Q. Would the people fight if a war came?

  A. “People want war to break out. It’s the only way to bring about the fall of the regime, or to end their misery. Young kids conscripted into the army at age seventeen are all brain-washed to believe that South Korea and the United States are the enemy. Of course they would fight. But once they got to Seoul and saw the reality of South Korea, there would be chaos and they would change. And while the new recruits don’t know the real world, I imagine the veteran soldiers have more understanding of reality.”

  Q. Tell me about the food situation.

  A. “While I was there, people were having two meals a day, sometimes rations of animal feed. That’s what I got in the industrial city where I worked in the factory, a city with a big population and not enough food. In the camp, people like Ahn got around 300 grams a day. [Ahn himself said 360.] People like us, in the family complex, got around 500 grams a day. Corn and salt. The corn was uncooked. You had to cook it yourself.”

  Q. What is your goal now that you’re out?

  A. “I want to be part of the exchange between South and North. My dream is, when reunification comes, I want to make a monument in front of the camp to all those who were sacrificed there.”

  In the meantime Kang became a journalist, watching North Korea for the influential Seoul daily Chosun Ilbo and publishing a book about his experiences.3

  ***

  Powerfully built, suntanned, his hair cut short, his belt buckle big and gold like the buckle on a cowbow belt, Ahn Myong-chol very much looked the part of a former prison guard. He thought he recognized me when we met: “I think in 1989 or so I saw a picture of you in Nodong Shinmun, getting a bouquet from a little girl,” he told me.

  “I dropped out of agricultural college to join the army,” he said. “If I’d graduated from that school I wouldn’t have been able to apply for the military. I wanted to join because they usually treat those who haven’t done military service as fools; unless they’re technocrats they can’t join the party. When I first joined the army I worked as a prison guard for three years, then for five years as a driver delivering food for an army base. />
  “I know about ten prison camps total and worked at four of them. Friends and colleagues worked at the other six. Usually the offenders were separated from their families. All four of my camp jobs were where the families were kept. Ahn Hyuk and Kang Chul-hwan’s camp was totally different from mine. Prisoners were divided according to whether they had any prospects of leaving or not. The ones where I worked were all hopeless prisoners. No one would get out. All would die there. The guards kept urging them to work harder—‘You can get out, get married.’ So they believed there was some reason to hope.”

  Q. How did you convince them if they couldn’t see anybody leaving?

  A. “People did leave—but for other camps. At night some prisoners were taken from the camps by truck. Guards told those left behind that these were going out to society, to a new life. But basically they were sending them to another camp, another ‘country’ I was in the Seventh Department of State Security. Country and department in Korean are both guk. Samguk, the Third Department, is just like Hitler. They do biological experiments on their prisoners. The Third Department facilities are right next to the prison camps. In North Korea when a person dies we usually bury his body. Cremation is rare. But in Samguk I could see the smoke coming out from burning bodies. I worked as a driver delivering prisoners to Samguk. Once I entered the basement and found it full of blood. But basically I heard about Samguk from guard friends, who told me. One rumor was that they squeezed fat from people to make soap for Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung and mixed wombs with other substances to make an injection that would stimulate Kim Jong-il’s sexual activity. Friends told me these stories.”

  Q. Did guards inflict violence on prisoners?

  A. “That’s just a part of daily life. Not to be very aggressive would be seen as condoning the offenders.”

  Q. How many times a day did you hit someone?

  A. “I can’t say I did it once or a hundred times. But when a prisoner sees a guard he has to bow at a ninety-degree angle. Any less is reason to hit him with a stick or rock or whatever. If they don’t respond loudly ‘Here!’, you hit them.

  “Inmates’ housing from the sky would look like an ordinary village, but the border is a 3,300-volt electrical fence. Guards usually call the dwellings pigpens. They look like traditional rural houses. There’s one very small room per family plus kitchen, regardless of the number in the family.

  “As for food, they’re supposed to get 500 grams of corn. But the guards take a lot of it, so they can barely sustain life. They get corn alone only on holidays. Other times they mostly mix it with grass and pine bark. Before 1989, guards didn’t feel hunger. But as Kim Jong-il took over, we got hungry and had to steal rations from prisoners. The military people are the best fed in North Korea, but from August 1994, guards got pears instead of corn. For a month guards lived on pears, usually boiled, but then started having heavy diarrhea and couldn’t train. Afterward they started providing rations from the war reserves. I was a driver hauling foodstuffs by then, not a guard.

  “Prison personnel are better nourished than other soldiers because the prisons grow food. As a driver I was able to steal more food. There’s a law Kim Jong-il passed. Anyone caught stealing food would be sent to prison camps. A military man caught stealing food would be demoted or prevented from entering the party. But it’s human nature. How can they not steal when they have the opportunity?

  “I had a 700-gram ration. Anyone who was able to eat the full 700 grams would be considered well off. But they took out ‘patriotic rice’ and war-reserve rice’ and there were only 500 grams left. All together, including stolen food, I ate almost 800 grams a day. Yes, prison camp is the place to be to keep in good health—if you’re a guard. Prison camp guards are treated second only to fighter pilots. After finishing their terms they go to State Security, like the KCIA in South Korea. They are trusted by the regime. Three categories of people get the prison guard jobs: (1) kids of high officials; (2) kids of State Security members; (3) kids of camp workers. When I entered the army my mother paid a bribe to get me a good job. She worked in a dry goods store, so when they decided to make me a prison guard she gave officials some textiles, foreign liquor and so on. She just asked for a good job. She didn’t specifically ask for a prison guard assignment—in fact, she didn’t know prison camps existed. Now through the grapevine lots of people know, but when I entered in 1987 hardly anyone knew.” Q. [I mention the demonstration at the 1989 youth festival.]

  A. “During the youth festival we were on alert. Kim Jong-il feared the inmates would escape and tell the world about the camps. I hardly got any sleep because we had to be constantly alert and heavily armed.

  “The four camps I worked at were: No. 11, Kyongsong city in North Hamgyong province, where I trained; No. 13, in Jongsong district, On-song county, North Hamgyong; No. 22, Hoeryong City, North Hamgyong; and No. 26 in Hwachon, Pyongyang City. The numbers go up to 27, to my knowledge.

  Q. What offenses landed people there?

  A. “Calling the name of Kim Il-sung or Kim Jong-il without using the honorific prefixes, for example. One man went to the food ration department and they told him to come back again since there was no food that day. He said, ‘In a socialist country like ours, how can this happen?’ He was sent to a camp. Factionalists, people who opposed Kim Jong-il’s succeeding Kim Il-sung in power of course were sent to camp. It’s not just political attitudes that will get you there. Religious fanatics are imprisoned, too. The prisons where I worked were for dissidents and factionalists.”

  Q. Did you agree they were bad people?

  A. “In army training they taught us that those were serious offenders who should be punished; if they tried to escape we had the right to kill them. But after three years as a guard, when I switched to driving, I had more personal contact with prisoners and realized they were not what I had thought. Sometimes I had to deliver produce grown by prisoners, and I chatted with them when I picked it up. I had to distribute rations from the central distribution point in the center of the camp to the outlying areas.

  “The first incident: I was still a guard but learning to drive a truck. I took the truck to prisoners and told them to repair it and clean it up. I was nineteen. One prisoner was about forty-five. He bo-wed to me ninety degrees and said, ‘I’m all finished, thank you, sir.’ I thought, considering his age, he could be my father. I felt sudden pity and decided to give him a cigarette. He cried. We talked and I realized he had been sent to prison because of his father’s offenses. Kim Chang-bong, who was head of the KPA in the 1970s, was ousted by Kim Jong-il and sent with his family to camp. Others under him were also sent to prison camps with their families. This man’s father probably-worked under Kim Chang-bong.”

  Q. After that incident did you start treating prisoners nicely?

  A. “At that time I was just learning what sort of people had come to the camps. I didn’t really change my behavior. It was 1992 when I started being kinder toward them. Even from the moment I entered the army I felt some pity for them. But 1992 was when I totally changed my mind and decided to do something active. I gave them my meat. Once in two weeks I got about this much [shows the final two joints of three fingers— maybe 50–100 grams or two to four ounces]. I had more access to meat, so I was able to give them some and still eat meat myself. Some other guards did the same and had to quit when they were discovered. I didn’t discuss this matter with any other guards. I did talk with my most intimate friend about how the dissidents were not so bad. He agreed.”

  Q. Did you dislike Kim Jong-il then?

  A. “I can honestly say I lean toward liking Kim Il-sung. As for Kim Jong-il, when I was in North Korea I was indifferent to him. That’s not to say I hated him. I sensed some discrepancies in the regime’s policies. They propagandize that North Korea is a very peaceful society but they say in all the orders to prison guards to be very aggressive, make sure you get rid of three generations of prisoners, root them out of society.”

  Q. Why did you
defect?

  A. “I went to my hometown. My father had committed suicide but I hadn’t been told that. My father worked in a granary. One day a friend said, ‘My son is starving. Please get me some food for him.’ Father stole a bit for that man’s son. He didn’t get caught then. But the granary boss stole two tons of rice. He framed my father as the culprit. My father was to be sent to prison camp, but he committed suicide, in January 1994. They didn’t tell me. I knew my father had died, but the letter said it was a heart attack. I learned the truth in May when I visited my hometown. When I arrived, I found my house gone, totally demolished. In April, my mother had been sent to prison as a traitor. If any family member commits suicide, other family members including the spouse, are ‘traitors.’ Someone who worked under her wanted her job and said she had poisoned my father. So there were two charges against her—spouse of a traitor and murderess. He did die of poison—alkali. I found that my younger sister was by herself. My younger brother was working as a border guard and didn’t know about father’s death. [They were sent to prison after Ahn defected.] In Oriental society there’s a family head. If the head commits suicide the spouse is a traitor. If the children commit suicide the parents are criticized and banished from the village, not sent to prison camp. I stayed in my hometown for a week, then went back to Hoeryong. When I went back, they termed me the son of a traitor and had someone watch me. It meant they didn’t trust me any more. During my time at home I had already realized that if I stayed, in the end, I probably would be sent to a prison camp myself. So I had to defect to South Korea.”