Defector Memoirs (and Hwang Jang-yop)

I’ve always wanted to compile a complete list of all the North Korean defector memoirs. There are currently 14 memoirs about defectors from North Korea published in English--I’m fairly certain about this but if I missed one please feel free to email me. Some of them are better known than others and have appeared on recommended reading lists for books on North Korea by some major publications. Below is the list of all 14 memoirs in the order of publication in English:

The Tears of My Soul (1993)
A Mig-15 to Freedom (1996)*

The Aquariums of Pyongyang (2001) 

This is Paradise: My North Korean Childhood (2005)

The Reluctant Communist (2008)*
Long Road Home (2009)

Escape from Camp 14 (2012)

Stars between the Sun and Moon (2014)

Dear Leader: My Escape from North Korea (2014)

The Girl with Seven Names (2015)

The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot (2015)

Under the Same Sky (2015)

In Order to Live (2015)

A Thousand Miles to Freedom (2015)

Every Falling Star (2016)

A River in Darkness (2017) 
*Added later thanks to readers' suggestion. Now there are 16.

There are many more defector stories published in South Korea and Japan that have not been (and may never be) translated into English. Hwang Jang-yop, the highest ranking North Korean ever to defect, wrote a memoir I Saw History’s Truth which was published in 1999 in South Korea--see below my translation of excerpts from his 1998 interview which is still relevant today. Oddly Hwang's memoir has not been translated into English but there is a book published in English based on it: Exit the Emperor Kim Jong-Il by John Cha. Odder still is the fact that Shin Sang-ok's memoirs have not been translated into English--though, again, there is a book published in English based on them: A Kim Jong-Il Production by Paul Fischer. I recognize that it may be a stretch to say Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee, arguably the most famous South Korean movie director and actress respectively, are defectors. They are in fact South Koreans who were abducted by Kim Jong-un's father Kim Jong-Il but “defected” from North Korea after 8 years of unusual captivity. For me their stories most certainly belong in this genre.

Typically the details of North Korean defector stories are hard, if not impossible, to verify. But as the defector ranks grow and more of them speak out through various channels and more defector accounts are published, it has become possible in many cases to examine or cross-check their stories. Author Blaine Harden wrote eloquently about this issue in a Washington Post piece.


I hope to blog about these memoirs in the order of their English publication. My postings will include my comments, musings, and personal memories evoked by these stories. Though not a day goes by where I do not think about the unknown fate of my family and not a day goes by where I do not open my computer every morning hoping that the day's breaking news is: The Kim Dynasty Finally Collapses, I have for the longest time tried to forget my own memories. So this would be an interesting amble down memory lane for me—it’s been a long time. I did not experience the life of suffering most defectors had to endure and most North Koreans are enduring daily there still; nor did I experience harrowing journeys through China and then the Gobi desert or through the crocodile infested Mekong and jungles of South East Asia, where many have perished. My life in North Korea was comfortable by North Korean standards and my escape was a comfortable plane ride to the West, not counting tense days and hours leading up to the flight. The heroes in these memoirs, like all other North Korean defectors, risked their lives to embark on their journey to freedom. But it also takes courage to tell these stories. For all North Koreans defection is the journey of a lifetime that culminates in our escape from the most unimaginable place on the planet but it never really begins until we speak up and stand up for all those who still remain in that "black hole of human souls."

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Before I get started, I would like to share with you my own translation of excerpts from Hwang Jang-yop’s 1998 interview conducted by Hagiwara Ryo and published by the Japanese monthly Bungeishuju (1999; Issue 2). I did not know Hwang Jang-yop personally but he was no stranger to me and most North Koreans, especially those born before the 1990s. Before my defection, I had always considered him the only decent man within the regime’s government and respected him accordingly. My grandmother, a widower since before the Korean War, had a huge crush on him, a little secret she shared with her favorite grandson--her words not mine. I was already in the US when Hwang defected in 1997 which was a huge and desperately needed morale booster for me, a "traitor." I felt justified in my own defection. He was the only other defector from North Korea I knew of at the time--Google hadn't arrived yet. Of course, I could not have been more wrong. 

HR (Hagiwara Ryo): There are various theories as to why you defected to South Korea…What was the real reason?

HJY (Hwang Jang-yop): …I couldn’t bear to watch it while Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il were ruining the country. I felt terrible leaving North Korea with things the way they were. But I thought shouting hurrah while millions were starving to death was not a human thing to do either...Another reason was Kim Jong-Il’s constant war preparations. I couldn’t bear it any longer watching him only focused on war preparation while people were starving to death en masse. The generals believed that the North would prevail even if American troops were still stationed in the South. They claimed that we had to go to war as soon as possible because winning the war would get harder down the road...Say [Kim Jong-Il] had several billion dollars in his Swiss bank accounts, I can categorically tell you that he would never touch them to alleviate people suffering…He is cruel. He takes more pleasure from seeing people suffering than living well. He has a sadistic personality…He is the absolute dictator who will kill anyone who is opposed to him whether it’s 100,000 or a million. That’s what keeps the system in place under the current circumstances. [It was said that Kim Jong-Il wanted to make sure to impart to Kim Jong-un his belief in the power of brutality in ruling the masses.]

…

HR: What does Kim Jong-Il think of Japan? Where does Japan fit into his policies? I don’t think he views Japan as a problem. I think he is more interested in engagement with the US because he believes that Japan will just follow the US's lead.

HJY: That’s right. I think his biggest goal for the North Korea-Japan relationship is compensation through the normalization of diplomatic relationships. But he believes that Japan won’t agree to it so long as the US is not on board. That’s why he is interested in improving relations with the US a little. North Korea does not want the actual normalization of diplomatic relationships with the US. They just want to improve the North-US relationship so that the US does not stand in the way of the normalization of the diplomatic relationship between the North and Japan. That’s one. Secondly, North Korea believes the improvement of the North-US relationship will be beneficial to their attempt to break free from international isolation.

HR: Do you think they would want to normalize their relationship with the US?

HJY: Kim Jong-Il is absolutely opposed to having the US embassy in Pyongyang. As of the time I left, he made sure that no US liaison office was stationed in Pyongyang either. He wanted it to be in Rason if at all.

HR: Then the prospect of the US-North Korea relationship improving fundamentally is dim?

HJY: I can’t say. It depends on how the US views North Korea. From what I’ve seen, neighboring countries do not know North Korea very well. Even China, one country that supposedly knows North Korea the best, doubts the situation inside North Korea could be that horrific. Imagine how little the US or Japan would know. South Korea, too, does not know North Korea very well. North Korea is so closed and so different from other countries that you can’t understand it with normal standards, which is the reason I wrote the book The Truth and Deception in North Korea. No outsider knows the truth about North Korea. I couldn’t remain silent.

HR: What can we do?

HJY: …There are those who believe that, because North Korea is destroyed economically, helping them economically and helping them break free from international isolation would bring them into the international community. I disagree. The regime is fundamentally maintained by the military and violence. The legitimacy of the regime’s existence is based on unification through the takeover of the South. That’s their nature. That’s why they keep emphasizing that there will be no democracy until unification and anyone who is opposed to unification will be executed. But in order to move toward reform, they need democracy. But can there be democracy in North Korea? They can't travel and have no access to foreign books, not to mention freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly...Would the regime take its coat off if we embraced them warmly with sunshine? They can't. Because their true identity will be exposed once they take their coat off. That's why even in today’s dire circumstances they uphold their superpower rationale.

HR: What is "superpower rationale"?

HJY: The superpower rationale means to gain economic benefits from South Korea and others by means of extortion through threats while striving toward the status of the "superpower of ideology," "military superpower," and "political superpower." The idea came about from the three reasons the regime attributed to the collapse of Soviet Union and the East European countries: 1) Weakening of dictatorship through the criticism of Stalin's personality cult, 2) Making concessions on human rights for the Helsinki Accords, a declaration reached during the conference on security and economic co-operation and human rights in Europe held in 1975, 3) Reduction of military spending by Gorbachev. The regime was asking why the Soviet Union reduced its nuclear weapons stockpile when they could have used it to force America to help them [economically]. That’s how North Korea sees it. They believe that big capitalists in America are fearful of wars and even more fearful of dying but those who have got nothing to lose are not afraid of dying. That’s why more nuclear weapons would have brought more economic aid from capitalists everywhere. That’s the lesson they drew. It’s too late for North Korea to develop its economy. That’s why they determined that they have no choice but to strengthen the personality cult for the superpower of ideology and rush in the direction of military and political superpower.

HR: What can we do to counter North Korea with that kind of rationale? Can we guide them to reform and openness?

HJY: …Kim Jong-Il or the regime has no reason to reform or open up. That would be suicidal for them.

…

HR: Any message to the people of Japan or Koreans in Japan?

HJY: ...We must end the Kim Jong-il regime as soon as possible. Once the Kim Jong-il regime collapses, there won’t be a second Kim Jong-il. Once the regime collapses, there will be reform and openness and then democracy. Market economy will be implemented and the doors will be open to the world. This way the malignant cancer that has been threatening the peace in East Asia will be eliminated. 

Denuclearization and Human Rights

A brief comment about the author of the previous post, Letter from Seoul. Eric and I do not see eye to eye on many issues but we agree on one thing: Kim Jong-un will not give up his nuclear weapons completely. Eric is not yet ready to speak publicly as he fears for the safety of his family still in North Korea. He is learning English so I hope when time comes he can speak directly to you in English.

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The truth is no one knows for sure why Kim Jong-un wants nuclear weapons capable of striking Washington. The young despot with a huge chip on his shoulder may not fully understand it himself. The reasons may be multitudinous and they may have evolved and may be evolving still—Kim Jong-un’s reasons may differ from his father’s and his grandfather's. This exercise in attribution theory has been less than helpful in bridging a yawning gap in strategies dealing with the Kim regime--maybe someday Kim Jong-un will tell us all the real reasons at The Hague. The faultline between two opposing views remains unchanged. One view, which largely reflects Pyongyang’s own professed view and one that I held for almost my entire life, is that the weapons are just for self-defense and do not pose direct threat. The wide-eyed proponents of this view believe in the Kim dynasty’s humanity and eminent rehabilitability and counsel diplomatic and economic engagement and at-all-cost stability. Then there are those who argue that the weapons pose a threat and they must be eliminated through sanctions and/or military action. Seoul fully subscribes to the former and Washington to the latter. Seoul’s goal, even if it means working together with Pyongyang all the while "demonstrating" solidarity with Washington, is to bring Washington away from its position and closer to their fantasy land. (Note: The man in charge of the upcoming Kim-Moon summit preparation is Moon's Chief of Staff Im Jong-seok, a former head of the main pro-North Korea student organization전대협 and the founder of the South-North Economic and Cultural Exchange 남북경제문화교류재단, a private foundation that handles copyright payments from South Korean media to Kim Jong-un. Yes, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.)

Seoul's efforts have born some fruit though the real hard work was done in Washington thousands of miles away. Thanks largely to Washington’s pressure campaign, Kim Jong-un, if we can believe Moon’s emissaries, proposed a summit with Donald Trump and to the surprise of everyone Trump accepted it on the spot. (Note: We know what Kim Jong-un allegedly told the emissaries but we don't know what Moon's men told him.) The two-pronged pressure campaign is a combination of economic sanctions and fear mongering with credible military threats. Donald Trump has been wildly successful in making Kim Jung-un uncomfortable. Trump’s success largely rests on his unconventional approach toward North Korea. The Kim family has finally met an adversary who is worthy of their respect. Trump has the capacity to speak their language: the language of violence and deception. It is a language that I've seen no other US president capable of using which, in my opinion, has been a distinct disadvantage in dealing with North Korea. But under the pressure of North Korea’s belligerence, Trump only dialed up the pressure. Trump is like no westerner the Kim family has dealt with since the War. He is certainly no Jimmy Carter.

In order to remove biting sanctions and reset the vicious cycle that could easily doom his family business, Kim Jong-un offered something that Trump could not refuse: a moratorium on nuclear and missile tests and, the ultimate prize of them all, denuclearization, again if you can trust Moon. I’ve already mentioned that Kim Jong-un would not give up his nuclear weapons. So the fact that Trump has agreed to meet with Kim Jong-un appears to be an exercise in futility if not an outright waste of time. Trump is either genuinely giving diplomacy a chance OR... Today denuclearization depends much more on Trump than Kim Jong-un. There is a good chance that Kim Jong-un will commit to complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization. The problem is that no one but Kim Jong-un and his close associates know how many nuclear weapons they possess. Verifiable and irreversible? Yes. Complete? No. This is probably the reason why some argue that the real purpose of Trump agreeing to the summit offer is not to discuss denuclearization but to hasten a military conflict. North Korea lies. We’ve been had before. They are lying. And they will continue to lie. Lying is their weapon of choice. Deceiving outsiders, Uncle Sam in particular, is seen as a virtue. It's a requirement.

But if for whatever reason Trump chooses to deceive himself or decides that an incomplete deal is better than no deal and suspends sanctions in favor of striking a “grand” bargain with Kim Jong-un in which North Korea commits itself to full denuclearization, then Kim Jong-un succeeds in buying time. He is buying time to continue to advance his nuclear ICBMs but, more importantly, to bust the sanctions and to ride out the threat that is Trump. There are those who argue that the Section 401 of the North Korean Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act would prevent Trump from suspending sanctions unless North Korea made progress on certain issues. For North Korea "making progress" on those issues is elementary school kids’ stuff. The Section has enough room for Kim Jong-un to drive through an ICBM loaded transporter-launcher.

The North Korean defector community is in disagreement on many issues but there is one thing that we all agree on: the Kim dynasty must end. The US should fully expect the negotiations to fail. Failed negotiations and outcomes are all we've got to show so far for repeatedly trying to engage North Korea. Human rights have never been part of any negotiations between the US and North Korea. I think this is a big mistake. For the Kim family, human rights are a non-starter hence one of their consistent top demands: Non-interference in internal affairs. It may figure prominently again this time. Human rights for the people of North Korea and the US security are linked closely. As long as Kim Jong-un is in power, denuclearization will not happen. Human rights must always be part of any negotiations because when we bring basic human rights to the people of North Korea, it will spell the end of the Kim regime. We must be relentless. We must continue to enforce the existing sanctions and make them smarter and stronger while forcefully speaking out about and demanding the end of the Kim regime’s atrocious human rights violations.

Slavery in North Korea

There is a fairly nondescript bronze statue of a man seated in a chair in Harvard Square. It’s on a large traffic island in front of Harvard’s Johnston Gate. Most people either do not notice the statue or, if they do, do not recognize the man. The simple small bronze plaque at the base has six letters in relief: Sumner. Or easily “Summer" if you don’t pay close enough attention. I should mention an interesting historical tidbit about the statue itself. The winner of the anonymous competition in 1875 for a model sculpture of Sumner for the Boston Public Garden was sculptor Anne Whitney but the prize was revoked when the committee in charge found out that the winner was female. Runner up Thomas Ball’s model was selected instead and that's what you see today in the Garden. A quarter century later, Whitney’s friends commissioned the first prize statue and installed it in Harvard Square. I walk by the statue almost every day and I am in the habit of looking up at the man’s face every time. Charles Sumner was a prominent leader of the abolitionist movement who dedicated his life to the abolitionist cause and to equal rights for freed slaves--many abolitionists believed in emancipation but not necessarily equal rights. He was also a US Senator from Massachusetts who was brutally beaten, nearly to death, for his speech against the authors of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. If Sumner were alive today, I wonder what he would have said and done about North Korea, which is arguably the largest slave camp in existence. The term slave has been used to describe North Koreans in the past but it recently gained wider currency due, in large part, to Thae Yong-ho, a high profile North Korean diplomat who uses it to describe his and his family’s status before their defection. But, are the North Koreans really slaves?

The OED defines a slave as “one who is the property of, and entirely subject to, another person, whether by capture, purchase, or birth.” North Koreans are entirely subject to the Kim family by birth, by capture (South Korean POWs and later abductions from South Korea and Japan), and by deception (about 93,000 Korean residents and their Japanese spouses moved to North Korea over a period of two decades). They are the property of the Kim family the same way that livestock might be for a farmer. Though as inadequate as they may be, there are laws, policies, and guidelines to protect livestock in the U.S. But no such laws even exist for the people of North Korea. Sham judicial proceedings and legal codes aside, North Koreans have no rights. None. None of the 30 Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights applies to them, but one, sort of, Article 16 (Right to Marriage and Family) which has three sub-articles. I say “sort of” because North Koreans are only allowed to marry other North Koreans. North Koreans are prohibited from marrying foreign nationals. If a North Korean and a non-North Korean national fell in love and wanted to get married, the North Korean would have to defect. They would become a traitor and his/her entire family would be sent to labor camps—labor in this case is a euphemism for death. So there goes Article 16.1, which states that everyone of "full age" has "the right to marry and to found a family” with no "limitation due to race, nationality or religion.” Tragic love relationships are part of any human society but inevitably the North Korean version is more complicated. In North Korea, most families typically do not allow their children to marry anyone who is from a lower rung of the most macabre hereditary caste system. Each member of society is assigned to a hereditary ranking based on their family's alleged revolutionary or counter-revolutionary background. As a result many marriages are entered into without “free and full consent” as specified in Article 16.2. Now moving on to Article 16.3, which states that "The family is...entitled to protection by society and the State.” I’ll just give you an example of how the State treats families and let you decide on its merits. In North Korea teenage girls are often subjected to a state inspection. There is a department in the Party responsible for this task: Department No. 5. They go around the country every year in search of “beauties.” Beauties for, who else, the Kim family. The desirable ones are marked (or, as North Koreans say, they become “objects of Department No. 5,” considered a prestigious designation, really) and they are observed over a period of time. Most North Koreans are used to hearing "so and so is an object of” or “was selected by Department No. 5.” It’s a great honor for most families perhaps not unlike slaves in the Antebellum South who were chosen to be servants in their master's house and thus exempted from hard physical labor. Once these girls are subjected to a thorough background check and a physical examination, which includes a virginity test they are taken away. Their families will not hear from them again until they are discharged, since their work allegedly involves their Leader’s security.

I, on the other hand, as a citizen of the United States, have all the rights enshrined in the Declaration. Defectors who resettle in South Korea have similar rights. The two Koreas are divided by the DMZ, which is about 2.5 miles wide. A mere 2.5-mile swath separates over 25-million enslaved people in the North from the over 51-million free in the South. Never mind that North Koreans are citizens of South Korea according to the South Korean constitution, the leaders of the free society in the South have so far failed to take any meaningful stance against this slavery and the most atrocious human rights violations in the world. They would rather maintain the status quo than risk upsetting Kim Jong-un. They may believe they are acting in their country’s best interests but their appeasement-at-all-cost policy will (as it has in the past) not only embolden the North Korean regime but will also expose South Korea to further exploitation by an increasingly desperate Kim Jong-un. If South Korea, with all the pertinent facts and witness testimonies at their disposal, refuses to speak up and act who else will? China? In China, escaped North Koreans are in reality fugitive slaves, as well as refugees. Xi Jinping may well be called the leader of modern day fugitive slave catchers. There are bounties on North Korean refugees in China and most fugitives who successfully reach China fail to make it out. In fact, it’s estimated that for every successful escape to freedom there are three or more people who fall victim to trafficking (sold as wives or prostitutes) or repatriation. I am drawn to abolitionist history largely due to my fascination with those who are involved in the underground railroad for North Korean defectors. I want to know who these people are and what gives them the courage and determination to help North Korean defectors - fugitives who most people have no interest in other than for exploitation. These modern day abolitionists hide and feed North Koreans just as their predecessors did for slaves escaping from the South. Many risk their own safety and sometimes their lives to help North Koreans, as did the abolitionists in the U.S. They are the Sumners of our contemporary world.

When my son was born several years ago, I had two middle names for him on my list. One was the name of one of my family members in North Korea and the other was Sumner. On the day he was born, the family name won but, I hope, even though his middle name is not Sumner, he grows up to be just like his father's abolitionist superhero, who fought for freedom and equal rights for the enslaved.
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As I publish this there are reports that Kim Jong-un has made conciliatory gestures to Seoul. As with his father Kim Jong-il and his grandfather Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong-un's gestures are yet another attempt to buy time; test US resolve; but, more importantly, weaken international sanctions and the US-South Korea alliance. As before, the gestures will be hailed as significant concessions of singular importance by the so-called pragmatists and proponents of engagement with Kim Jong-un. The airwaves will be filled with calls for positive US response and engagement, and hopeful pronouncements for the future. And yet again human rights an ever so inconvenient road block for peace and prosperity will be swept under the rug. Are we really prepared to make these same mistakes again?