North Korean Leader Cries and Carries Mentor’s Coffin at State Funeral

Days after the North Korean leader punished officials for failing to contain Covid-19 and despite strict nationwide lockdown measures, Kim Jong-un was seen in tears at a state funeral for Marshal Hyon Chol-hae, a top North Korean official who served three generations of the Kim family, along with a large number of senior officials at the April 25 House of Culture, a theater located in Pyongyang on May 22, 2022. North Korean state media released images and video footage of Kim Jong-un without a face mask and carrying Hyon’s coffin with other regime officials, who were masked, before he threw earth into Hyon’s grave at the national cemetery.

WHO WAS HYON CHOL-HAE?

Hyon was born on August 13, 1934 in Yangil County, Jilin Province, China. As the son of a member of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army organized and led by the founder of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, Hyon attended the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School, Kim Chaek University of Technology and Nicolae Bălcescu Military Academy in Romania. Hyon served in Kim Il-sung's personal security escort corps in the 1960s and was promoted to Major General and Deputy Director of Organizations in the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces (“MPAF”) General Political Bureau in 1968. After taking up the role as Director of the Korean People’s Army Rear Officers’ Training School in the 1970s, Hyon was promoted to Lieutenant General and Director of the MPAF General Logistics Bureau in 1986, where he served until his next promotion to General and Deputy Director of the MPAF in recognition of his contribution to the improvement of the country’s munitions and logistical support systems in 1995. In 2007, Hyon was appointed Director of the National Defense Commission of the DPRK Standing Bureau among other distinguished, high-level appointments. As a core member of Kim Jong-il's military management for 15 years, Hyon frequently appeared with the former North Korean leader, including a trip to China in May 2010. Under Kim Jong-un's administration, Hyon took the titles of Commander-in-Chief and Marshal of the Korean People’s Army in 2012 and 2016 respectively.

Chinese media also reported that, although Hyon Chol-hae’s nephew, Hyon Sung-il (former Third Secretary of the DPRK in Zambia), and his wife defected to South Korea in 1996, the late Marshal remained a trusted member of the party and was even praised as “a soldier loyal to President Kim Il Sung and a revolutionary comrade-in-arms loyal to Chairman Kim Jong Il and the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un” according to North Korean state media.

A MENTOR TO KIM JONG-UN

Hyon Chol-Hae

According to Yonhap, Hyon played a key role in training Kim Jong-un to become Kim Jong-il's successor before his father's death in 2011. Hyon was part of Kim Jong-il’s inner circle when he was mulling the “succession problem” and was later credited for “Devoting himself to his important duties in supreme leadership organs of the DPRK armed forces during the period of important historic turn in the succession to the revolutionary cause of Juche, he ensured that the monolithic command system of Kim Jong-un was established across the entire army.”

Hyon was almost a father figure to Kim Jong-un and their close relationship can be seen by the leader referring to Hyon as “uncle (a-ba-ee, 아바이)” and to himself as “Jong Unny (정은이),” a nickname used by Hyon in his childhood. Hyon and Kim Jong-un frequently exchanged letters and Hyon even had a direct phone line to the leader.  As a mentor who had backed Kim Jong-un as the “sole successor” to lead North Korea, the young dictator would seek Hyon for his advice on military affairs using high honorifics in their exchanges.

Kim Jong-un and Hyon were last seen together in public in July 2021, when his mentor attended an annual veterans conference in a wheelchair and the leader was seen leaning down and holding Hyon’s shoulders from behind.

DEATH AND LEGACY

Hyon was hospitalized “for a long time” and was “in pain” following treatments for his chronic heart disease and heart failure in 2017 and 2021 respectively. While Hyon was again hospitalized at Ponghwa Clinic in central Pyongyang this year, Kim Jong-un was known to have visited his bedside multiple times and was reportedly unable to leave his side. It is also reported that the leader had rushed back to the hospital when he received news of Hyon’s critical condition, which was filmed in a documentary titled “Closest to the Sun,” with the narrator quoting Kim Jong-un in an emotional voice, “Comrade Hyon Chol-hae, I’m here, open your eyes” and “What will I do if you go,” as Hyon was shown unconscious on a ventilator. On May 19, 2022, Hyon died of multiple organ failure with Kim Jong-un by his side.

Hyon loyally served late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and was a close confidant. He helped prepare Kim Jong-un to become the country’s next leader before his father died in 2011.

Introducing the Demystified Zone

My life changed in July of 2001. My best friend and founder of Crossing Borders Mike Kim returned from a short-term mission trip to China and opened my eyes to the plight of the North Korean refugee. I have been devouring the sad and peculiar news coming out of the Hermit Kingdom since that day and have not stopped.

With a background in journalism, I have shaped the public-facing communications of Crossing Borders from the very beginning. We have tried a little bit of everything over the past two decades. But in this quest to communicate the full story of the heartbreak and sadness that I felt as I dived deep into this work, I realized that we were missing an important aspect of North Korea.

Last year, I spoke to my good friend Sug Shin about Crossing Borders and our communications. I told him that while I am generally content with what we put out, I wished there was a lighter, more approachable way to communicate my stance as a Korean-American man whose heart breaks for the North Korean people but who also keeps current with the ridiculous news coming out of North Korea.

I don’t think I am alone in saying that I think it’s preposterous that North Korea once claimed that Kim Jong-Il shot 11 holes in one on his first round of golf or that no one in North Korea is legally allowed to have the same haircut as their dear leader, Kim Jong-Un. We as Crossing Borders staff have kept these absurdities to ourselves simply because we didn’t want to, by publicizing this content, detract from the sufferings of the North Korean people.

As I expressed this to Sug, he had a simple solution: put it in a podcast. Our team brainstormed, explored, researched and produced our new podcast which we call “The Demystified Zone” aka “The DMZ.” Through it, we will cover the light and the dark but from the perspective of two normal people, not analysts or academics.

For example, this year North Korea put out a Hollywood-style video, which depicts Kim Jong-un launching one of his latest ICBMs. He struts around in a leather jacket and designer sunglasses while commanding a military team. The edits are akin to a ‘90s action movie and replete with slow motion shots for dramatic effect. I cannot begin to express to you how absurd this seemingly high-cost production is while its own citizens suffer from persistent food shortages and lack of adequate health care. In an episode titled “Rocket Man”, we spent time expressing our exasperation at this and even had a few laughs at the expense of the Great Leader himself.

Come join us on this journey. I think you’ll like what you hear. 

#PrayforNK - July 10, 2022

On April 25, 2020, North Korea put on its grandest night-time military parade to commemorate the 90th anniversary of their army. Thousands gathered to cheer on marching soldiers and a display of massive missiles. An estimated 20,000 North Koreans worked together over the past few months in preparation of the parade.

Then on May 12, Kim Jong Un ordered a nationwide lockdown and declared a "maximum emergency." He appeared for the first time in public with a mask.

Crossing Borders team members Dan and Jacob arrived in South Korea to visit our Elim House team on May 13. By the time they started meeting with North Korean pastors and people closer to the situation, the count of COVID-19 cases in North Korea had surpassed 2 million. Lacking proper medical testing equipment, cases of “mass fevers” is how the North Korean government and press (Korean Central News Agency) tabulated their counts. Most speculated that the military parade was a super-spreader event and responsible for the spike in COVID-19 “fever” cases. Experts also generally agreed that North Korea making this news public meant their situation was far more grievous and potentially much further along than they communicated.

At the time of this writing, North Korea has:

• Reported over 4.6 million cases of COVID-19 “fever”

• Reported just 72 deaths

• Rejected multiple offers for vaccines from the UN, China, South Korea, etc.

• Encountered another epidemic of an unspecified intestinal disease, which might be typhoid of cholera

• Declared a drought as they head into their peak rice planting season

• Fired eight short-range missiles just in the month of June

It truly does seem stranger than fiction. A North Korean pastor that came to visit Elim House said the situation was truly dire, that many feared for the worst and pointed to the famine of the 90s as an example. Dan and Jacob asked several contacts if there was anything they could do to help while in South Korea for the week. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t a direct way to send help and most of their contacts simply said “please pray.”

#PrayforNK

For the week starting July 10, 2022, Crossing Borders will be partnering with churches in multiple countries to seek God’s mercy for North Korea. The four areas we will focus on during this week of prayer are:

1. HELP - move North Korea to receive outside help

2. PRAY - unite the South Korean church to pray together

3. TRUST - faith to trust in God’s goodness through North Korea’s COVID outbreak

4. SEND - God to create opportunities and to send his workers to North Korea

HELP

The suffering in North Korea is senseless and cruel when there are multiple countries willing and waiting to help. We pray that God would move North Korea and Kim Jong-un to receive medicine and food aid.

PRAY

The topic of North Korea is a hot button issue in South Korea. While the South Korean church generally has a heart to help North Korea, this issue has become sensitive and often divisive in the South Korean church. We pray for God to unite the church to have one heart towards North Korea in prayer.

TRUST

Many of our contacts seemed to feel helpless in being relegated to watching from the sidelines while North Korea reported increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases. Our team felt the same way while being in close proximity to North Korea during their visit and yet being helpless to do anything. We pray for more faith to trust in God’s goodness and sovereignty, even in a time such as this.

SEND

North Korea’s borders are on strict lockdown and China has grown increasingly hostile to foreign missionaries in the past few years. It seems virtually impossible to send a team to either country. We pray that God would create opportunities for outsiders to be sent in, namely believers who carry the message of the gospel.

Prayer Campaign Details

1. The #prayforNK campaign will officially start on July 10, 2022 and end on July 17, 2022 with a short video message from Dan Chung on each Sunday.

2. If your church would like to join the prayer campaign, simply email us before June 30, 2022 at hello@crossingbordersnk.org with your church name, main contact name, email, address and phone.

3. Tell us how many participants your church estimates joining the prayer campaign and we will mail out bookmarks with prayer topics and hand made crosses for your church.

Thank you for praying with us. God have mercy on North Korea.

North Koreans Crushed in Spirit Amid Hunger, Drought and COVID

North Korea has been battling through an out of control COVID-19 outbreak, and in light of its already dire food crisis, a nationwide lockdown has severely hampered the isolated country’s ongoing “all-out fight” anti-drought efforts and desperation to mobilize “all capacities and means” to grow food for the nation. Recently, state media has even reported on the North’s efforts by soldiers, workers and youths to save every “single grain of rice” and ensure no crops are damaged.

‘THE SECOND-WORST DROUGHT’

In a country with a reclusive economy dependent on human labor in agriculture, protracted droughts threaten to hurt North Korea’s tense food situation. According to the Korea Meteorological Administration, only 13.3mm (0.52 in) of precipitation fell nationwide in South Korea between December 2021 and February 2022, which marks the lowest figure since the expansion of its observation network in 1973. Similarly, North Korean state media warned workers in the agricultural, forest and urban management sectors about a drought that would last from April to May, and described the “current spring drought” is “the second-worst drought” in 40 years.

Given North Korea lacks proper irrigation facilities and local farmers are left with no choice but to wait for the rain, much of the wheat and barley planted last year died despite extended efforts to double the cultivation of the two crops instead of corn, or even staple food like rice, under Kim Jong-un’s leadership. In particular, the North Korean leader ordered collective farms across the nation to sow wheat and barley on newly created plots, and most farmers suffered major losses as a result, as a source told Daily NK that the barley is only half as tall as it should be and scorched in places. The source added that farmers may have to abandon barley farming this year altogether if the drought continued.

Even though North Korean authorities did implement irrigation facilities in theory, they simply do not work and fields are not supplied with water. Peter Ward, an expert on the North Korean economy, even told NK News that crop failure is not caused by droughts, but rather a result of North Korea’s substandard water management and irrigation systems. Moreover, a source from North Pyongan’s Ryongchon county told Radio Free Asia that out of the six water pumps that used to supply water to every cooperative farm within the county, only three working pumps remain due to frequent power outages and motor failure. Meanwhile, coil wire and insulation materials that are essential for repairing broken pumps have not been provided by the government.

REPLACING BROKEN WATER PUMPS WITH OFFICE WORKERS

North Korea has a track record of requiring its people to share the burden of fulfilling the state’s grain production plan. For example, state media had in the past announced that all North Koreans must be willing to “pour the water of life into socialist farming cooperatives, even if it means they themselves become the water pump or the water bag.”

Last month, local governments reportedly forced all available workforces, including white-collar workers, to help water crops due to the lack of working water pumps. A source from South Pyongan province told Radio Free Asia that, instead of providing farmers with water pumps, the state recklessly mobilized large numbers of workers from various central organizations, such as the Ministry of Forestry, the Ministry of Commerce, the Maritime Administration Bureau and the Literature and Arts Publishing House to water crops, with some of them being forced to carry water on their backs, three days in a row.

State media also reported that “farmers were informed of reasonable watering methods according to soil humidity and light conditions in order to prevent crop damage” and that new farming methods were introduced to combat droughts, for example, through “scientific farming” and “meticulous farming strategies”, including maximizing the efficiency of rice planting machines and securing high-quality fertilizers. However, the efforts were met with little or no success due to the insufficient agricultural facilities and equipment, which in part is due to the suspension of trade with China since the beginning of the pandemic. In response, a source told Radio Free Asia that the authorities have been pursuing a plan to smuggle used equipment from China, which cost half the price of new pumps that cost between $800 and $1,000.

COVID DEEPENS FOOD CRISIS 

International organizations have warned that hundreds of thousands of North Korean children suffered from chronic malnutrition in 2021 and more than 40% of the population were undernourished even before the pandemic. In March 2022, the United Nations urged the North Korean government to reopen its borders for food imports as the deepening isolation may leave many facing starvation.

Although droughts, along with other major natural hazards such as floods, heatwaves, cold snaps and typhoons, are not new challenges and have long posed seasonal threats to the North, in light of the poor health infrastructure and lack of vaccines, warnings of prolonged droughts and food shortages, as well as a crippling economy due to the extended border closure, North Korea may see a ballooning of casualties unless it asks for help… and accepts it in a timely manner.

Top NK Headlines - June 2022

CHINA SUSPECTS COVID-19 WIND BLOWS IN FROM NORTH KOREA

• Authorities in Dandong, a Chinese city that shares a 1,300 km (808 miles) border with North Korea, indicated their suspicion that the wind blown into the city from North Korea has resulted in the spike in their daily Covid-19 cases.

• Dandong has been under lockdown since April 26, 2022 and residents were told to stay at home as the city sealed off 41 areas and set 22 places under anti-epidemic control earlier this month.

• Authorities also urged residents living by the Yalu River that runs between China and North Korea to close their windows on days with southerly winds, although there is no scientific evidence showing that the Covid-19 virus is able to survive airborne transmission over long distances in outdoor settings without repeated exposure.

• Images circulating on Weibo, a popular Chinese social media platform, show purported air measurement instruments that have been set up by authorities along the Yalu River to detect Covid-19.

Source: 
Bloomberg 
NK News 
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202206/1267330.shtml 
https://m.weibo.cn/detail/4776890689126884 
https://m.weibo.cn/detail/4776920435132760 

CASH REWARDS FOR CHINESE WHISTLEBLOWERS TO REPORT ON CROSS-BORDER ACTIVITIES 

• Dandong announced a cash reward system to crack down on cross-border smuggling as Covid-19 “continues to spread and mutate”.

• The reward system runs from May 31, 2022 to December 31, 2022.

• In order to receive cash rewards, one shall report any the following activities to the police: (i) any sea, river or fishing-related illegal acts committed in Dandong; (ii) smuggling by sea in Dandong; (iii) illegal fishing in Dandong; or (iv) any act involving throwing, passing, giving, sending, purchasing or exchanging goods across the barriers at the borders, or picking up goods drifted across the boundary river.

• The notice encourages timely reporting by its citizens. In particular, only the first whistleblower would be rewarded if more than one person reports the same incident, unless additional clues are provided by the subsequent whistleblower.

Source: 
NK News
https://www.dandong.gov.cn/html/DDSZF/202206/0165400850696438.html 

NORTH KOREA ORDERED CITIZENS LIVING ABROAD TO PAY LOYALTY FUNDS TO FINANCE MISSILE TESTS 

• North Korea imposed “loyalty funds” on trade officials stationed in China. A source in the Chinese city of Dalian told Radio Free Asia that they were ordered to pay $3,000 by the end of July 2022 to offset part of the costs for the ballistic missile tests earlier this month.

• According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, eight missiles were fired from four locations into the sea east of the Korean peninsula.

• Loyalty funds are not new to China-based trade officials, as foreign cash has in the past been demanded from Kim Jong-un’s administration, especially during important events such as the military parade held in Pyongyang in April 2022.

• “We are well aware that tens of millions of dollars are spent to launch a single missile. But how many ballistic missiles have been launched this year? I can’t quite understand the behavior of the authorities, who waste foreign currency on missile launches and forcibly impose loyalty funds on us,” the source added, “This is the third time the authorities have imposed a loyalty fund on us this year. This first and second time, though, trade had been partially open, so we could at least pay half of the fund. … This time it is not easy because China is on complete lockdown due to the coronavirus.”

• Radio Free Asia sources estimated that the government would receive around $3 million from the loyalty funds imposed this time, which is an amount far less than the estimated cost of one missile test.

• It is also reported that two North Korean doctors dispatched to work in a hospital in Laos a few years ago were forced to contribute to the loyalty funds. Sources revealed that the North Korean ward is able to earn between $100 and $200 per day on average but is required to pay $3,000 per month to the Pyongyang government, with very little left for the two doctors. As a result, the doctors are “depressed and disappointed because they owe more in loyalty money than they earn.”

Source: 
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/funds-06062022191159.html
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/laos-06142022182130.html 

Choe Son Hui (right), North Korea’s first female foreign minister.

NORTH KOREA IS READY FOR ITS NEXT NUCLEAR TEST UNDER THE COUNTRY’S FIRST FEMALE FOREIGN MINISTER’S LEADERSHIP

• North Korea appointed its top nuclear negotiator, Choe Son Hui, the daughter of former North Korean Prime Minister, as the country’s first female foreign minister. Choe first appeared in the media in 1997 during four-party nuclear negotiations and later during six-party talks in the 2000s, throughout which she had published alternating statements on North Korean state media between threatening a “nuclear showdown” and offering dialogues with its neighbors.

• South Korean Foreign Minister, Park Jin, attended a summit in Washington on June 13, 2022 and stated his belief that North Korea has completed its final preparations to carry out the seventh nuclear test since 2006 and its first since September 2017.

• Park spoke at a press conference alongside U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, threatening the North with additional international sanctions as well as increased military pressure if Pyongyang goes ahead with the test, and warning that “North Korea should change its mind and make the right decision.”

• However, according to a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, Doug Bandow, sanctions imposed on North Korea so far has not changed its policies and would be unlikely to have any greater impact going forward. 

Source: 
CNN 
VOA News 
Daily Mail

Thank You, Dear Leader!

Source: Reuters (North Koreans in Pyongyang mourn the death of Kim Jong-il in December 2011).

When Kim Jong-Il died in December 2011, North Korean citizens had two options. Attend mourning events for the deceased supreme leader or face a minimum of six months in a labor camp. Even then, simply attending one of these memorial events was apparently not enough as the Daily Mail reported that citizens that showed up but weren’t crying or sad enough were also sent to labor camps.

If we rewind back to my high school years when I was first learning about the situation in North Korea, I was strangely fascinated and disturbed at the information I was receiving about the isolated country. At that point in time, I had seen clips of Kim Il-sung’s funeral where everyone, including the reporter, was hysterically crying. This can’t be real I thought.

I found myself later scrolling online reading article after article that listed a range of things that only happen in North Korea. There were these accounts about how the North Korean people believed that Kim Jong-un and his father and grandfather were gods. I was in disbelief with the information I had received. Things can’t be that bad, I thought. They don’t actually believe that Kim Il-sung is an actual god, do they? There may be many weird things going on in that country but I thought this had to be an exaggeration. Fast forward a couple of years to the summer of 2019, I went out for tacos with friends and was introduced to a missionary that had gone to North Korea a few years ago as an “English Teacher.” The question at the top of my list for this missionary was if the people of North Korea actually believed that the Kim family members are gods. 

“Yes,” she replied.

With sheer skepticism, I asked if they could be faking it. 

“If they are faking it, they are doing a very good job at it. It looked very real to me.”

Upon further research, it turns out the reality of the situation is actually much worse. As I delved into the deep world of North Korea, I was horrified to find out that my friend was right.

In National Geographic’s documentary Inside North Korea, the cameras followed a team of ophthalmologists led by Dr. Sanduk Ruit from Nepal inside the Hermit Kingdom who were there to provide cataract eye surgery to 1,000 blind North Koreans. On this trip, National Geographic journalist Lisa Ling posing as a member of the medical team had an opportunity to visit a more privileged home. Six government officials were also there to watch every interaction between Lisa and this privileged North Korean family. The cameras captured the partially blind grandmother with her granddaughters, one on each side, as she held their hands and the three of them bowed to the portraits of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un.

Source: National Geographic (A grandmother and her granddaughters bowing down to the portraits of the leaders).

In the hospital, after the medical team finished performing all the surgeries, it was time for Dr. Sanduk Ruit to remove the patches from his patients. First in line to have their eye patches removed is a 23-year-old woman who had been blind for years. You would think that after all this, the young woman would show some gratitude for Dr. Ruit and his medical team but what actually happened next was quite disturbing. Moments after the young woman had the patches removed from her eyes, her father who came along with her, tells her she can see again thanks to the Great General. “We must bow to our Great General for this,” he says. Both the father and daughter approach the two large photos of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-il as the daughter says, “I want to show my gratitude to our Great General,” she exclaimed as they bow in gratitude. “Thank you very, very much!” they exclaim as the crowd of North Koreans behind them give a round of applause. Then they start jumping and exclaiming, “We praise you!”

Source: National Geographic (Father and daughter bow down in gratitude to North Korean leaders after Dr. Ruit’s eye surgery).

I watched this part of the documentary in utter disbelief. Did North Koreans really believe this nonsense or were they putting on an act because the North Korean officers escorting the National Geographics team were present and watching? It was uncomfortable to watch.

You have to start them young

In North Korea, all preschool children are required to spend 30 minutes a day learning about the childhoods of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. This portion of their studies is known as the “Greatness Education” which has the purpose of brainwashing or creating loyalty to the regime at a young age. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the Daily NK reported in August 2020 that Kim Jong-un’s sister decided to update the “Greatness Education” and is pushing the lessons from 30 minutes to 90 minutes long.

On special days like Kim Jong-un’s birthday as well as on the birthdays of the two previous leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, North Korean children receive a 1 kg bag of sweets. Before children can reach into the bag and enjoy the sweets, they first have to approach the pictures of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il and show them gratitude. Families don’t need to look far as portraits of the two leaders are mandatory in every household and every public space. There is also a story that circulated in 2020 of a woman who was punished for saving her two sons from a burning house but not saving the portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-Il. This is the bizarre and sad reality that exists even today. Everything good in life is a gift from their “benevolent leaders,” to whom every citizen is expected to be eternally grateful. With this level of indoctrination, perhaps it’s not so hard to believe that their tears were real after all.

*This post was written by our social media coordinator Melissa Vasquez.

Top NK Headlines - May 2022

COVID-19 RAVAGES NORTH KOREA

• 2.8M have experienced “fever” and sickness and 479,400 people are in treatment. This represents 11 percent of the North Korean population who may have contracted COVID-19

• President Biden, during a visit with newly elected South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol shared in a joint appearance with president Yoon "We've offered vaccines, not only to North Korea but to China as well, and we're prepared to do that immediately… we've got no response." 

• State media has recommended remedies such as herbal tea, gargling salt-water and taking painkillers such as ibuprofen.

BBC.com
38North.org

EXHAUSTED PYONGYANG RESIDENTS FORCED TO ATTEND 17-HOUR “COVID-SUPERSPREADER" MILITARY PARADE

• North Korea hosted an extravagant military parade on April 25, 2022 where it gathered more than 20,000 soldiers to showcase its military equipment, including the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army.  

• Kim Jong-un praised students and young workers who participated in the parade for their “patriotism and high enthusiasm for the revolution and struggle.”  However, participants said the parade did little to improve morale and a resident of Chongjin told Radio Free Asia that “[residents] did not hide their disappointment, saying that no one believed the authorities’ propaganda.”

• A city official said that the event was only publicly announced just before it began, and “[from] the dawn on the 25th, about 100,000 Pyongyang citizens waited at Kim Il Sung Square for 17 hours to make the military parade possible...[they] were all totally exhausted.”

• Sources also revealed that since Pyongyang citizens have been trying to avoid parade duties, the government began to force them to practise watching or marching in parades two months in advance, “[now] the number of participants are assigned to each neighborhood watch unit and they are forcibly mobilized.”  Citizens complained that they were unable to do business during the two-month practice period and were not compensated for their loss.

• To ensure Kim Jong-un's security, authorities blocked all mobile communications in Pyongyang and even instructed participants to dress in black until just before the ceremony started in order to avoid being detected by satellites.

Source:
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/parade-04292022195652.html 
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20220502000125&np=1&mp=1 
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3177889/coronavirus-superspreader-military-parade-blamed-deadly-north 
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/covid-05132022203718.html 

HUNGRY NORTH KOREAN WORKERS IN CHINA WORK BEHIND CLOSED DOORS AMIDST LOCKDOWN

• A source told Daily NK that North Korean factory workers in the city of Dandong, China have remained in their dormitories under orders to keep working behind closed doors since their plants shut down following regional Covid-19 lockdowns.

• The source added that those managing the workers were supposed to bulk buy food through a Chinese shopping strategy called “group buying” but had failed to do so, which resulted in the challenges of acquiring food with the current implementation of bans on movement.

• Although the managers have now picked up on the “group buying” method, workers were not receiving sufficient food due to the soaring food prices in China. The cost of eggs, for instance, have more than tripled in price since the lockdown began and a head of cabbage which used to cost approx. $0.29 USD is now a shocking $7.37 USD.

• North Koreans workers struggled to send authorities a set quota of “loyalty funds” since the Chinese factories shut down, resulting in a cut in their monthly wages.

• Nonetheless, many workers who used to work 10 to 12 hours a day all month for less than RMB 500 (approx. $73.73 USD) said that they could now rest, despite being frustrated about the lack of support from the North Korean embassy in China.

Source:
https://www.dailynk.com/english/north-korean-workers-china-face-challenges-purchasing-enough-food-amid-lockdowns/ 

JUDGE FEARS NORTH KOREA COULD MURDER U.S. MARINE VET

• U.S. Magistrate Judge Jean Rosenbluth issued an unusual decision concerning her order for the extradition of Christopher Ahn, a former U.S. Marine veteran who took part in a raid on North Korea’s Madrid embassy in February 2019, to face trial in Spain.

• Ahn claimed in his case that he was part of an anti-North Korea group called “Free Joseon (Free Korea)” who had entered the embassy to help North Koreans who wanted to defect.

• According to court documents, the group left the building with computer drives, a cell phone, and other electronic information, which they later turned over to the FBI.

• Ahn returned to California after the incident and was arrested in April 2019.  Spain later sought his extradition on 6 criminal charges carrying a potential sentence of over 10 years in prison.

• Judge Rosenbluth wrote in her ruling that “[in] part because of his participation in the embassy incident, North Korea wants to kill Ahn...I must decide whether to certify his extradition to Spain, where North Korea can much more easily murder him. Although I conclude that the law requires me to certify, I do not think it’s the right result, and I hope that a higher court will either tell me I’m wrong or itself block the extradition.”

• During an interview with Fox News last year, Ahn expressed his disappointment that “[the] same Department of Justice that has told me that if I leave the country that I could be assassinated is the same Department of Justice that’s trying to extradite me.”

Source:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/judge-warns-north-korea-murder-us-marine-vet-spain-rcna28154 
https://nypost.com/2022/05/10/us-judge-forced-to-allow-extradition-of-ex-marine-christopher-ahn-to-spain-fears-hell-be-killed/ 
https://www.nknews.org/2022/05/us-judge-approves-extradition-of-american-who-raided-dprk-embassy-in-spain/ 

NORTH KOREA COMPLETES NUCLEAR TEST PREPARATIONS DESPITE COVID-19 OUTBREAK 

• South Korea’s spy agency revealed that there are signs North Korea could launch an intercontinental ballistic missile as part of its seventh nuclear test after completing its preparations amid Covid-19 outbreak.

• Kim Byung-kee of the Democratic Party told reporters that “[it] would not be abnormal for North Korea to launch a missile or conduct a nuclear test at one point, as signs [of such provocations] are detected and Pyongyang has almost completed its preparations.”

• The first deputy chief of South Korea’s presidential National Security Office, Kim Tae-hyo, also said that a nuclear launch appears to be “imminent.”

Source:
https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20220519006400320?section=nk/nk

The 2022 COVID-19 Crisis in Unvaccinated North Korea

North Korea is currently facing a major crisis that threatens the lives of potentially hundreds of thousands of its citizens due to the recent and rapid outbreak of COVID-19. 

North Korean refugees with contacts in both China and North Korea have shared with us that the situation in North Korea is far worse than Kim Jong-un lets on. Some estimate the death toll to be as high as 10 percent of the population once COVID-19 has ravaged the country. 

A refugee recently shared with us that the North Korean government can no longer lie to its people anymore because of text messaging between its citizens, which is why the regime has recently admitted publicly that the country is affected by the pandemic. He also said that North Korea tried to administer the vaccine over the past year but because the mRNA vaccines need to be refrigerated, vaccination efforts fell flat due to the lack of access to reliable electricity. 

Outside of the vaccine, basic medical supplies to treat symptoms of COVID-19 are not available. The country recently asked their ally China for help. North Korea stocked three of its cargo planes with basic medical supplies provided by their neighbor, a far cry from the aid, expertise and technology needed to stave off the disease. In the absence of COVID treatments, North Korea’s state run media have encouraged the use of painkillers and antibiotics, as well as unverified home remedies, such as gargling salt water, or drinking lonicera japonica tea or willow leaf tea.

When asked if this could mean trouble for the Kim regime in North Korea, refugees say that this can absolutely spell danger for the Kim family regime, which has ruled over the country for more than 70 years. North Korea has been relegated to blaming South Korean activists for dropping the virus into the country via propaganda balloons. 

LOCKING DOWN A STARVING NATION

North Korean state media, Rodong Sinmun, reported that Kim Jong-un told North Korean authorities to study and actively follow the “policies, successes, and experiences” of China. At the cost of significantly increasing the odds of mass starvation, their leader “called on all the cities and counties of the whole country to thoroughly lock down their areas and organize work and production after closing each working unit, production unit and living unit from each other so as to flawlessly and perfectly block the spread vacuum of the malicious virus.” 

In a country that is on the brink of famine, the threat of COVID-19 appears to be second to the pressing food crisis, as a ruling party member in North Hamgyong province commented that “[people] are going to factories and to their places of work as normal. The authorities don’t want work to be disrupted...People are worried about how to survive.”  The seriousness of the situation was reflected by their leader’s 2022 New Year remarks, which took many by surprise as he emphasized agricultural output, rather than the party’s favored nuclear weapons and missiles developments. Although starvation is no novelty to North Korea, the combination of food and healthcare insecurity matched with a deadly respiratory virus is a new and frightening challenge. Journalists in South Korea also reported signs of normal agricultural activity in farms to the south, suggesting there may be a rural-urban divide in how lockdowns are being implemented, especially during North Korea’s rice planting season, which runs from May through October.  

KIM JONG-UN'S RESPONSE

At a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, Kim Jong-un criticized the “immaturity in the state capacity for coping with the crisis” which increased the “complexity and hardship” in fighting the pandemic.  Following which, health officials have developed a COVID-19 treatment guide to prevent drug overdoses and medical mistreatments that resulted in many of the reported deaths, though it is unclear exactly what drugs are currently used to treat patients with COVID-19.  Kim Jong-un also ordered the distribution of medicine released from state reserves and mobilized his army of nearly 3,000 members of the Korean People’s Army’s medical units to transport medical supplies to pharmacies in Pyongyang.  Meanwhile, more than 1.4 million officials, teachers, and students in the public health sector were deployed to identify people with COVID-19 symptoms.

NORTH KOREA'S PANDEMIC RESPONSE THUS FAR

North Korea has fought the pandemic as a matter of “national survival” since COVID-19 emerged in China back in January 2020.  As one of the first countries to close borders due to COVID-19, Pyongyang set up an “emergency quarantine command” specifically to deal with the spread of the virus and pledged that it would not open its borders until a cure was found.  The COVID-19 measures taken extended beyond suspending trade with China, which plays a pivotal part in North Korea’s economy, to systematically rejecting humanitarian aid such as vaccines from foreign countries and even executing a citizen for bringing goods through customs in violation of Covid-related quarantine measures. The world's attention was once again drawn to the North’s strict restrictions when it announced that it would not participate in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo due to concerns over potential exposure to COVID-19, which led to the country’s suspension from participating in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. By April 2021, many foreign diplomats left the isolated country amidst severe food and drug shortages. Later that month, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said the country was facing its “worst-ever situation” comparable to the great famine in the 1990’s and called the party to wage another Arduous March to fight the economic hardship.  

Despite adopting harsh lockdown and enforcement measures, including the shoot-on-sight orders, North Korea’s self-proclaimed perfect zero-covid record was recently overrun by 1.5 million “fever” cases (a euphemism for suspected COVID-19, given the lack of testing capacity necessary to confirm diagnosis of COVID-19) that resulted in over 62 deaths to date. However, some observers noted that the number of reported cases lacks accuracy as authorities may deliberately underreport cases to disguise the seriousness of the crisis and ease the pressure on their leader.  Not a single North Korean citizen is known to have received COVID-19 vaccination. An outbreak of the omicron variant within its borders could unleash a humanitarian crisis, especially in the context of a dire economy following trade suspensions, natural disasters, unfavorable harvests and widespread starvation, a broken healthcare system, and years of international sanctions imposed in response to ballistic missile tests.

Understanding Saving Face

North Korean couples who cannot afford to provide a meal for their wedding guests will rent out food from local vendors, use them as a PHOTO OP and then return it afterwards.

When I heard North Koreans were renting food for the photo op, I was both equally shocked and confused. Faking it for photos is something I was used to seeing and have even come to expect in Western culture. With the rise of social media, it has become easier than ever for people to compare their lives with others and even stretch the truth about the life they live, often giving the illusion that they are doing much better than what they actually are.

Back in May 2017, I was browsing the Internet when I came across a trending topic that discussed the reality of people trying to portray a lifestyle they don’t have. The topic was trending as a result of rapper Bow Wow posting a picture of a private jet on his personal Instagram page with the caption, “Travel Day” implying that he was the one traveling on that private plane. Anyone who viewed that picture would have believed that he was doing very well for himself. However, things took a turn when a bystander who was also traveling to the same destination as Bow Wow, caught the rapper on his flight sitting in the economy section with him and was quick to call him out publicly. He snapped a picture of the rapper and posted it on his personal social media and the picture quickly began to circulate. It wasn’t long before the entire situation went viral and hundreds of people online started sharing humorous photos with the hashtag #bowwowchallenge as a reminder of how people are deceptive online, portraying a life they don’t have or trying to act like they are doing much better financially than what they actually are.

Internet access in North Korea remains extremely restricted. Other than the elite, most North Koreans don’t have internet access. Those that happen to live in one of few of the privileged cities which includes the capital Pyongyang, have access to the intranet, a small selection of government approved websites. The closest thing North Korea has to social media is an intranet “digital bulletin board” where those who have access to it can wish one another a happy birthday according to the Washington Post in their article, A rare glimpse of North Korea’s version of Facebook. No real social media means North Koreans can’t catch a glimpse of updates from friends or family. No social media also should mean less pressure to keep up with others, or does it?

Several Asian countries including China, Japan and the Koreas live in what is known as the “saving face” culture that provides a glimpse into reasons behind this strange yet common phenomena. In the article Saving Face or Losing Face in Korea by Margarita Kichukova, the author touches on the subject of “saving face” that is deeply rooted in Korean culture that originated from China. Kichukova states “It is unknown when exactly Korea accepted this particular cultural norm [of saving face] from China but it became part of the fundamental rules of behavior coined during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910).”

Tom Doctoroff of J. Walter Thompson advertising discusses the importance of showing respect to people’s face in a New York Times article “Saving Face in China.” “Face — a cliché, but it’s so true — is the currency of advancement,” he said. “It’s like a social bank account. You spend it and you save it and you invest. And when you take away somebody’s face you take away someone’s fundamental sense of security.”

Here in America, the internet mocked Bow Wow for his deception but people quickly moved on to the next hashtag. On the contrary, being publicly ridiculed would be taken very disrespectfully and seriously in Asian countries like China or South Korea.

Experiencing it personally as a Mexican American woman

One Thanksgiving morning, I joined my Chinese friend and his family for brunch. When it was time to pay, I pulled out my wallet to pay for what I ordered and my friend placed his hand over my wallet shaking his head no in a very serious manner and told me his grandparents would take care of the bill. I am a Mexican American woman and have never encountered this in my own Mexican culture or generally in American culture. The same thing happened when I joined my Asian friend and his family on a trip to Las Vegas. His older relatives took care of the bill at every restaurant and my friend gave me a “don’t you even think about paying” look as I reached for my wallet. I actually felt bad for not paying as I don’t like owing people money but now as I read and understand this part of Asian culture, had I paid for my meal, it would have come across as disrespectful and among themselves, they would “lose face” by letting a guest contribute to the bill.

Saving Face when a country is falling apart

Saving face is deeply rooted in Asian culture for both those who live in Asian countries and even those who live in the U.S. Not being Asian, I have a hard time understanding how the pressure to “save face” exists in a country where people struggle to put food on the table. Last October, Kim Jong-un made headlines for telling his starving citizens to eat less until 2025. This came almost two years after all borders and trade halted to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and echoed government mandates that led up to the famine of the 90s.

There may be some North Koreans who are able to rent food for photos to portray a life they cannot afford to live to “save face.” For most others, the need to survive trumps saving face. In January 2022, the Daily NK reported that famous North Korean actors and actresses were out in Pyongsong’s Okjon Market begging for food. In a society where saving face is the cultural norm, imagine how bad things must be for famous actors to swallow their pride and lose face by begging for food in public.

This pales in comparison to silly trends like the #bowwowchallenge. As I learn more about the North Korean people and their reality that is foreign to me in so many ways, I want to make it known to others. How amazing would it be for us to pray together for North Korea and make a different kind of hashtag trend. #prayfornorthkorea

This article was written by our Social Media Coordinator Melissa Vasquez.

Once Upon A Time, North Korea was the Christian Hub of the East - Part 2

Surrender in a village during The Korean War.

PYONGYANG SEMINARY BIRTHED CHURCH LEADERS

When the first seven graduates finished their studies at the Pyongyang Theological Seminary in 1907, the mission boards of the Southern Presbyterian Church (US), the Northern Presbyterian Church (US), the Canadian Presbyterian Church, and the Australian Presbyterian Church, agreed to establish the first presbytery in Korea. This is an important event which solidified Pyongyang’s importance in the history of Korean Christianity as until this time, most missionaries and leaders in Korea were overseen by the denominations and mission boards of the Western missionaries.  

Soon after, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Korea was established in 1912, where Horace Underwood and Kil Sun-ju were elected as its first moderator and vice-moderator, respectively, during a meeting at the seminary in Pyongyang. Other denominations were subsequently formed to build and support the growing church community in Korea.

WHY DID NORTH KOREAN CHURCHES DISAPPEAR?

The prevailing perspective that has long dominated the South Korean and western view of North Korea is that, since the division of the two the Koreas, North Korean Christianity practically vanished except for a very limited number of “underground” Christians, since most Christians, especially leaders, had to flee to the South for religious freedom following a series of persecutions by the regime.  

Shedding new light on the matter, Japanese historian, Sawa Masahiko, studied two of the multi-volume 1960s collections of Kim Il-sung’s addresses and writings and found that, unlike Marx and Lenin, Kim seldom attacked religion or Christianity per se, but rather focused his criticism on such political allegations that Christianity came to Korea as the forerunner of imperialism, and that some “bad” Christian leaders opposed the nationalist nation-building in North Korea and collaborated with the Americans during the Korean War. Sawa also questioned if the reason why there was no church in North Korea was because of North Korean communism as such, but rather with the nature of Korean Christianity itself, making it unable to exist in a socialist environment.

Alternatively, Korean scholar, Dae Young Ryu, proposed a new perspective to understand the history of North Korean Christianity as a history of North Korean Christians’ constructive efforts to survive, adjust, and change in the midst of a hostile environment. Ryu noted that, during the Japanese occupation, North Korean Christianity mainly became the religion of businessmen, professionals, and landlords. Even though a vast majority of the North Korean population was poor tenant farmers, few of them embraced Christianity. When the nationalist-socialist government came into power after the liberation, established Christians became antagonists of the nationalist-Marxist revolution and fled to the South, while lay people simply accepted socialism as a reality. Further, U.S. air raids that caused immense human suffering to North Koreans during the Korean War planted a burning hatred of Americans within the nation. Thus Christianity, which was seen as an American religion, became an object of contempt and ridicule. As a result, many North Korean Christians lost their faith as they rebuilt the war-stricken nation.

Once Upon A Time, North Korea was the Christian Hub of the East - Part 1

Prayer meeting in Pyongyang in 1908.

Nowadays, the history of Christianity in North Korea is often perceived as one of persecution. This is especially so given the current regime under the Kim Dynasty considers “all religions [a] social evil” and persecutes Christians more severely than any other religious believers as they are regarded as “agents of Western imperialism.” North Koreans accused of practicing Christianity are detained incommunicado in political prison camps called “kwanliso,” where detainees are imprisoned indefinitely, and forced to endure inhumane treatment including torture, starvation, rape, and forced abortions. North Korean authorities also detain three generations of the accused’s family to further deter ideology it deems unacceptable.

It is therefore puzzling to imagine that only a century ago and before Korea was divided into two, Pyongyang was considered “the Jerusalem of the East,” a model of success for missions and the center of a growing Christianity in Korea.

CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS IN PYONGYANG

Pyongyang was the site of a number of Christian schools, including Pyongyang Theological Seminary (also known as the Pyongyang Theological Academy), the first graduate institution that trained pastors in Korea and became the centre of Korean Christianity in the early 20th century. The seminary was founded in 1901 by Samuel Austin Moffett, a Presbyterian missionary, who was motivated to establish the seminary in Pyongyang after the city had been badly damaged in the First Sino-Japanese War. Moffett headed the school as president until 1918 and served as a faculty member until 1935. By 1905, there were over 40 students engaged in a five-year curriculum, which included three months of classroom instruction and nine months of practical ministry engagement in local churches.

The Pyongyang-based seminary was temporarily closed under pressure during the Japanese occupation of Korea in 1938. Japan instituted a mandatory Shinto shrine-worship order, which precipitated a crisis for Christianity in Korea that resulted in the closing of hundreds of mission schools and the withdrawal from the country of many foreign representatives of Christian organizations. Nonetheless, the seminary marks significant importance in the history of Korean Christianity as numerous Presbyterian and reformed seminaries in South Korea see themselves as its heirs.

REBIRTH AND REVIVAL OF CHRISTIANITY

North Korea is also the location of the Great Pyongyang Revival of 1907, which was a Protestant revival that occurred in and around the city of Pyongyang. After the first Western missionaries arrived in Korea in 1885, the church community grew rapidly and reached over 200,000 followers by 1910. Interestingly, most of these believers were from what is now a part of North Korea. The Pyongyang Revival began at Jangdaehyeon Church, when hundreds of men and women gathered to attend the annual Bible conference for revival and repentance under the leadership of the church pastor, Kil Sun-ju, who incidentally was one of the first graduates of the Pyongyang Theological Seminary. The revival’s aim was to redirect its followers to focus on spiritual matters in the midst of political and national crisis in Korea. 

Presbyterian missionary, William Blair, also preached to thousands of Korean men during the national repentance movement to encourage them to turn away from their traditional hatred of the Japanese, with whom Korea had a long history of conflict. One missionary described the meeting as “the sound of many praying at once…a  vast harmony of sound and spirit…[where God] came to us in Pyongyang that night with the sound of weeping.  As the prayer continued, a spirit of heaviness and sorrow for sin came down upon the audience…Man after man would rise, confess his sins, break down and weep, and then throw himself to the floor and beat the floor with his fists in perfect agony of conviction…we would all weep, we could not help it. And so the meeting went on until two o’clock a.m., with confession and weeping and praying.”  

Stay tuned for the final part of our series, “Once Upon A Time, North Korea was the Christian Hub of the East.”

Top North Korean Headlines - April 2022

NORTH KOREAN WORKERS DISAPPEAR FROM SHANGHAI DORM

• North Korea has requested help from China to track down 20 North Korean women working for a clothing company in Shanghai and their manager who they suspect are now on the run as refugees.  

• Beijing is under two bilateral border and immigration pacts with Pyongyang to return North Koreans found to be illegally within Chinese territory.

• The group of textile workers were dispatched from North Korea to earn foreign currency in China for the government and were supposed to be in quarantine when they disappeared from their dormitory in mid-February.

• A source told Radio Free Asia that the company owner had immediately reported the disappearance to the North Korean consulate in Beijing, which had in turn sought assistance from the Chinese police to track the escapees and monitor railway stations heading towards the border. The source further commented that “[the] workers and the manager have not been found for a month since they went missing...[the] North Korean consulate is under a state of emergency to find if they have already escaped and are in Southeast Asia or already entered South Korea.”

• Another source from Dandong, a Chinese city bordering North Korea, said that Shanghai is so large with a population of around 26 million people that “it would be easy to hide there...[but] if they were to leave by train or bus, they would need to show ID to buy a ticket. It therefore seems this is a planned escape led by a guide, since the manager and the workers have not been caught.”

• According to the U.S. State Department’s 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report, there are an estimated 20,000 to 80,000 North Koreans working in China. Meanwhile, escapes by North Koreans working in China are rare because Pyongyang only sends its most loyal citizens abroad, monitors them closely, and punishes their family members.

• Although United Nations nuclear sanctions froze the issuance of work visas and mandated the repatriation of North Korean nationals working abroad by the end of 2019, China and Russia often bypass these sanctions by granting workers short-term student or visitor visas so they can legally work in other countries.

Source:
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/china-03222022201416.html
https://www.visiontimes.com/2022/03/23/north-korean-women-rented-to-china-for-work-disappear-from-shanghai-dorm-presumed-defected-report.html

NORTH KOREAN LEADER’S SISTER WARNS OF NUCLEAR RETALIATION

• In response to South Korean Defense Minister Suh Wook’s remarks on the South’s ability to strike the North’s missile launch points, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister, Kim Yo-jong, issued two statements in state media calling Suh “a scum-like guy” and claiming that “[in] case South Korea opts for military confrontation with us, our nuclear combat force will have to inevitably carry out its duty.”

• Kim Yo-jong also dismissed Suh’s assertions in relation to the South’s militia abilities, which North Korean analyst, Cheong Seong-chang, noted was an attempt to “enhance the internal unity within the North” amidst uncertainty and concerns about relations with the new South Korean cabinet.

• Kim Yo-jong further added that North Korea did not want a war and would only respond using nuclear weapons if attacked. 

• According to Sydney Seiler, national intelligence officer for North Korea at the National Intelligence Council, North Korea uses US-South Korea joint military drills as a pretext for its provocations and is employing a “short-term choreography” or propaganda which Pyongyang has historically utilized while seeking to convince others that the escalation of tension is simply a result of the US-South Korean alliance and not the desired outcome of its actions.

• Seiler also noted that North Korea has breached numerous denuclearisation agreements in the past, “each breakout that we have seen, agreed framework breakout, six-party talks, breakout, leap day agreement, breakout, Singapore-Hanoi breakout, each time the [North Korean weapons] program advances a little more, making it harder to imagine denuclearisation as a viable topic for discussion.”

Source:
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20220408000121
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60992313

NORTH KOREA DEMOLISHES SOUTH KOREAN-OWNED $75 MILLION GOLF RESORT

• In 2019, Kim Jong-un called the dozens of South Korean-built facilities at North Korea’s Diamond Mountain resort “shabby” and lacked “national character”, and ordered the removal of “all the unpleasant-looking facilities of the south [Korean] side” after Seoul refused to defy US-led sanctions that kept tourism from resuming.

• South Korea’s Unification Ministry and other parties requested to negotiate with the North following Kim’s announcement, but their requests were denied.

• The North postponed the demolition work in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic until days before the South Korean presidential election in March 2022. South Korea’s Unification Ministry called for North Korea to stop the “unilateral” destruction of the Haegumgang Hotel, which serves as one of the last symbols of inter-Korean engagement.

• Weeks later, it was reported that North Korea began to demolish a $75 million South Korean-owned golf resort near Mount Kumgang without permission from the company Anati that built the facility. The Ananti Golf and Spa Resort was open to South Korean tourists in 2008 for one year, before Seoul suspended all tourism to North Korea after a DPRK soldier shot and killed a South Korean national.

• Anati’s chairman expressed hopes that his resort could still host the 2025 World Amateur Golf Championship, but this does not seem likely to happen as according to Planet Labs satellite imagery, 10 large lodging buildings have already been partially demolished.

Source:
https://apnews.com/article/business-travel-seoul-south-korea-north-korea-bb623f840c86a80a08cd214cad1233b5
https://www.nknews.org/2022/04/north-korea-begins-demolishing-75-million-south-korean-golf-resort-imagery/ 

NORTH KOREANS IN RUSSIA: NO WAY HOME

• North Korean soldiers dispatched to Russia to earn foreign currency are unable to return home after their three-year services due to Pyongyang’s prolonged border closure as part of their Covid-19 prevention measures.

• According to a North Korean soldier in his 20s, Choi, along with four other soldiers who were sent to Russia in 2018, although they were eligible for discharges from the military in 2021, they were not allowed to return home and are still engaging in foreign currency earning activities in Russia.

• Choi told Daily NK that two soldiers in similar positions have tried to escape by leaving their base in Moscow without permission in mid-March, but were subsequently apprehended by the Ministry of State Security and imprisoned on charges of attempting to defect.

• Choi also noted that the “first thing North Korean authorities consider when choosing soldiers to send abroad is whether or not an individual will run away while in a foreign country...[since] soldiers are thoroughly armed politically and ideologically speaking, and because they have families back home [who are used as hostages], [the authorities] prefer them over regular workers.”

• Despite the heavy emphasis on selecting soldiers who are loyal to the ruling Workers’ Party and Kim Jong-un, Choi explained that “there are many soldiers who are considering escaping due to the long working hours that stretch into the night and poor pay, which is not even enough to buy cigarettes.”

Source:
https://www.dailynk.com/english/north-korean-soldiers-russia-earning-foreign-currency-still-unable-return-home/

Rest for Your Souls

Praying for Nancy at Elim House.

Nancy was referred to Elim House by a local Hana Center as she needed to remove herself from a toxic situation with a former boyfriend. He was convinced that she was cheating on him and to prove him wrong, she attempted to end her life by swallowing an excessive amount of sleeping pills in front of him. According to Nancy, he had also tracked her whereabouts by installing a secret app on her phone.

A pastor from her church told us that before Nancy met this man, she was active in the church and did not show signs of exhaustion. She came to us completely drained of energy and spirit. Upon arrival, Kelly and Michelle, the other two residents currently at Elim House, welcomed Nancy in and prepared dinner for her with dumplings, potatoes and vegetables.

Within a week of her stay, Nancy sought out a psych evaluation at the hospital and asked to be admitted if possible due to potential mental issues. Our social workers grew increasingly aware that Nancy’s mental issues seemed to be more severe than they initially thought as she settled in at Elim House. The doctor who evaluated Nancy gave her the option to be admitted and also prescribed her medication. Nancy chose to start taking her medication and to return to Elim House. For her own safety and the safety of others at Elim House, our team kept close watch over her.

Last Sunday, Nancy voluntarily asked to be discharged from Elim House as she plans to be admitted to the hospital in about a month. Her stay was just a few short weeks but she had developed a good relationship with other residents and staff in that time. Nancy’s time with us came to a close at our weekly Sunday worship as the other residents and our team lovingly covered her in prayer and blessings. While we desire to have gone deeper with Nancy, given the mental issues she struggled with, we know she needs to be under the care of trained professionals who can properly treat her.

Many residents, like Nancy, only stay for a few weeks. We don’t know if they’ll come back or if our paths will ever cross again. But we hope the time that they spend at Elim House leaves an indelible impression of God’s sabbath, his holy rest. Our prayer is for Nancy to receive the ongoing treatment she needs to get better physically, emotionally and spiritually.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. - Psalm 46:1

Faith in a Fiery Furnace

My classmates and I waited in a packed auditorium at my Christian university as we were told that the original speaker wasn't able to make it and they had to find a last minute replacement. This substitute speaker was a North Korean defector named Charles and he shared his story of escaping North Korea twice and how he came to know Jesus. I was intrigued. The first time around, he escaped to China to find his father who had escaped years earlier. After some searching, he found his father. During his time in China, a pastor came to his house and handed him a Bible and prayed over the young man who had never heard of Jesus before. 

He expressed his mixed feelings as he reflected on his difficult journey to freedom. He is so grateful that he made it out while many others are still trapped.

~

This past Palm Sunday, my pastor gave a message on having faith during difficult times. As a part of his message, he showed the congregation a short clip of three different people that had endured a difficult time in their lives. The first woman on the screen had a miscarriage; second was a man who lost his granddaughter; last was a woman who had been sexually abused for years by her own father. All three were still deeply affected and in pain by these events and questioned “God? Why? Why God have you forsaken me?”

It is easier to have faith in the Lord when things are comfortable. But what happens in the face of tragedy? 

God doesn’t promise us good times, he promises us to be with us all the time, in the good and the bad. In the third chapter of Daniel, we see the story of three men of God, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who were in a sticky situation. Rather than bowing down to a gold statue made by King Nebuchadnezzar, they chose to be faithful to God. King Nebuchadnezzar warned the three men that the consequences of not worshiping  the golden statue would result in being thrown into a fiery furnace. Their response was, “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it.” They said that even if God didn’t deliver them from the furnace, they would still not bow. Imagine that. To be grounded in your faith in God like that to stand firm knowing that God is always with you. A furious King Nebuchadnezzar had the furnace heated up seven hotter than usual and had his soldiers throw Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in. The furnace was so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers that threw these three men of God in the fire. 

The fire didn’t burn Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Likewise, Charles, in the midst of all his pain, struggles and tribulations was able to continue and make it out alive. One of the things he said was that he knew that God was always there with him and had a purpose for his life.

This is a good reminder for me this Easter. God has a plan and that may include times of hardship. But that suffering will come to an end. His love for us, on the other hand, is everlasting and unchanging. You may pass through the fire but you will not burn. You may pass through rivers of difficulty but you will not drown. Do not fear because Jesus will be with you.

*This post was written by our social media coordinator Melissa Vasquez.

A Living Hell for Female North Korean Soldiers: Sexual Abuse and Abortions Without Anesthesia

To this day, North Korean women are subject to disadvantages in education and employment opportunities, with little protection against sexual assault and violence at work and home respectively, along with concerns of rape and mistreatment in detention. According to a report published by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in 2017, North Korea is far from providing adequate victim protection and support measures in this regard. For example, the 2012 revision of the Criminal Code lowered the penalties for some forms of rape, including rape of children, rape by a work supervisor and repeated rape. Since the penalty for rape is incommensurate with the crime per se, perpetrators are often left unpunished.

Unlike South Korea, which only requires male citizens between the age of 18 and 28 to perform compulsory military service, North Korea requires all North Korean women to serve a total of seven years in the military from the time they graduate school until the age of 23. Interestingly, it has been reported that thousands of young women were motivated to join the military by the thought of having a guaranteed meal each day, particularly following the famine in the 1990s.  

As a traditionally male-dominated society, female soldiers in North Korea are subjected to repeated abuse, induced malnutrition, cruel punishment, sexual harassment and sexual assault.  A former soldier, Jennifer Kim, estimated that 70 percent of female North Korean soldiers had been victims of sexual assault or sexual harassment in an interview conducted by The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. As a victim herself, Kim testified that female soldiers had to endure "unspeakable” torture and collective punishments in the army. She described several occasions where women were forced to dip their hands in freezing water before being hung from an iron bar which froze on to their palms, causing the flesh to tear off when released. Kim also noted that women in the army had to reuse soggy footwraps and gauze used for dressing wounds as sanitry pads and recalled that during her four years of military service, she had only ever used four sanitary pads.  

When Kim was 23 years old, a senior advisor called her to his office and she immediately knew what was going to happen – she was sexually assaulted that very day. Kim explained that she had no choice but to accept her fate. Had she refused his demands, she would not have been able to become a member of the Workers’ Party of Korea. “If I return to society without being able to join the party, I’m perceived as a problem child and I will be stigmatized for the rest of my life...[that] means you won’t be able to get a good job and it will be a problem when you try to marry. What could I have chosen?” Despite surviving on meager rations of three to four spoonfuls of corn a day and being so malnourished that her period only came once every four to six months, Kim became pregnant with her abuser’s child. When she informed him of her early signs of pregnancy, he simply ordered her to visit the military medical office the same night, where a military surgeon performed an abortion on her without anesthesia. Kim struggled to describe the pain she had been through and stated that “[because] of that experience, not only do I struggle mentally, but I’m also not able to have children...[so] even now, it’s difficult for me to have a good marriage. The shame I felt back then still haunts me and will continue to do so”.

The term “Pleasure Squad” made global headlines and exposed that groups of young virgins are selected for the North Korean leader and other high-ranking officials’ sexual entertainment (called the Kippujo which is often translated as the “Pleasure Squad”). The executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Greg Scarlatoiu, stated it is unsurprising that “[the] abuse the nation’s daughters in uniform suffer at the hands of the regime’s henchmen” and that these deplorable acts “[reflect] the deeply-embedded and incurable pervertedness and corruption of the party and the entire top leadership, all the way up to the top of the chain of command.” Women in North Korea, including female soldiers, have little to no protection from this system.

Top North Korean Headlines - March 2022

DAUGHTER OF A HIGH-RANKING OFFICIAL EXECUTED FOR WATCHING SOUTH KOREAN COOKING SHOW

• North Korea has punished more than 10 military officials as the crackdown on illegal foreign media shifted to focus on high-ranking cadres and their families.

• A source told Radio Free Asia that “[an] official of a trading company directly under the Ministry of Defense was caught with three South Korean movies, 10 Japanese pornographic movies, and seven South Korean dramas, including ‘Crash Landing on You,’ and ‘Descendants of the Sun,’ and five American movies…he was punished after the inspection.” “Crash Landing on You” is about a South Korean woman who mistakenly crosses the border into North Korea and falls in love with a North Korean soldier, while the main protagonist of “Descendants of the Sun” is a South Korean Special Forces soldier.

• The daughter of the Head of a branch political department of the Ministry of State Security (“MSS”) and her boyfriend were publicly executed for watching and distributing South Korean films, soap operas, and entertainment programs in Pyongsong, including a cooking show “Baek Jong-won's Alley Restaurant,” among others. Though the lives of her father and other family members were spared, they were sent to a political prison camp.

• North Korean authorities judged that the couple was able to avoid registering their imported computer with the MSS and engage in illegal copying of videos because they were protected by the father’s position at the MSS.

• Approximately 300 people reportedly watched the execution, while about 20 people accused of taking part in distributing the videos and the MSS officials were given front row seats to the execution before being arrested for participating in or overlooking the illegal distribution of videos.

Source:
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/media-impure-02212022082705.html 
https://www.dailynk.com/english/daughter-of-high-ranking-n-korean-cadre-executed-for-watching-and-distributing-s-korean-videos/

MARRIAGE BETWEEN “CRASH LANDING ON YOU” STARS BRINGS HOPE TO NORTH KOREANS

• The recent announcement that Son Ye-jin and Hyun Bin, stars of the South Korean drama “Crash Landing on You,” are getting married has become a hot topic in North Korea. 

• One woman in her 30’s from North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK that “[these] characters shared a special love in the show, and people are saying they want to run up and congratulate them personally [about the marriage]...I hope to live in a world where everyone is comfortable with one another and young people from both Koreas can fall in love.”

• Another woman in her 20’s who lives in Pyongyang told Daily NK that “I think Jong Hyok and Se Ri’s love is memorable as it’s a love that transcends different systems, political views, and nations.” After news of the marriage broke, it became trendy for North Koreans to watch the drama “Crash Landing on You” again.

• A third woman in her 40’s told Daily NK that even officials charged with cracking down on foreign media content have watched the drama with their families, laughing and crying the whole time. 

Source:
https://www.dailynk.com/english/north-koreans-express-excitement-about-marriage-between-crash-landing-on-you-stars-son-ye-jin-hyun-bin/

RURAL NORTH KOREA’S GREENHOUSE PROJECT GROWS VEGETABLES FOR ELITES IN PYONGYANG

• Two years ago, authorities responsible for a North Korean greenhouse project ordered residents from a rural farm village in Kyongsong county, North Hamgyong Province, to grow vegetables. In return, the authorities promised to provide the villagers with more vegetables than they could ever eat. However, the food was shipped to Pyongyang for the country’s elites, a source told Radio Free Asia.

• The farm sits on 490 acres of land and includes about 300 greenhouses, and “[last] week, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported that the Jungphyong Vegetable Greenhouse Farm had produced about 10,000 tons of fresh produce, including cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and crown daisy [which is a popular leafy vegetable],” said the source. The newspaper report said that the vegetables were delivered to the people of the province last year, “[but] in actuality, ordinary residents of Kyongsong county have never been given a single vegetable grown from those greenhouses,” the source added, “[they] worked for over a year. Not many people complained because they had the hope that they would be able to eat their fill of vegetables in the very near future.”

• The Jungphyong Vegetable Greenhouse Farm was a pilot program and the government has plans to expand the program. For instance, according to a Kyongsong resident, another greenhouse farm is already under construction in nearby South Hamgyong Province’s Hamju county, “[the] residents of Hamju county have been mobilized for the construction work. Even when they complete their new greenhouse farm, they will never have a chance to eat any of the veggies...[when] they were building the greenhouse farm up here in Jungphyong, the local housewives supported the construction effort, even sending in homemade soil for use in the farms. Despite their personal sacrifices, the housewives never received any vegetables.”

• The second source also claimed that high-ranking officials who live nearby would drive by the farms and take the vegetables as they please.

Source:
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/veggies-03022022182230.html 

NORTH KOREA’S MILITARY SPY SATELLITE LAUNCH AS KOREA ELECTS NEW PRESIDENT

• Three hours after Yoon Suk-yeol was elected President of South Korea, North Korea announced that it will soon launch a military spy satellite, a move that is speculated to circumvent the ban on long-range missile testing by the UN Security Council.

• “We are aware of the growing North Korean nuclear threat, and amid the tensions of the U.S.-China strategic competition, we are also faced with the task of strengthening our global diplomatic capabilities...to protect people’s safety, property, territory and sovereignty,” Yoon said in a speech on election day, adding that South Korea would also “build a strong national defense force.”

• According to the state-run Korean Central News Agency, Kim Jong-un noted that the satellite will provide “real-time information” on the movements of “the aggression troops of the U.S. imperialism and its vassal forces” in the region. In response, the U.S. military announced that it is stepping up intelligence and surveillance efforts near North Korea, as well as increasing readiness of its ballistic missile defense forces.

• Yoon’s administration will likely align South Korea with the U.S., and allow President Biden’s administration to “articulate its North Korea policy more clearly without fearing friction with Seoul,” said Go Myong-hyon, a research fellow at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

Source:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/south-korea-election-president-yoon-suk-yeol-teach-rude-boy-kim-jong-manners/
https://www.voanews.com/a/north-korea-hints-at-bigger-provocations-as-south-korea-elects-new-president/6478234.html

No Coincidences - How Michelle Found Us Twice

Michelle in South Korea,

The work of Crossing Borders often begs the question, “what are the odds?” What are the odds that we would have been able to do this work for close to two decades? What are the odds that our presence in China is still going strong, despite overwhelming constraints? What are the odds that we have been shielded from persecution as we do this highly risky and illegal work?

Last week we encountered another situation that begged this same question when we welcomed our newest Elim House resident “Michelle.”

Michelle grew up in North Korea, a daughter of a single father. Her mother passed away when she was young. After finishing fifth grade, she went to work at the local coal mine. She said that she enjoyed this work very much and remembers it as the happiest time of her life. After she got married, she left her job as a coal miner but she said her marriage was miserable because her husband was “lazy and violent.”

After years of suffering with her husband, Michelle begged him for a divorce. He did not grant it to her so she left him and fled to a nearby town where she found a job. She met another man and moved in with him and lived happily for a year. She was “caught” by the authorities after a year. Her crime was that she was living with a man to whom she was not married. She was sent to a prison camp for one year.

She was released in 2003 and soon after escaped to China. She was sold immediately after she reached the Chinese border. She lived in China for 16 years and suffered greatly while living with this man who was an alcoholic. Though a missionary introduced her to the Lord during her stay there, she found it hard to practice her faith as she dealt with the stresses of an abusive husband and her status as an illegal economic migrant.

She decided to take another chance and escape China via the Underground Railroad in 2019. Little did she know that 2019 would be the last year the Underground Railroad would function. In 2020 the pandemic would shut it down. Michelle was among the last of the 34,000 refugees who resettled to South Korea.

In 2021 she found out that she had stomach cancer. She received treatment for her cancer and is currently recovering. She lived by herself. New to the country, she didn’t have a community. Adjusting to life in a new country with new freedoms is challenging in itself; to do so during a pandemic was extremely difficult. She said that she was extremely lonely. She found out about Elim House through her local Hana Center, a place where refugees are connected to counseling and other resources to help them adjust to South Korea.

After our social workers in South Korea got Michelle’s information and story, they sent it to our missionaries along with a photograph. Our missionary Sunny saw the picture and couldn’t shake the feeling that she might have met Michelle somewhere. This nagging feeling kept Sunny up that night. The next morning Sunny scoured her photographs taken in South Korea but did not find a picture of Michelle. Then she went back in her archives to her time in China. Finally, she connected the dots. Michelle was actually under the care of Crossing Borders in China. Sunny found a picture of Michelle that was taken in 2017.

Michelle (3rd from right) in China with caretakers and other refugees.

Sunny remembers Michelle as a very energetic and happy person. They met in a rural town in China and shared times of great fellowship. They ate lots of Korean rice cake that another refugee had prepared for them. They worshiped together and played games. When they played games, Michelle couldn’t play because she was laughing so hard, Sunny said.

The lives of North Korean refugees in China are often transient. One day Michelle left without a word. We assumed she took the Underground Railroad. When refugees leave like this, it is hard to reconnect with them. We assumed we would never hear from Michelle again.

What are the odds that we would meet Michelle, one of the tens of thousands of North Korean refugees hiding in the most populous country in the world? What are the odds that she would safely leave China and then find us in the bustling urban sprawl of South Korea? We know that in life there are no real coincidences. Michelle was brought back to us for a reason. What that reason is has yet to be revealed to us or to Michelle.

All we know for sure is that God weaves his beautiful plan in our lives. We are excited to see what he has in store for Michelle.

North Korea Claims the U.S. is the Root Cause of Ukraine Invasion

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russia and lobbied other countries for more. President Biden’s administration expanded his economic sanctions to target Russia’s two largest financial institutions, Sberbank and VTB Bank, to “drastically” affect “their fundamental ability to operate.”

The European Union also froze assets belonging to Putin and Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, imposed sanctions against Russia’s finance, energy, technology and transportation industries, as well as placing a ban on Russian flights over its airspace. "With these additional sanctions, we are targeting all who are having a significant economic role in supporting Putin’s regime, and benefit financially from the system,” EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said in a press release. “These sanctions will expose the wealth of Putin’s elite. Those who enable the invasion of Ukraine will pay a price for their action.”

NORTH KOREA BLAMES THE U.S. FOR RUSSIA’S INVASION

At an emergency U.N. session where dozens of diplomats condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, North Korea’s ambassador, Kim Song, blamed the U.S. and its allies for their “hegemonic policy” which threatens peace and security of other sovereign states. This statement echoes Russia and China’s official stance criticizing “the eastward expansion of NATO” and justifying Russia’s “legitimate security demands” respectively. The special session ultimately failed to adopt a resolution condemning Russia’s attack due to Moscow’s veto.

“We clearly remember how Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya’s sovereignty and territorial integrity were violated by the U.S. and the West in the past under the pretext of international peace and security,” Kim said, following North Korea’s official statements blaming the U.S. as the “root cause” of the Ukrainian war. “It is absurd for the U.S. and the West, that have devastated Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, to mention the respects of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the situation of Ukraine,” as he concluded that there will never be peace “as long as there remains unilateral and double-dealing policy of the U.S.”

NORTH KOREA’S OLDEST ALLY

Following Japan’s defeat in World War II, the Soviet Union played a key role in the establishment of North Korea in 1948 after occupying the northern half of the Korean peninsula and helping Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of the current leader Kim Jong-un, become the first leader. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow revitalized its ties with Pyongyang under Vladimir Putin’s leadership in 2000. For the past twenty years, Russia has been lending diplomatic influence to the regime and politically aligning itself with North Korea.

It is interesting to note that Russia and China have previously lobbied to lift sanctions against Pyongyang at the U.N. Security Council, and perhaps to return the favor, North Korea was one of the only representing country to speak out and defend Russia’s invasion at the recent U.N. General Assembly in New York – a conspicuous display of Pyongyang’s abiding support for one of its oldest and only allies.

A SECRET BACK AT HOME

The North Korean central party leaders waited two days after the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 before delivering the news to party members at their private weekly self-criticism meetings, which are reserved for the privileged or for exemplary soldiers who complete long mandatory stints in the armed forces. “Yesterday, each regional party committee in the province informed all the party members that our strong ally Russia was at war,” an official from the northwestern province of North Pyongan told Radio Free Asia on February 27, 2022. According to the source, the party members had already known about the war from their Chinese acquaintances, thus the news was no surprise to them. Instead, they were more curious as to why the authorities had kept the news of the invasion private and the reasons behind why Russia decided to invade Ukraine. “International relations are strained with Russia at war, so the regional party committee demanded that everyone be ready to be mobilized at all times,” the source said.

Another source told Radio Free Asia that after the news was broken to party members in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, it began spreading rapidly among the public, “[they] not only stated that Russia is at war, they also ordered us to be prepared to enter into war immediately under any circumstances…[in] response, some residents showed a radical reaction, saying they wish that war would break out and this disgusting system we are living under would come to an end.” This second source also revealed that some residents recognize the hypocrisy of Kim’s administration siding with Putin while Russia invades an independent country.

A Make-Or-Break Presidential Election for the Two Koreas

Tension is rising as North Korea launched its second missile test in a week, days before the South Korean presidential election on March 9, 2022. Lee Sung-yoon, a North Korea expert at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, commented that North Korea has often in the past attempted military provocations to influence elections in South Korea, including launching a rocket a week before the December 2012 presidential election, thus “[now], with all eyes on the Ukraine crisis, is an opportune time for North Korea to create more problems for the U.S. and meddle in South Korea’s election.”

CURRENT POLITICAL CLIMATE

While domestic and other economic issues dominate the campaign, North Korea’s ongoing missile activities and foreign policy matters are also expected to weigh on public sentiment. After a month of missile testing in January with 10 launches and despite a series of high profile engagements with South Korean President Moon and former U.S. President Trump respectively, Kim Jong-un’s regime is reported to own around 60 nuclear bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of destroying any U.S. city.

In preparation for South Korea’s administration change, Pyongyong’s aggressive foreign policy is speculated to serve as an assurance against any possible result in the election. In particular, an aggressive policy provides a strong guarantee for North Korea’s national security in the event the conservative candidate wins and potential engagement between the two Koreas becomes highly unlikely. With an objective to strengthen national security, North Korea’s military capabilities would prove its power to overcome political and economic sanctions imposed by the international community, as well as the pandemic and natural disasters within the nation. On the other hand, if the progressive candidate wins, North Korea’s aggressive foreign policy would place it at an advantageous position with bargaining power to push the newly elected president to reduce tensions arising from the escalating inter-Korean crisis by adopting diplomacy more similar to the current Moon administration.

President Moon Jae In at his inauguration. (Korea.net)

THE 2022 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

The front-runners for the 2022 election are Yoon Seok-youl of the Conservative People Power Party and Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party. Polls revealed that Yoon and Lee are running neck and neck, with Lee’s public approval rating at 38 percent and Yoon’s at 37 percent in a survey of 1,000 adults conducted on February 25, 2022, and a tie at 35 percent in another survey from early February 2022.

Yoon stands firm with his conservative predecessors in demanding North Korea’s denuclearisation as a prerequisite for peace talks and economic engagements between the Koreas. In late November 2021, Yoon stated that he would consider cancelling the symbolic inter-Korean 2018 Comprehensive Military Agreement, a critical diplomatic legacy of President Moon, if North Korea does not change its attitude, as he would not seek a summit with Kim Jong-un “just for show.” In January 2022, Yoon alarmed many by advocating a pre-emptive military strike to stop North Korean hypersonic attacks. His emphasis on resuming joint military exercises with the U.S., which have been scaled down since 2018, is likely to anger Kim Jong-un. Khang X. Vu, East Asian politics specialist at Boston College, commented that Yoon’s position is “harsh enough to make North Korea abandon diplomacy altogether, as it was the case during the tenures of Lee and Park.”

In contrast, Lee supports Moon’s gentle approach in forming diplomatic relations and engaging in economic cooperation with the North as a means of initiating denuclearisation, promising to ease existing sanctions upon North Korea’s compliance. In view of Yoon’s stance on a pre-emptive strike, Lee opined that “[a] lot of wars broke out not because of national interest, but because of such heated, emotional exchanges…[it is] important that we should not have any kind of unnecessary stimulation…that could escalate military tension.” Although Lee adopts a similar stance in trying to end the long-lasting Korean war in order to bring Pyongyang back to the negotiating table, Jenny Town, senior fellow at Stimson Centre told CNBC that Yoon is unlikely to copy Moon’s policies, “[while] Moon was personally heavily invested in engineering an inter-Korean summit, and trying to build sustainable, cooperative relations with North Korea, Lee is more likely to uphold the principle of peaceful coexistence while being reluctant to expend too much political capital on trying to achieve it, especially if Pyongyang is uncooperative.”

LESSON FROM UKRAINE

It is interesting to note that Ukraine was the world’s third largest nuclear weapons state and its scientists actually helped Pyongyang develop its missiles during the fall of the Soviet Union. From North Korea’s perspective, Ukraine made a mistake of trading its opportunity to have a nuclear deterrent to ensure its national security against attacks from Russia and the West. Following the Ukrainian invasion, “[the] chance of North Korea believing in U.S.-offered security assurance in return for nuclear disarmament—lock, stock and barrel—is now close to zero,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at Sejong Institute think tank. Since the U.S. is siding with Ukraine and it is now extremely unlikely to seek Russia’s consent for new U.N. Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang, Cheong noted that Kim’s regime would use this time to further develop nuclear weapons.

As tensions across the demilitarised zone escalate, a conservative win for South Korea’s presidential election could potentially ignite new frictions between the two Koreas. In the meantime, North Korea, China, and the U.S. are closely watching as South Korea unfolds its geopolitical fate on March 9, 2022.

My Best Friend Anne Frank & North Korea

Source: Netflix (Anne Frank and Hannah Goslar in Amsterdam, 1942).

One of Netflix’s latest releases is a war era film My Best Friend Anne Frank, a story of friendship between famous Holocaust victim Anne Frank and her friend Hannah Goslar told through Goslar’s point of view. The film goes back and forth between Hannah’s and Anne's time growing up together in Amsterdam in 1942 and their time in Bergen-Belsen, a German concentration camp in 1945. As I watched the film, I couldn’t help but notice many similarities in the hardships the Jews faced then with the lives of North Koreans today.

Both governments are/were a totalitarian state

Adolf Hitler became the leader of the Nazi Party in 1921 and became chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. He rapidly transformed Germany into a dictatorship and almost all aspects of life were controlled by the government. Similarly in 2022, Kim Jong-un continues to follow in the footsteps of his dictatorial father and grandfather, tightly controlling almost every aspect of the lives of the North Korean people.

Source: Netflix (Hannah’s parents are afraid that they will be sent away to a concentration camp soon  and have no appetite at the dinner table).

When escaping is the only option

When Hilter became chancellor of Germany, Jews were stripped of most of their basic rights and were treated like second class citizens. Things progressively got worse for the Jews at that time as they were persecuted, their businesses were vandalized and they lived in constant fear of being sent away to a concentration camp. They were banned from saying “Heil Hilter” so they couldn’t even try to be loyal to the country as a way to improve their second class status. For most Jews, escaping the country was the only option.

If you read our article about North Korea’s caste system, also known as Songbun, the generational impact of North Koreans who showed loyalty to Kim Il-Sung’s regime is evident and shows up as being able to secure a higher status for subsequent generations.  Conversely, those who didn’t support the “Eternal President” were treated as lower class with little work opportunities and no hope of ever improving their lives. For many North Koreans, escaping is also the only option to ever improving their lives.

Following ridiculous laws

In My Best Friend Anne Frank, there is a scene where Otto Frank is troubled after finding out that Hannah and his daughter Anne went to the movie theater, which Jews were forbidden from doing. “Well, no one saw us there,” said Hannah hoping that would calm Otto and her father who were extremely upset by this. “Do you know how dangerous that is,” Otto asked her. “And that you could put us all in danger?” Jews were also not allowed to use a telephone, own a radio set, go to the library or leave the country.

Similarly, North Koreans are only allowed to watch the news, entertainment or other forms of media filtered through and provided by the regime. They have fix-tuned radios for North Korean approved stations as well as monitored cell phones to make calls in North Korea only. Leaving the country isn’t permitted for the majority.

Source: Netflix (Hannah, the day she is liberated from concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, 1945).

Witnessing death non-stop

There’s a scene in the movie when Hannah and her little sister Gabi go to medical to visit their dad who has become very sick and weak during their time in concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. Sadly, his condition gets worse and they watch their dad’s breathing come to a complete stop. In another concentration camp scene, Hannah and Gabi walk past a dead woman which Gabi points to, curious as to why she is lying in the middle of the camp. Hannah lies to Gabi and tells her that the woman is sleeping and keeps on walking. Hannah also witnesses many Nazi officers violently beating Jews.

Many North Korean defectors talk about the horrors they have endured in modern-day concentration camps. Many also witnessed North Korean soldiers violently beating prisoners and the death of many, including members of their own family (in some cases because of hunger and in others, executed by North Korean soldiers).

As tragic as this film was, there was a line that stayed with me. As the situation in Amsterdam became more and more difficult, Anne and her family went into hiding, although Hannah believed Anne went to Switzerland without her. Feeling upset since they were not on good terms before she left, Hannah’s father tells her, “Have faith in God. Only He knows our destiny.”

There are obvious parallels between these two people groups who endured, or continue to endure, unfathomable hardships. In fact, among the group of Crossing Borders’ earliest donors was a Jewish family who noticed history repeating. We will do all we can to help North Koreans, but as Hannah’s father reminded his daughter, only God knows how this story ends.