S. Korean embassy
staff add to NK defectors' blues
By Chung Min-uck 06-15-2012
It is well-known that
female North Korean defectors, even after successfully crossing the border,
often fall victim to sex trafficking in China and live in fear of enforced
repatriation back to their homeland where appalling conditions that violate
human rights await.
Recently, a fresh
allegation was made regarding ordeals some defectors are forced to endure
in foreign countries before they head to South Korea.
Bad treatment from staff in South Korean embassies overseas
surfaced as another trial they
have to overcome, according to a human rights worker helping North Koreans.
“(South Korean)
embassy officials’ bad treatment of North Korean defectors such as using
abusive language against them, refusing them entry into embassies and hanging
up on them during phone calls were reported as recently as 2008 across
Southeast Asia and China,” said Peter Jung, founder and director of the Justice
for North Korea, a Seoul-based activist group, Friday. “I am really shocked that
those incidents still take place in overseas missions.”
The activist said he
witnessed several cases while he was helping defectors in Southeast Asia.
According to Jung, from 2006 to 2007, embassy officials in Laos stopped
defectors entering the South Korean embassy, ordering security guards to
block the entrance. On some occasions, officials hung up the phone knowing
that it was a call from a North Korean defector searching for help.
“I guess the embassy
officials did not regard the defectors as Korean people,” Jung said.
Defectors here say
such incidents began to increase as the number of North Korean escapees rose
during the early 2000s. They claim it could have made embassy officials
reluctant to handle every incident carefully. As of now, the total number of
North Korean defectors in South Korea is 24,000. This number rose steadily
after exceeding 1,000 in 2002, especially those coming from China and Southeast
Asia.
“I believe the rapid
increase in the number of North Korean defectors sheltering at South Korean
missions and refugee camps in the concerned countries led to the mistreatment,”
said Seo Jae-pyoung, a defector and secretary-general of the Committee for the
Democratization of North Korea. “No matter what the situation is, bad treatment
of defectors can be regarded as another type of human rights violation.”
Baek Yo-sep, a student
who defected from the North who is now a student at Hankuk University of
Foreign Studies in Seoul, said an official from the South Korean embassy in
Vietnam refused to help him when he visited the mission in 2003 after a
life-endangering escape through China where the authorities there tried to
arrest him numerous times.
The issue came under
the spotlight again on Wednesday when a local daily reported that officials
working at the South Korean embassy in Thailand used abusive language to
defectors detained at an immigration camp under the control of Thai government
last year referring to them as “trash.”
The Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Trade soon dispatched officials to Bangkok, Thailand, to
investigate the case.
Meanwhile, some
defectors cautioned against characterizing all embassy officials as abusive.
“I have never
experienced such people when I met embassy officials in Cambodia in 2003,” said
Kim Chun-ae, a defector. “In my memory, the officials were really kind to me.
Most of the defectors have good impressions of South Korean officials because
they were there to help.”
“I was really sick
when I was in Mongolia before leaving for South Korea in 2008,” said a defector
surnamed Sun. “Officials there treated me very well. I never heard of abuse
against defectors by embassy officials
China Hardening in
Face of Violent Northerners
By Kim Kwang Jin , [2012-06-15
12:13 ]
Late last month, a
North Korean male in his mid-30s stabbed a 40-something Chinese
farmer to death in Helong, a small city in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous
Prefecture of China.
According to local
Chinese sources, last October the North Korean man first went to the house of
the victim. At that time, he asked for food and a place to sleep for the night.
However, upon realizing that he was not going to receive any help, he stole the
man’s rice, corn and clothes while the house was left unattended, then returned
to North Korea.
Eight months later, on
the night of the 26th of last month, the same North Korean man came across the
Tumen River again from Musan County in North Hamkyung Province, then returned
to the scene of his previous crime. The Chinese man, who knew very well what
had happened to his rice and corn, was incensed and, ignoring the North Korean
man’s claim that he had only stolen the food and clothing because he was
hungry, threatened to call the local Chinese police.
The argument allegedly
ended in a fist fight, during which the North Korean man stabbed his opponent
with a knife. The police later arrested him after the Chinese man’s family, who
had witnessed the stabbing, reported the event. The Chinese man, a farmer
living with his ageing mother, wife and children, died two days later.
The Helong authorities
are currently trying to obtain details of the man’s identity from the North
Korean side, but the North Korean authorities are reportedly not cooperating.
In the meantime, the anonymous North Korean man is being held at a prison near Helong,
and sources say that the Chinese Public Security Bureau is planning to ask for
his execution.
As a result, Helong
residents are part of a chorus of Chinese voices calling for enhanced security
measures. They claim that North
Koreans crossing the nearby border are becoming more violent and dangerous all
the time.
Local people are able
to point to other crimes allegedly committed by North Koreans in China
in their quest for better security. For instance, in the middle of last month
in Changbai, another small city in the upper reaches of the Yalu River, a
number of local Chinese residents were robbed. Two Chinese men fishing in the
area were also robbed, this time by people thought to be North Korean soldiers.
The soliders reportedly demanded money, personal belongings and the clothes off
the fishermen’s backs, all at gunpoint.
According to one
source, the difficulty of crossing the border is one cause of the increasing
violence, with North Koreans entering China thinking along the lines of “I had
a lot of trouble getting here, I can’t go back empty-handed.” Chinese residents
of border areas are also tired of North Koreans appearing in their midst, and
are reacting with less kindness than they once did.
N. Korea holds
ceremony to mark June 15 Joint Declaration
2012/06/16 yonngong@yna.co.kr
SEOUL, June 16
(Yonhap) -- North Korea held an event in its capital city to mark the 12th
anniversary of the June 15 Joint Declaration, its official media outlet picked
up in Seoul said on Saturday.
KPA Brass’ Promotion
and Demotion
2012-06-12
