Key Points:
What we know about the labour camps in North Korea.
What escapees say about their experiences.
Who is sent to camps, how many people are there and why?
A summary of what we know about life in the camps.
If you had lived your whole life behind bars what would you know of the world beyond the walls? For many North Koreans the world they know is not only behind walls but a construct of propaganda. There are now generations of North Koreans that have never experienced freedom, never known democracy, or freedom of movement and freedom from poverty. There is a growing number of people who have never experienced any life other than that of a prisoner in a forced labour camp.
We know that the first camps were established in 1959 and there are only approximately 60 eye witnesses that have ever escaped from the camps. The camps exist throughout North Korea and while there is much that we do not know, their existence is indisputable. According to South Korea’s intelligence agency there are six camps, the largest of which is 31 miles by 25 miles. In fact, if you would like to see this camp there are high resolution photographs available on Google Earth. Estimates regarding just how many individuals are locked away inside the camps vary from 100,000-200,000.
One might assume that those condemned to the camps are enemies of the state, terrorists or
violent offenders, however this is unlikely to be the case. In fact there is no due process at all: one might have failed to support the regime appropriately, spoken flippantly about the government or may have simply known someone who spoke out. Guilt by association is a perfectly legitimate justification for sending entire families to the camps in North Korea. The camps are encircled by electric-barbed wire fences, guard towers and they are patrolled by armed men.
There are two distinct types of camps: the first are re-education zones and the second are complete control districts. Individuals inside the two re-education camps have the possibility of release if they can convince the guards of their loyalty. Those in the complete control districts, deemed “irredeemables”, do not have the possibility of being realised and are, quite simply, worked to death.
What we know of life inside the camps is not dissimilar from accounts of life inside the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Eye-witnesses have recalled stories of: public executions, beatings to the death, rape, torture and abuse, all at the hands of the guards. The guards, just like those of Nazi Germany, have almost complete license to abuse the prisoners.
Life in the camps is dominated by hard labour thoughts of obtaining more food. Prisoners are forced to tend crops, mine coal, sew military uniforms and make cement. All the while they are forced to survive on small portions of cabbage, corn and salt. Without a doubt hundreds of thousands, if not millions of North Koreans are malnourished. It is not uncommon for the prisoners to lose their teeth, have their gums turn black and suffer from severely weakened bones. Prisoners are only issued clothes once or twice a year. So, as you might imagine, they go about their day in filthy rags---without soap, toilet paper or underclothes, what choice do they have?
We know enough about the horrors of these camps to know they should not exist in a world with a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We know that the individuals inside the camps are often sent there without any judicial process and that children of prisoners are unlikely to ever be released. We know there are gross violations of human rights occurring every day in North Korea. We know people are living in severe and widespread poverty. What we don’t know is what to do about it.
Bibliography
Amesty International. “Images reveal scale of North Korean political prison camps.” May 3, 2011, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/images-reveal-scale-north-korean-political-prison-camps-2011-05-03
Blaine Harden, Escape from camp 14 (New York: Penguin Books, 2012)
Eye Witnesses interviewed by David Hawk, a researcher for the Committee on Human Rights in North Korea based in Washington D.C. Their stories and satellite photos of the camps can be found in the second edition of the Hawk’s report, “The hidden Gulag: the lives and voices of ‘Those who are in the mountains,’” 2012.
Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot, The Aquariums of Pyongyang (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 79