The mystery of what actually goes on behind the illusive North Korean border has fascinated the globe ever because it detached and went rogue within the Nineteen Fifties.
Sometimes, stories of life on the bottom seep through the cracks of Kim Jong-un’s authoritarian information wall. We’ve heard gut-churning tales of starvation, secret prisons and the draconian social law that has silenced potential dissidents for over 70 years.
Travel to the North has grow to be an increasingly intimidating prospect within the years following the tragic Otto Warmbier incident, where the US student was presumably poisoned after allegedly ripping a propaganda poster off a wall.
That small crime resulted in a sentence of 15 years hard labor. But shortly after his sentencing, the 21-year-old suffered a severe neurological injury from an “unknown cause” and fell right into a coma. He died a 12 months later after being allowed to return to the US.
So it’s protected to say the daunting consequences of constructing a small mistake have never been so blindingly obvious for foreign travelers.
Still, around 5000 Western tourists enterprise across the border annually for a stickybeak, but even then they’re forced to stay near their official guide, who gives a really curated tour of the nicer parts of town. Nothing to see here.
Due process and fair trials are rarities, and any slight movement that will suggest you’re an enemy of the state can quickly lead you to a concentration camp.
A South Korean official has shared his first-hand perspective of the truth residents face under the Kim dynasty, revealing he was near being detained for committing a cardinal sin while on a brief trip to Pyongyang, the hermit kingdom’s capital.
After traveling to the North in 2003, Ki-yon Kil knows higher than anyone that an easy query can result in being shackled inside considered one of Kim Jong-un’s prisons.
He visited North Korea as a part of the Geumgangsan Mountain Tourism Program. The visit, meant to advertise tourism and culture, took a dramatic turn once he decided to do a favor for a South Korean news channel.
“A journalist from a serious broadcast station asked me to secretly film the panoramic view of North Korean cities from the mountain,” the Seoul Tourism Organisation President said.
But then the penny dropped. His covert attempt at showing the South a glimpse of the North had not gone unnoticed.
“North Korean soldiers investigated all 300 tourists who participated in this system to search out the one who took the video,” he said.
“I never got here forward, and my video was broadcast on the morning news after I returned to South Korea.”
He recalled seeing a truck stuffed with North Korean staff being ferried to a fruit farm, a lot of which had white bandages around their heads. But that was about as close as he got to people living on the bottom.
Foreigners are generally told to keep away from civilians. Depending on the character and prominence of your visit, walking around at night is heavily discouraged.
In Ki-yon’s case, soldiers were stationed outside the front of his hotel physically blocking him from taking a have a look at town after nightfall.
“I used to be not allowed access to any civilians. All of the civilians were being moved from places we went,” he said.
“One other thing that surprised me was after I went to the Rungrado Stadium in Pyongyang, where a parade was being held,” he continued.
“Hundreds of North Koreans were mobilized into participate. All of them moved systematically.
“But what was much more surprising was the actual fact there have been 100,000 people within the stadium, but when the visitors from overseas went outside and turned around, they’d all disappeared.
“I believe the people within the stadium should have left through an underground facility.”
Because North Korea is all the time prepared for war, the capital city has multiple tunnels and bunkers underneath its streets for people to flee to.
While the tunnels are mostly relics of a war that has sat in a stalemate for a long time, the federal government’s insistence on spending the majority of its economic profit on military armaments suggests an air of panic among the many nation’s ruling family.
Fear is the strongest weapon of the Kim dynasty, and it’s on full display when tourists come to town.
“I stayed there for 4 or five days and once we were leaving on the bus, we could see North Korean soldiers on trucks on each side of the road,” Ki-yon continued.
He said they’d knives and guns on the ready in a show of intimidation as they inspected the foreigners, more likely to be certain that no North Koreans had attempted to flee before they boarded the plane.
“I believe this gesture was to indicate the military power they’d. It’s a controlled society, so the whole lot is controlled by the regime,” he continued.
“So by having these soldiers following the bus, it shows that although they’re not financially well-off, their national defense system could be very systematic.
“I believe this was North Korea’s effort to exhibit the military power they possess.”
He said student from a close-by university who was accompanying him gave him a fast reminder to never prod on the status-quo.
“After I kept on asking questions on the livelihood and the living standards of North Koreans, the coed actually threatened me and told me I ‘needed some education’,” he said.
“It was very frightening and threatening experience.”
As President and CEO of the Seoul Tourism Organisation, Ki-yon uses the striking comparison between the North and South as a way of encouraging travelers to go to. He mentioned the shortage of recent facilities and recalled his hotel losing power multiple times during his stay.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s capital has grow to be a technological marvel and a serious player in world economics just an hour’s drive south of the border.
The nonchalant attitude to the North’s frightening regime appears to be ubiquitous across the South. The subject of North Korea is never shied away from, and most could have a story of a time after they, or someone they know, flew somewhat near the sun.
One other journalist, who didn’t want to be named, said he bumped into serious trouble with the North Korean authorities while on the same trip.
He took a photograph of a mountain and was immediately confronted by officials who berated him for “taking photos of military sites”.
What began as an innocent tourist snap immediately became a standoff that would have easily landed him in prison.
There have been, in reality, multiple military bases hidden contained in the natural landmark, totally unbeknown to the South Korean reporter.
A tense altercation ensued, but he said he was eventually capable of negotiate his way out of the issue and safely make it back to the South in a single piece.
But others aren’t so lucky. Recently, the non-profit organization Korea Future produced a report claiming they’d uncovered latest details of life contained in the country’s prison system.
“The aim of our report is largely to disclose the human rights violations which have taken place inside North Korea’s penal systems. (It) finds that even 10 years after the UN established a Commission of Inquiry there still is systematic and widespread human rights violations,” says Kim Jiwon, an investigator with Korea Future.
The NGO produced 3D models of a few of North Korea’s detention sites and claimed to have evidence of what it believes are greater than 1,000 instances of torture and degrading treatment of inmates. The report compares the situation to that of Soviet Russia before its collapse within the Nineteen Nineties.
“Comparable to the Soviet Gulag, (North Korea’s) penal system just isn’t to detain and rehabilitate individuals sentenced by courts in protected and humane facilities. Neither is its purpose to diminish recidivism and increase public safety,” the report says.
“It’s to isolate individuals from society whose behavior conflicts with upholding the singular authority of the Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un.”
One survivor’s famous account said inmates were treated like animals. Contained in the concentration camp, human rights were abused at will by North Korea’s foot soldiers, as detainees scrambled to survive.
“Once we raise rabbits, we keep them in dens with fences and provides them food. (In jail), it was like we were the rabbits, kept in a cell and given food from behind bars … we weren’t treated as humans, but as some type of animal,” the anonymous survivor said in an account published by CNN in 2023.
