An Exclusive Interview with Alexa White

First ever beauty pageant contestant to take up the North Korean human rights cause

By Greg Scarlatoiu, HRNK Executive Director, and Rosa Park, HRNK Director of Programs

Edited by Rosa Park 

Original Transcription by Soohyun Chang and Grace Warwick
Link to Video Interview: https://youtu.be/mzNt-BfmCBA

Rosa Park:
Q1) Please tell us a little bit about yourself. What school do you attend? What is your major? Where are you from and what is your ethnic background?

Alexa White:
Well, I’m originally from my hometown that is located in North Canton, Ohio, which is in the Akron Canton area. I attend the Colombus College of Art and Design, which is very wonderful school that I am proud to be a part of. My major is 3D modeling and texturing for game art so it’s a little unexpected for someone from my background to be speaking up about this. My family background is that my mother is Korean. She’s from Ansan, South Korea and my father is from Barberton, Ohio.

Photograph Credit: Annie Noelker (http://www.annienoelkerphoto.com/)

Rosa Park:
Q2) For our audience who may not be familiar with the Miss Akron Canton pageant, could you please tell us about the pageant that you will be participating in in October?

Alexa White:
The pageant is on October 15th and the Miss Akron Canton organization is part of the Miss America system, but there is a Miss USA system and a Miss America System. Those are two separate pageants. If I have the honor to become the local titleholder in Canton, I will automatically advance to Miss Ohio and then the winner of Miss Ohio, which I am aiming for, will hopefully be the next Miss America.


Rosa Park:
Q3) Why did you decide to run for the Miss Akron Canton Pageant?

Alexa White:
Originally, I was invited by the pageant’s Director Ali Hoffman. At first, I thought “Oh, this sounds pretty fun. This isn’t something I would ever see myself doing. Why don’t I go ahead and do it?” When I started this pageant I wasn’t taking it as seriously as I should have because I didn’t think that I could make a difference. Thanks to HRNK—to Rosa and to Greg—I’ve realized that my voice is powerful, it matters, and I hope that I can encourage other people to speak up as well about this issue.


Rosa Park:
Q4) How will these pageants contribute to your personal growth?

Alexa White:
If I am crowned Miss Ohio and if I am crowned Miss America, I’ll be able to reach more people and get this issue across to many more people. I am very grateful to say that I am in a period of my life where I’m comfortable with who I am and I’m comfortable with what I look like. That’s something that I did struggle with in the past and it’s something that everybody struggles with, but I’m ready to take the next step, finish improving myself, and start helping to improve others’ lives.

If I am crowned Miss Akron Canton I would like to discuss this issue with several of the school boards in my community, not only in North Canton, but hopefully in Columbus as well, to hopefully have human rights as a whole unit because it’s not a thing of the past. Concentration camps are not a thing of the past. I feel like that’s the conception that most Americans have today: they think that we’re done with it. They think that we’ve grown as a world, but that’s just not the truth. We really need to take a stand in our schools. Encourage our school systems to teach diversity, to teach empathy, and to teach about human rights because these are future lawmakers, future presidents we’re talking about. It’s really important that we start with our education system.


Rosa Park:
Q5) As a contestant in the Miss Akron Canton pageant, what would you like to accomplish for the people of North Korea?

Alexa White:
For one, I would really like this to be an issue that we don’t have to talk about. These people have suffered so much and to see the Koreas unified under one stable government that puts its people in front of its warheads would be the ultimate goal for me. Unfortunately, we have to take smaller steps to get to that point. Focusing on the repatriation of North Korean citizens from China back into North Korea is an issue that really, really needs to be addressed. I think that it is something that we can fix right now in our generation.


Greg Scarlatoiu:
Q6) What is the challenge of your generation? This is the other question that I would ask.

Alexa White: 

In America I feel like our youth has been so influenced by human rights issues we’ve seen a huge growth in LGBTQA+ human rights issues, which is a great step forward. I think we’ve been able to have the time and the empathy to really relate to the people who are suffering and to try and change. We see it with the Black Lives Matter movement. We see it with the LGBTQA+ movements. It’s just so amazing and I think now that we’ve helped solve these issues on our home front, and there are definitely more issues in America that need to be addressed. But I also think that some Americans, some American youths—like some of my peers, who are ready to take the next step and start to change the world for the better—instead of fixing domestic issues, I think we are at the point right now where we can really focus on international issues.

Greg Scarlatoiu:
Being concerned about these international issues, which are really not international, they’re universal issues. We basically look after our own national security interest because these abysmal human rights violations are the reason why the North Korean regime acts the way it does. In order to do away with this clear and present danger—the threat the North Korean regime poses to the United States—we have to begin by improving the human rights situation of the people of North Korea. Perhaps, meaningful change will come after that.


Rosa Park:
Q7) Is there an issue in the field of North Korean human rights that you are particularly interested in and why?

Alexa White:
All of the issues in North Korean human rights are of great interest to me and of course, we’d like to see them all stop as I said before. The exportation of forced laborers from North Korea into countries like Poland, China, Russia, and even countries in Africa is very surprising to me. I’m very surprised that the other governments of the world would want to support this heinous regime. I’m also interested in the repatriation of North Korean citizens from China back to North Korea, which is, as HRNK has discussed before, very illegal. That’s also an issue that interests me. What I see glossed over and what I see not being addressed as much, even though all of these issues are equally horrible—the conditions are terrible—but women’s rights in North Korea is something that really needs to be addressed more in the media, especially the forced abortions and infanticide taking place in the kwan-li-so camps. If the public learns more about that, then maybe we can get more interest.

Greg Scarlatoiu:
Please remember that human rights in North Korea should not be a political issue and here’s your comparison: was apartheid in South Africa a political issue? What would have happened if we had been afraid to address apartheid because especially during the days of the Cold War, it might have been construed a political issue. So I would say that North Korean human rights is an issue that transcends politics. Refer to the report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on North Korean human rights. Of course, at any beauty pageant, mention of the UN is great. In this particular case, it confers legitimacy upon our cause. Remember that a UN Commission of Inquiry on North Korean human rights established that crimes against humanity are committed against the people of North Korea.


Rosa Park:
Q8) How do you get your information on North Korea human rights? Are you familiar with HRNK’s publications and other activities?

Alexa White:
When I became aware of this issue, it was just regular Google searches. As I really started to delve into researching the organizations involved and helping to correct this, I started getting my information from Twitter and I recently subscribed to HRNK’s daily newsletter as well, which has been a great source of information. I’m also a big fan of Lee Hyeon-seo. She’s been such an inspiration and her courage is out of this world. We cannot thank her enough for telling her story and having her shed a light on what’s really going on in North Korea.


Rosa Park:
Q9) In our initial conversation, you mentioned that your grandmother escaped North Korea and that you still have family members in North Korea. Could you please share their stories with us?

Alexa White:
Well, my grandma was this rough and tumble girl from North Korea and she was part of a family of silk textile merchants so when Kim Il-sung took power, they felt very uncomfortable there since they were merchants producing luxury commodities. They decided to leave and join South Korea, but my great-great-grandfather was not able to travel with them. To have someone take care of him, they left my great aunt, her sister, behind to help out, but unfortunately, we’ve lost contact with her and her fate is unknown to us. I pray that she’s okay, but my family taught me to hope for the best and expect the worst.


Rosa Park:
Q10) How does your family background influence your views on North Korea today?

Alexa White:
I just learned about my great aunt maybe one or two years ago and that really invited me to learn more about what was going on in this mysterious country. In American media, it’s kind of portrayed as a hermit country, we don’t really hear about a lot of its human rights violations. We hear more about its nuclear warheads and about the eccentricities of its dictators. Having a family member there really helped to propel my quest for knowledge further. My dad is a very kind and giving man so a lot of what I’m representing here today comes from him. He taught us to always be as generous as you can and do whatever you can for other people.


Rosa Park:
Q11) If you could see your great aunt now, what would you say to her?

Alexa White:
I would say that I hope you’re doing well and I’m so sorry that you had to suffer the way that you did. There was no way that my grandmother and her mother, father, and your sisters could ever have known that it would have gotten this bad. I hope that you are able to find love and create a family if that’s what you wish to do. I hope that you’re happy, but the reality of this country is very dim. So I hope that you can forgive us.


Rosa Park:
Q12) Have you thought of a message you would like to deliver to the people of North Korea? If so, what is it and do you plan on delivering this message on stage.

Alexa White:
I think if there’s anything that I would like to say to the people of North Korea it is that we hear you, we see you, and we are fighting for you.

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Categories: Akron-Canton Pageant, apartheid, black lives matter, cold war, crimes against humanity, HRNK, humanrights, international affairs, Korea, lgbtqa, Miss America, Miss Ohio, North Korea, UN, UNCOI, WashingtonDC

Statement of Roberta Cohen at the Launch of "Hidden Gulag IV: Gender Repression and Prisoner Disappearances" and "Camp 15 Imagery Update"

© 2015 Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

by Roberta Cohen, HRNK Co-Chair Emeritus

STATEMENT OF ROBERTA COHEN, CO-CHAIR, COMMITTEE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN NORTH KOREA ON THE LAUNCH OF “HIDDEN GULAG IV: GENDER REPRESSION AND PRISONER DISAPPEARANCES & CAMP 15 IMAGERY UPDATE” AT THE NEWSEUM, SEPTEMBER 18, 2015

I find the reports of David Hawk and Joe Bermudez significant because they make everyone so uncomfortable. Most people don’t want to know about the camps, especially diplomats who hope to negotiate with North Korea, humanitarian organizations on the ground seeking to get along with the host government, and all other parties who want to engage with Pyongyang and feel good about their doing so. These reports provide inconvenient information. It puts a human face on the political prison and re-education camps by providing testimonies of survivors, satellite imagery of camps, and for the first time a list of 181 incarcerated prisoners from Kwan-li-so Camp 15. 

David's report brings to light how women in North Korea are facing particular repression. Most of the North Koreans today who cross the border illegally are women trying to improve their lives and the lives of their families. Increasingly they are arrested, ill-treated and imprisoned. I am pleased the United States recently called for the release of female political prisoners around the world and singled out North Korea. 

The Hawk and Bermudez reports are also significant because they provide evidence that can be used in future trials against the Kim Jong-un regime. Since the UN Commission of Inquiry report of 2014, the need for accountability has begun to take root. Last year, the United Nations General Assembly called upon the Security Council to consider referring the North Korean human rights situation to the International Criminal Court. It also called for targeted sanctions against those most responsible. And a UN human rights office has been set up in Seoul to compile information with a view to accountability. 

Accountability is essential to address deliberate state policies of starvation of prisoners, lack of medical attention, forced labor and beatings. Such practices are estimated to have led to over one hundred thousand deaths in the political prison camps over the past 50 years. Yet there seems to be an international reticence when it comes to demanding access to these camps. The United States to its credit began two to three years ago to speak out strongly against the camps and about accountability. And UN resolutions have called upon North Korea to release all political prisoners unconditionally. But one doesn’t hear much about governments coming together to make joint demarches or intercessions on a regular basis for access to these camps. One doesn’t hear a drumbeat internationally to gain entry. But there should be one because camp commanders, the officials issuing the orders to them and those carrying them out, need to become aware that what they are doing constitutes crimes against humanity and could lead to their being brought before a court in the future. South Korean experts have actually reported anecdotal evidence that commanders in some detention centers may have modified practices out of fear of possible future prosecution. Accountability has rattled the Kim Jong-un regime. Last year the focus at the UN on the ICC led the DPRK to offer for the first time visits for the High Commissioner for Human Rights and other UN officials in order to try to remove from a General Assembly resolution the reference to accountability. 

Of the 181 prisoners listed in the Hawk report, more than 120 are reported to be missing. Their names should be part of dialogues developed with North Korea and part of demarches or statements. Where are these people? It is time for the international community to call for an accounting of prisoners—their whereabouts, the reasons for their incarceration, whether family members are held with them, whether they have perished. The UN General Assembly has called upon states that have relations with North Korea to use their influence to encourage the closure of political prison camps. But no joint strategy yet exists. 

Contingency plans being developed by different governments to deal with any sudden change in North Korea should include strategies for bringing political prisoners to safety. The UN Commission of Inquiry reported the existence of standing orders at the political prison camps to kill all prisoners in the event of conflict or revolution. The purpose of these orders is to destroy the evidence. While it’s impossible to know whether anything can be done to stop this, publicizing this information is important. And including prisoner protection in contingency planning should be urged. The Atrocities Prevention Board established in the United States in 2012 should have on its agenda as a standing item–the risk of potential massacre of North Korean political prisoners. And the U.S. should begin to add names of persons and entities engaged in serious human rights abuses in the camps to the sanctions list under the President’s executive order of January 2015. NGOs for their part should be sending information to the International Criminal Court. Even though the prosecutor cannot now address the situation, the NGOs can publicize the information with a view to future accountability. This might reach the attention of camp officials and sow doubt among North Korea’s elites.

At the present time, the situation is especially precarious for prisoners. Drought is plaguing North Korea and serious food shortages are predicted. In the past when there has been serious malnutrition and starvation in parts of the country, prisoners have suffered disproportionately. They have been left to eat grass and rats. 

Do international humanitarian agencies and NGOs on the ground have a responsibility? Yes, their stated goal is to reach the most vulnerable in the country. They should begin to compile privately whatever information they can find about starvation and disease in the camps and hammer out strategies to gain entry, in particular for organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross. 

North Korea’s population could actually benefit from allowing the World Health Organization entry to the camps. Tuberculosis is on the rise in the country and reported to be rampant in the camps. The WHO has found in other countries that effective TB control in prisons protects the community at large. Shouldn’t the UN encourage the WHO to gain entry to the camps to try to help eradicate TB from the country? And shouldn’t improved treatment of women—another goal of the UN—extend to women prisoners in North Korea? The Secretary-General introduced a Human Rights Up Front Approach in 2013 that calls upon the entire UN system, when faced with serious violations of human rights, to develop a system wide strategy. This approach needs to be applied to North Korea, and HRNK has been calling upon the UN to do so. North Korea’s government must receive the message that the camps in North Korea are a blight on the civilized world and on any aspirations North Korea might have to improve its relationships with other countries and receive the political, economic and investment support it badly needs for its development.

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Categories: analysis, committeehrnk, DPRK, HRNK, hrnkus, humanrights, KimJongUn, NGO, TB, UN, UNCOI, UNGA, UNHRC, WashingtonDC, WHO

Training North Korea’s Supreme Leader

By Robert Collins 

How does one train a “supreme leader”—especially a young and inexperienced one—on how to handle crisis when any mention of his mistakes may lead to the notorious termination of the trainer by anti-aircraft gun? Difficult question, to be sure, but an even more difficult process. After all, North Korea had never gone to any external crisis of this depth under the short reign of Kim Jong-un, the North’s hereditary First Secretary of the Korean Workers’ Party, Chairman of the National Defense Commission, and Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army. Now it has.

During the past two weeks, the two Koreas have once again put on shows of military force in responses and counter-responses to the North’s planting of landmines in the Demilitarized Zone that maimed two young South Korean soldiers. The South’s response was to resume loudspeaker broadcasts across the DMZ, designed to attack and undermine the legitimacy of the regime. Essentially, these types of South Korean propaganda targeting the North’s leadership drive that same leadership up the proverbial wall. A series of kinetic responses and counter-responses elevated a provocation into a crisis requiring raises in military alerts, shows of great force on both sides and, finally, face-to-face negotiations at Panmunjom in the DMZ.

So how much “training the trainer” went into planning for these actions? Driven by fear for their lives, North Korea’s generals and admirals must couch their recommendations on courses of action within the cocoon of absolute and bellicose loyalty to the supreme leader. Most likely, they must parse their requests and answers in strategy deliberations in such a manner that makes any suggestion by Kim Jong-un appear to be sheer tactical brilliance reminiscent of Sun Tzu, Napoleon, or, even better for North Koreans, of the much celebrated greatness of the supreme leader’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung.

This loyalty demanded by the North’s incessantly inculcated ideology has definitively negative by-products that have the world’s attention—impetuous purges and executions of senior leaders, human rights denial, political prison camps; imprisoning up to 120,000 inmates; and resource de-prioritization for any individual North Korean perceived by the regime as not faithfully serving the interests of the supreme leader.  

When North Korea and South Korea held talks at Panmunjom beginning on August 22 to defuse this most recent crisis, it was a meeting of two sides whose characteristics are dramatically different. Not only are the two political systems antithetical, but their social and ideological values are antithetical as well. The backgrounds of the four South and North Korean participating delegates are polar opposites, both politically and militarily. Their backgrounds clearly indicate that the South is at the negotiating table because it values the safety of its citizens and the North is at the talks because it values the “face,” i.e. the reputation of its supreme leader over everything else.

How so? The intent and values of the South are self-evident. Democratic societies look to preservation and safety of their nation-state above all else, as essential in safeguarding the human security of their citizens. The presence of President Park’s National Security Adviser, Kim Kwan-jin, and her Minister of Unification, Hong Yong-pyo, demonstrates that resolving this crisis focused on the security of the South. Kim Kwan-jin is a lifelong military man who has commanded army units from the company-level up through field army and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, followed by a stint as the Minister of National Defense. Hong Yong-pyo serves as the leader of the government agency dedicated to finding peaceful means of unification. However, on the North’s side, there are polar opposites. The one man in the group who wore a military uniform with a military rank of vice-marshal (5-star) was the North’s Hwang Byong-so. Oddly enough, he is not truly a military man. He is a lifelong political commissar who has worked for the Korean Workers’ Party his whole life. He has never commanded a battalion, a regiment, a division, a corps, or a field army… ever. His job has always been to monitor North Korea’s military officers to ensure their loyalty to the supreme leader and the party as well as their compliance with all aspects of North Korean ideology. Hwang’s function has always been to ensure that those officers that supposedly fail to meet that standard are purged from the military ranks. In the first three and a half years of his rule, Kim Jong-un has gone through four Chiefs of the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army and six Ministers of People’s Armed Forces. The other North Korean negotiator, Kim Yang-gon, heads the party’s United Front Department, tasked to foment South Korean social and political instability by employing a “toolkit,” including espionage, sabotage, propaganda and even inter-Korean dialogue.  

The final agreement by the four to end the crisis was a statement of regret (the same language Kim Il-sung used after the DMZ axe murders in 1976) from the North concerning the landmine incident and the end of the South’s propaganda broadcasts across the DMZ. As the profiles of the four negotiators indicate, while South Korea’s concern was the security of its soldiers, North Korea’s concern was the security and reputation of its supreme leader.  

In the long run, training the supreme leader may have created a larger mutated political logic in the mind of the Supreme Commander of 1.2 million soldiers armed with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Future trainers—at least those who survive the purges—will deal with a supreme leader who thinks he now knows it all. Decision-making within the North’s national security structure will likely lose some operational and strategic agility due to his hubris. To emphasize this, Kim Jong-un will likely demonstrate his leadership through internal propaganda claims of having made the Republic of Korea-United States alliance “stand down.”  

One of the outcomes of this crisis is that it will work toward consolidating Kim Jong-un’s power, at least in the young leader’s mind. Surely, it is still possible for an individual or a group of senior officials to fall on their sword after using it on the young, impetuous leader. But for the time being, the outcome of the crisis also enables the continued suppression of the North Korean people, including denial of the most basic of human rights and political prison camp internment of those perceived as disloyal. Another outcome of the crisis is the continued threat to the security of 51 million South Korean citizens, not to mention the threat of nuclear war.

The North’s military trainers may have made themselves look good in the eyes of the supreme leader for now, but the next time he may be the one “training the trainers” on further threats to the people of both North and South Korea.

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Categories: analysis, committeehrnk, conflict, dictatorship, HRNK, hrnkus, humanrights, KimJongUn, KWP, military, NK, nonprofit, NorthKorea, RobertCollins, training, WashingtonDC

KCNA Bashes HRNK Report: We MUST be doing something right!

KCNA releases commentary bashing HRNK's recent report, Arsenal of Terror: North Korea, State Sponsor of Terrorism by Joshua Stanton. We must be doing something right to receive such a response from North Korea! The following is the commentary in full.

calendar>>May 1. 2015 Juche 104

KCNA Commentary Accuses U.S. of Working Hard to Re-list DPRK as "Sponsor of Terrorism"

Pyongyang, May 1 (KCNA) -- The "Commission for Human Rights in North Korea", a non-governmental human rights body of the U.S., released a report on April 27.
The report claimed that the DPRK is backing and dealing with the terrorist organizations and "states sponsoring terrorism" in Mideast and is involved in direct terrorism such as cyber attack on the Sony Pictures Entertainment of the U.S. It urged the U.S. administration and Congress to re-list the DPRK as a "sponsor of terrorism."

The report is no more than a conspiratorial document that does not deserve even a passing note as it was cooked up by a U.S. individual organization which is unknown to the international community in a bid to gain its political clout. But the DPRK cannot but take a serious note of the U.S. moves in the light of the fact that the commission echoed the assertion of the U.S. hard-line conservative forces calling for ratcheting up pressure upon the DPRK now that the relations between it and the U.S. are at rock bottom.

Lurking behind the moves of the "Commission for Human Rights in North Korea" to make public the report and build up public opinion on it is its sinister purpose to tarnish the image of the DPRK by branding it as a "sponsor of terrorism" now that the U.S. has failed to "demonize" it over the "nuclear and human rights issue".

Whenever the DPRK-U.S. relations and the situation got strained, the Republican Party and other conservative forces in the U.S. desperately called for re-listing the DPRK as a "sponsor of terrorism" since its removal from the list of "sponsors of terrorism" in 2008.

Notably, the present chief executive of the U.S. issued a "presidential executive order" to slap "additional sanctions" against the DPRK in the wake of the case of cyber attack on the Sony Pictures Entertainment. Pursuant to the order, heavyweights of the political camp and the military of the U.S. vied with each other to cry out for re-listing the DPRK as a "sponsor of terrorism" and imposing "toughest additional sanctions" upon it, revealing the sinister design to isolate and stifle it.

It should not be overlooked that against this backdrop, the "Commission for Human Rights in North Korea" opened to public a document peppered with lies and deception.

The "Commission" made up of scholars, former officials of the U.S. government and others who claim to be "experts on Korean affairs" has been keen on smear campaign against the DPRK. By doing so, it seeks to please the U.S. ruling forces and gain its political clout in a bid to prolong its remaining days.

Since its appearance, it has insisted on linking the food shortage in the DPRK with "lack of elementary human rights" and compiled all nonsensical talks about its social system to meet the political interests of the U.S. conservative forces before floating wild rumors.

Such a plot-breeding body produced a conspiratorial document as part of its desperate campaign to label the DPRK a "sponsor of terrorism." This is no more than the last-ditch effort of those hell-bent on the smear campaign against the DPRK.

Explicitly speaking, the above-said story about "the DPRK's sponsoring of terrorism" is another unpardonable politically-motivated provocation against the DPRK.

The DPRK government has made clear its principled stand to oppose all forms of terrorism and any support to it before the international community and consistently maintained it.

It held negotiations with the U.S. over the issue of terrorism several times in the past and released a joint statement clarifying its stand toward terrorism.

This being a hard reality, the dishonest forces of the U.S. let a plot-breeding body noisily trumpet about someone's "sponsoring of terrorism," which can never work on anyone as it is totally baseless.

The U.S. is the kingpin of international terrorism and a typical "sponsor of terrorism."

The U.S. history is just the history of hideous terrorism.

When looking back upon the history of the founding of the U.S. and its history of bloody "independence war" and its course of battles fought to expand colonies overseas, the U.S. is precisely a terrorism sponsor regarding massacre, destruction and plunder as its only mode of existence.

It is none other than the U.S. which is now fanning up the whirlwind of terrorism in various parts of the world.

It has openly perpetrated terrorism to bring down the governments of the countries incurring its displeasure by force of arms and politically-motivated state-sponsored terrorism against them by employing conspiratorial methods.

It has pursued undisguised terrorism aimed at murder, aggression, war and horror in the international arena. It is also a "sponsor of terrorism" that has wantonly violated the UNSC resolution No. 137 that was adopted on Sept. 28, 2001.

It has provided terrorists with shelter after painting them as "political exiles" and "dissidents" in return for serving its purpose of "spreading U.S.-style freedom and democracy".

The U.S. is kicking up such smear campaign by setting in motion the plot-breeding body made up of servants of the U.S. dishonest forces. This will only touch off criticism and derision of the international community.

It is, indeed, absurd and ridiculous for those forces to label the DPRK a "sponsor of terrorism."

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Categories: analysis, committeehrnk, DPRK, HRNK, hrnkus, humanrights, news, NK, nonprofit, NorthKorea, onefreekorea, SSOT, Stanton, terrorism, USA, WashingtonDC

Unusual Activity at the Kanggon Military Training Area in North Korea: Evidence of Execution by Anti-aircraft Machine Guns?

Authors: 

Greg Scarlatoiu (Committee for Human Rights in North Korea)
Joseph Bermudez Jr. (AllSource Analysis, Inc.)

While examining satellite imagery of an area near the North Korean capital city, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) and AllSource Analysis, Inc. (ASA) may have come across evidence of a ghastly sight: the public execution of several individuals by anti-aircraft machine gun fire.

A military training area generally known as the Kanggon Military Training Area is located approximately 22 km north of the capital city Pyongyang (Pyongyang-si). Given the size, composition, and location of the training facility, it is likely used by both the students and staff of the elite Kanggon Military Academy (6 km to the southwest) and units from either the Pyongyang Defense Command or the Ministry of State Security. Encompassing approximately 12km^2, the training area is composed of a number of dispersed small facilities. One of those facilities, located 1.5 km northeast of the small village of Sŏngi-ri, is a small arms firing range (39. 13 48.64° N, 125. 45 29.03° E). This firing range is approximately 100 meters long by 60 meters wide and consists of 11 firing lanes. A range control/viewing gallery and parking area are located immediately south of the firing range. A small drainage ditch horizontally bisects the firing range. This firing range is typical of many ranges throughout North Korea and is designed for small arms training and maintaining proficiency for weapons ranging from pistols to light machine guns, and chambered for 7.62mm (the standard AK-47 rifle round) or less.

Sometime on or about October 7th, 2014, some very unusual activity was noted on satellite imagery of the Kanggon small arms firing range. Instead of troops occupying the firing positions on the range there was a battery of six ZPU-4 anti-aircraft guns lined up between the firing positions and the range control/viewing gallery. The ZPU-4 is an anti-aircraft gun system consisting of four 14.5mm heavy machine guns (similar to a U.S. .50 caliber heavy machine gun) mounted on a towed wheeled chassis. It is neither safe nor practical to use such weapons on a small arms range, as the combined weight of fire from the six ZPU-4 (a total of 24 heavy machine guns) would quickly destroy the downrange backstop and necessitate reconstruction. A few meters behind the ZPU-4s there appears to be either a line of troops or equipment, while farther back are five trucks (of various sizes), one large trailer, and one bus. This suggests that senior officers or VIPs may have come to observe whatever activity was taking place. Most unusual in the image, perhaps, is what appears to be some sort of targets located only 30 meters downrange of the ZPU-4s.

The satellite image appears to have been taken moments before an execution by ZPU-4 anti-aircraft machine guns. Busing in senior officers or VIPs to observe a ZPU-4 dry-fire training exercise at a small arms range amidst North Korea’s fuel shortages would make no sense. If the ZPU-4s were brought to the range solely to be sighted in, conducting this exercise at a 100 meter small arms firing range would be impractical. A live-fire exercise would be even more nonsensical. Rounds fired by a ZPU-4 have a range of 8,000 m and can reach a maximum altitude of 5,000 m. Positioning a battery of six ZPU-4s to fire horizontally at targets situated only 30 m downrange could have no conceivable utility from a military viewpoint. The most plausible explanation of the scene captured in the October 7th satellite image is a gruesome public execution. Anyone who has witnessed the damage one single U.S. .50 caliber round does to the human body will shudder just trying to imagine a battery of 24 heavy machine guns being fired at human beings. Bodies would be nearly pulverized. The gut-wrenching viciousness of such an act would make “cruel and unusual punishment” sound like a gross understatement.

Given reports of past executions this is tragic, but unfortunately plausible in the twisted world of Kim Jong-un’s North Korea. In December 2013, following the execution of the leader’s uncle Jang Song-thaek, Choe Sang-Hun and David Sanger reported for The New York Times that Jang Song-thaek’s top two lieutenants had been executed using anti-aircraft machine guns.[1] In the summer of 2013, South Korean intelligence officials and news media reported that purged North Korean artists had been executed using the same gruesome method.

The purge that began in early 2009, as the regime began preparing for the second hereditary transmission of power, continues. On April 29^th, 2015, Associated Press reported that, according to South Korean intelligence sources quoted by ROK National Assemblyman Shin Kyoung-min, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered the execution of 15 senior officials this year. According to Assemblyman Shin, the officials were accused of challenging the supreme leader’s authority. One of them, a vice Cabinet minister, “was executed in January for questioning Kim’s policies on forestation.” [2]

On April 13th, 2015, Dr. Stephan Haggard and HRNK board member Marcus Noland (Executive Vice President and Director of Studies, Peterson Institute for International Economics) drew attention to a quotation from New Focus International in a North Korea: Witness to Transformation article.[3] New Focus indicated that, following instructions received from the top leadership, North Korea’s State Security Department (SSD) and Ministry of People’s Security (MPS) launched the so-called “9.8 measures” in the fall of 2014. The measures involved the further “militarization of State Security and People’s Security,” so that surveillance, control, coercion, and punishment could be carried out more effectively.  

Some of the directives in this new, broad initiative included the following:

“’[M]ost criminals who are forgiven are likely to commit another crime’…‘the time has come when words are not enough. The sound of gunshot must accompany the destruction of impure and hostile elements, and when necessary, public executions are to be used so that the masses come to their senses.’” According to New Focus, the directives allegedly ratified the following clause, seemingly instigating extra-judicial killings: “If an anti-regime act is uncovered, State Security soldiers are to judge and execute by gunfire of their own accord, and afterwards file a report on the person and crime to Pyongyang.”[4]

If true, the “9.8 measures” instructing agents of the state to shoot to kill fellow North Koreans constitute a flagrant violation of Article 6, Paragraph 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which stipulates that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.”[5] Furthermore, public execution by way of heavy machine gun fire is arguably a violation of ICCPR Article 7, which states, in part, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”[6] North Korea acceded to the ICCPR in 1981.[7] In its 2014 White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea, the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) notes that public executions have been reportedly more frequent in North Korea since the late 2009 confiscatory currency reform.[8] KINU further anticipates that this trend is not likely to subside in the near future, due to “the tightening of internal control under Kim Jong-un’s regime.”[9]

The report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (UN COI) established that, “as a matter of State policy, the authorities carry out executions, with or without trial, publicly or secretly, in response to political and other crimes that are often not among the most serious crimes.”[10] The UN COI report further determined that the policy of regularly carrying out public executions serves to instill fear in the general population.”[11] The report, released in February 2014, noted that, as of late 2013, “there appeared to be a spike in the number of politically motivated public executions.”[12] Public executions are one of the dreadful tools employed in the implementation of the Kim Jong-un regime’s “fearpolitik.”[13]

Kanggon Small Arms Firing Range, October 16th, 2014, ZPU-4 systems or targets not present.

(© DigitalGlobe 2015)

ZPU-4 Anti-aircraft Machine Gun System (Photo credit: U.S. Army)

---

[1] Choe Sang-Hun and David Sanger, Korea Execution Is Tied to Clash Over Business, The New York Times, Dec. 23, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/world/asia/north-korea-purge.html?_r=0.

[2] Associated Press. S. Korea Says Kim Jong Un Executed 15 Officials This Year. Story relayed in , The New York Times, Apr. 29, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/04/29/world/asia/ap-as-koreas-tension-.html?_r=0

[3] New Focus International, North Korea’s State Security and People’s Security Ministries Implement ‘9.8 Measures,’ New Focus International, Apr. 12, 2015, http://newfocusintl.com/exclusive-north-koreas-state-security-and-peoples-security-ministries-implement-9-8-measures/.

[4] Stephan Haggard, Slave to the Blog: Trojan Horse Edition, Witness to Transformation (blog), Apr. 13, 2015, http://blogs.piie.com/nk/?p=14032.

[5] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 6, http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx.

[6] Id. at Article 7.

[7] OHCHR, Status of Ratification: Interactive Dashboard, http://indicators.ohchr.org/.

[8] Han Dong-ho et al., 2014 White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea, Korea Institute of National Unification (KINU), 115, http://www.kinu.or.kr/eng/pub/pub_04_01.jsp?bid=DATA04&page=1&num=40&mode=view&category=.

[9] Id. at 26.

[10] Report of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, UN Human Rights Council, 25^th sess., Agenda Item 4, UN Doc. A/HRC/25/63, p. 12, para. 63 (7 February 2014), available at http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIDPRK/Pages/ReportoftheCommissionofInquiryDPRK.aspx (hereinafter “COI Report”).

[11] Id.

[12] Id.

[13] Voice of America (VOA), North Korea Human Rights Outlook for 2014…‘Concerning of Political Camps Expansion and Reign of Terror,’ HRNK Insider, Jan. 3, 2014, http://www.hrnkinsider.org/2014_01_01_archive.html.

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Categories: analysis, committeehrnk, DPRK, fearpolitik, HRNK, humanrights, KimJongUn, news, NK, NorthKorea, UN, UNCOI, USA, WashingtonDC

Happy April 1st from HRNK's Raymond Ha

Kim Shifts Course In Surprise Announcement


SEOUL, April 1 -- In an unexpected turn of events, Kim Jong-un, the First Secretary of the Korean Workers’ Party, announced at an Enlarged Meeting of the Politburo that Pyongyang would embark on a major policy shift, seeking to engage with the international community in good faith.

“For too long, the people of North Korea have been deprived of the benefits of the 21st century,” Kim said in the hour-long address, which was also broadcast live by Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). “We cannot wait any longer.”

Kim said that Pyongyang would return to the stalled Six-Party Talks “without precondition,” resume bilateral dialogue with Seoul on “all relevant issues,” including reunions for separated families and the fate of South Korean prisoners of war, and “seek a full accounting” of all foreign abductees held in North Korea. In the address, Kim also acknowledged full responsibility for the sinking of the Cheonan, a South Korean Navy corvette, in March 2010.

He also acknowledged receipt of the letter sent by the UN Commission of Inquiry in 2014 and invited the UN Special Rapporteur on North Korean human rights, Marzuki Darusman, to visit North Korea, promising complete access to all sites, including the country’s political prison camps.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva confirmed that it had received a request from Pyongyang to begin high-level talks on technical assistance.

By issuing an invitation to the Special Rapporteur, Kim admitted to the existence of these political prison camps, which the regime had firmly denied until today. These camps had been the focus of the international community's criticism of the North Korean regime's human rights record. Kim added that all UN agencies would be granted humanitarian access to these prison camps, effective immediately.

The announcement also included domestic reforms, including a significant cut to military spending, the abolishment of its discriminatory class system, the lifting of domestic and international travel restrictions, and a series of economic measures aimed at restructuring the North Korean economy and promoting transparency to attract international aid and investment.

International reactions to this address were largely positive.

Immediately after an emergency meeting of the National Security Council, a high-level South Korean official welcomed Kim’s statement, noting that this was “a long overdue first step towards rebuilding trust on the Korean peninsula,” and a “crucial step on the path to reunification.”

White House officials also heralded the move as a “historic decision,” stating that “we will continue to work very closely with our partners in Seoul in the coming weeks and months to respond to this unprecedented development.” They added that no unusual military activity has been detected inside North Korea since Kim's announcement, although the U.S. and South Korean military will maintain a heightened state of readiness for the foreseeable future.

An unnamed official at the State Department said that Kim’s policy shift was “an unambiguous victory” for the proponents of “strategic patience,” the administration’s policy towards North Korea that had come under intense criticism in recent years.

Tokyo also issued a positive statement, saying that it “looks forward to talks with Pyongyang to seek a full accounting of our abducted citizens,” and that it would “review the lifting of bilateral sanctions” that had only recently been imposed.

A spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry only gave brief remarks, calling for all parties to “exercise restraint and maintain peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.” There have been reports of internal security forces being placed on high alert across China, possibly in preparation for an influx of refugees into the country’s three northeastern provinces.

When asked about the possibility of North Korea being admitted to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in light of today’s speech, he said that “all interested parties are welcome to join. We are not aware of this ever being an issue.”

Moscow, which has invited Kim to attend its victory parade in early May, has yet to issue an official statement.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also welcomed Kim’s announcement, stating that all UN agencies would "do their utmost" to provide necessary assistance to the North Korean people.

While assessing Kim's speech positively, Special Rapporteur Marzuki Darusman said "the international community must uphold the 'two-track approach' of continuing to seek full accountability for crimes against humanity even as it engages with North Korea." He added that his office will be arranging a visit to North Korea as soon as possible by coordinating with all interested parties and organizations.

Reactions were mixed among the expert community.

Professor Victor Cha of Georgetown University expressed surprise, stating that the “international community will have to watch very closely to see whether the regime follows through on its promises,” recalling Pyongyang’s past record of reneging on its international commitments. Nevertheless, he said, “it is very encouraging that North Korea is returning to negotiations.”

Others assessed that Kim’s speech reflects the influence of his education in Switzerland. They claimed that Kim had spent the past three years consolidating power in preparation for this shift, and the complete absence of unusual military activity after the speech was particularly notable.


Greg Scarlatoiu, the Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), an organization that focuses on researching the human rights situation in the reclusive state, urged caution even as he welcomed Kim’s speech.


“We need complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantling of not only Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, but also its internal security apparatus and the political prison camps,” Scarlatoiu said, adding that “the international community must not be fooled by Kim’s rhetoric, no matter how unprecedented it may be. We cannot believe anything until we see tangible changes on the ground.”

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Categories: committeehrnk, DPRK, engagement, HRNK, humanrights, KimJongUn, news, NK, NorthKorea, SpecialRapporteur, UNCOI, WashingtonDC

“Constructive Enragement” versus “Constructive Engagement” in North Korea

By Greg Scarlatoiu

Executive Director
Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK)

As Dr. James Chin-kyung Kim, a tireless advocate and practitioner of academic engagement with North Korea participated in the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. on February 6, spiritual and thought leaders from all over the world likely prayed for his success. Dr. Kim is the president and founder of the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST). Funded by Evangelical Christians and based on faith and hope in emancipation through exposure to English speaking foreign professors, North Korea’s only private university professes to be grooming the next generation of leaders. The university’s foreign staff and faculty have no control over the admission process or post-graduation job placement.

A recent BBC Panorama documentary offered an unprecedented inside view of PUST. All 500 PUST students are men, said to be the sons of the elites. The only women on campus are the watchful and ubiquitous uniformed guards. All students appear to be in their early 20s. In North Korea, all men age 17 must join the military for at least 10 years. Have these young men been exempted from military duty for being North Korea’s best and brightest? Do they have to join the military after graduation? Do the years they spend at PUST count toward their military service?

Why would highly militarized North Korea relieve hundreds of bright, healthy, loyal sons of the elites from their obligation to serve in the military? The skills they acquire, especially English, computer engineering, international finance and management present the potential of dual use in North Korea’s cyber warfare operations or international illicit activities needed to sustain the regime. While all of North Korea’s universities are heavily regimented, PUST students certainly march, sing, talk, walk, and act like dutiful soldiers of the Kim regime.

Are PUST students those young men likely to lead the country in a positive direction, or those most likely to perpetuate the Kim regime? Dr. James Chin-kyung Kim claims: “Inside there, we truly have freedom.” According to a recent Voice of America interview with Sandralee and Robert Moynihan, former PUST professors, the couple was denied visa renewals, possibly because Mrs. Moynihan brought into the classroom a copy of the North Korean Constitution, asking students to determine whether it was adequately observed.

Proponents of engaging North Korea through academic exchanges, in the hope of creating agents of positive change, have put forth the precedent of the first Soviet students brought to the United States. Changing hearts and minds through training those hand-picked by totalitarian regimes is problematic, at least over the short to medium term. Twenty years after spending a year at Columbia University, then KGB General Oleg Kalugin masterminded the infamous 1978 “umbrella murder” of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in London.

The long-term benefits may come in due course: Oleg Kalugin helped counter the Soviet coup attempt in 1991, before resettling in the United States in 1995. The dark chapters of U.S.-trained Leopoldo Galtieri in Argentina and Manuel Noriega in Panama suggest that long-term benefits of exposure to freedom and democracy may never come. Jang Sung-taek, the former number 2 of North Korea, executed in December 2013, would likely attest that his nephew’s Swiss education may have enhanced his love of ski resorts, water parks, landscaping, and NBA hall of famers, but has not been conducive to allowing North Koreans the right to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.

In the 1980s, the late Congressman Stephen Solarz called for “constructive enragement” of economic sanctions as a moral imperative to end apartheid in South Africa. His appeal rebuked “constructive engagement,” which implied refraining from criticism of Pretoria. Congressman Solarz would favor “enragement” over “engagement” to change North Korea today. After meeting with Kim Il-sung in 1980 and 1991, a disenchanted Stephen Solarz declared: “My own experience in North Korea suggests that its commitments have about the same value as Tsarist war bonds.”

Today, North Korea is a post-communist, post-industrial, totalitarian kleptocracy that continues to control access to food, opportunity, and education based on loyalty to the regime. As its people suffer from food shortages, the North Korean regime presses on with the development of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. For more than a decade, the Washington, D.C.-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), an organization once co-chaired by Stephen Solarz, has researched and reported on developments inside North Korea’s political prison camps, where 120,000 prisoners are held, often together with members of three generations of the detainee’s family.

On February 17, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea, aiming to determine if crimes against humanity have been committed in that country, will make its findings and recommendations public, a month ahead of the formal report submission to the UN Human Rights Council. The likelihood of “constructive enragement” over North Korea’s egregious human rights violations will be higher than ever before.

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Categories: analysis, committeehrnk, engagement, HRNK, humanrights, NK, NorthKorea, PUST, Solarz, UN, UNCOI, USA, VOA, WashingtonDC