Dec 12 2008
Defector from camp 14 tells his story
I am very surprised to see this all over the news and a buzz on the blogs as of late. My first glimpse of the story was (amazingly) on Digg, and linked to a Washington Post article. I did a Google search and found more results to the story, and it seems for at least a few moments the North Korean human rights crisis can be told to the world.
According to the article, he has written a book of his experience, and from my understanding is only available in Korean, but someday would like to see it translated to English:
Shin is the author of a grimly extraordinary book, “Escape to the Outside World.”
The Aquariums of Pyongyang was a very gripping tale as well, and I find myself going back and reading it time and again. The tales told of the atrocities in these camps are sometimes hard to believe, and sometimes, it may be easier to reject these stories because the inhumanity is unfathomable. However, from some of the reactions to the story, there seems to be (for a large part) empathy from his past experiences. I will see if this book is available in English, and if other readers know if this is available in English, please let me know, because I would like to read it. After all, it is a book about North Korea.
As for commentary on the Washington Post article itself, I will not say a lot about it because a lot of commentary is out there. However, I will say while his story cannot be indepently verified like any other defector as the article stated, one cannot help but to stop and think of the atrocities happening in the DPRK. Not until the regime is gone and the prison camps looked over like in Nazi Germany, nobody will know the full extent of the system, who were killed and other details. I am also going to guess it could take many years to unravel everything to understand it all.
I encourage one and all to read the article, take a look at HRNC and One Free Korea’s take on the camps. It is chock full of good information along with videos and maps. Furthermore, make sure to check out NKEconWatch’s North Korea Google Earth resource with the overlays not only at camp 14 but other camps as well.
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