“How could you not care?”

(By guest blogger, Andy Jackson)

This is the third in a four-part series on lectures concerning human rights in North Korea delivered at Sogang University in Seoul on November 26, 2005. The text in block quotes were taken from part of my notes of the lecture. I apologize for any inaccuracies in the text and would welcome corrections.

Tim Peters, head of Helping Hands Korea, is a soft-spoken man who has taken on an imposing mission; to feed starving North Koreans. His organization also helps North Korean refugees by operating secret shelters in China and an underground railroad which helps North Koreans escape to freedom. Peters is also an advocate for the North Korean people, having testified before Congress and spoken about North Korea’s human rights crisis before numerous gatherings.

I want to thank the LiNK and the other organizations involved for sponsoring this event. I spoke with [Executive Director of LiNK International] Adrian Hong recently. He said that LiNK is working to help North Korean refugees in China. I appreciate their efforts.

I am often asked; ‘Why am I, as a non-Korean, interested in North Korea human rights and refugees?’ North Korean human rights and refugees are a universal concern. Spiritual people especially worry about religious persecution, a lack of freedom of religion and the repression of humanity… My deepest rooted beliefs regarding the repression of 200,000 political prisoners, including Christians, raised my Christian convictions to care.

In many ways I am ill-suited for the task of helping North Koreans. First, despite living in Korea for 15 years, I speak Korean poorly. Second, I have only been in North Korea for two days in 1999 to deliver food aid. Third, I do not have a scholarly background on North Korea. But I was moved to help by the stories of suffering in North Korea, especially orphans, and the suffering I saw among North Korean refugees that I met in China.

I think the ‘defining moment’ for me came in 2002 – I had already been involved in helping North Korean refugees. I met a 10-year-old boy named Yoo Chul-min.

Chul-min had been living with a Korean-Chinese family for about a year, so he looked pretty healthy. His cheeks had filled out some. He was clearly afraid of the big foreigner in the room and tried to avoid making eye contact with me by pulling his hat low over his eyes. I saw a little Korean version of a picture Bible I use to read with my children. I took it down and gave it to him to read. We were soon looking threw the book together as he eagerly read it aloud.

We only had a short time together. I knew that he was going to go with a group to Mongolia in a month or two. I thought that this little boy could be a friend of my grandson, who was eight years old at the time.

I was in Seoul one month later when I heard the news. The leader of Chul-min’s group had been picked up one day before they were to cross into Mongolia. They decided that they had no choice but to try to cross part of the Gobi desert without a guide. The group was lost for 32 hours and Chul-min died of exposure. The news struck me like a lightning bolt when I realized that, at 10 years old, his little life had been snuffed out.

You might wonder if someone could die so quickly. People from more developed countries might have survived 32 hours in the desert in summer. I realized that the health I saw in Chul-min’s face was a mask. The damage of five or six years of malnutrition in North Korea had weakened him and he quickly died when a healthier person might have lived.

An entire generation has been weakened and had its intellectual capacity reduced by famine caused by North Korea’s failed economic policies.

I came to believe that I must do something to help. The real question is ‘How could you not care?’ It is a test of our humanity and, for those of faith (whether you are Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or another faith) of our fidelity to our beliefs when we see what happens [to the North Korean refugees].

One of the big mysteries to me, and I may be stepping on some toes here, was why were Korea Churches sending missionaries to Africa and other places around the world but not China to help North Korean refugees? Why aren’t there more South Korea missionaries going to China to help their Korean brothers and sisters. I became involved in part because there are so few Koreans doing the work.

There are some who have gone.

[Peters holds up a small ID card.] John Yoon is a 64-year-old Korean-American, Korean born. He was arrested in May 2005 while working to help North Korean refugees. He has gone to China multiple times. When the Chinese authorities arrested him they showed him three notebooks they had compiled on him and this group. He has some serious medical conditions… and winter is closing in on his unheated prison in northern China.

Choi Young-hun, a Korean, was leading a group of 5 NGOs who bought a fishing-boat. They planned to use it to ship 60 refugees to South Korea. Just days before they were going to set out, Chinese authorities arrested the group, including Choi. I don’t know how the Chinese authorities found out. Maybe they were betrayed for the bounty that Chinese authorities put on refugees and those helping them. Choi has been in prison for 3 years and is in poor health. [NOTE: Choi’s time in a Chinese prison has also hurt his family.]

Jeffrey Park (Korean America) fell into a river while trying to help six North Korean refugees across a river from China to Myamar and was lost. He had given the group’s last life preserver to one of the refugees.
[NOTE: One thing that Peters did not mention is that Park’s group had to make the dangerous river crossing after South Korean officials refused to help them.]

Why is it the older ones doing the work? Where are younger people?

I have testified before Congress several times. Whenever I testify, I start by introducing the most recent arrest of an activist for North Korean refugees by Chinese authorities. In 2002, I mentioned Chun Ki-won, who was later released. I believe that pressure from Congress may have helped win his release from prison. But the last two times I have mentioned activists before Congress, they have not been released. Chinese authorities are hardening their stance and increasing their surveillance of North Korean refugees. It is getting more difficult for groups to reach the refugees in order to help them.

Before I finish, I want to mention that the Catacombs forum and prayer group meets on Tuesday evenings near Samgachi Station.

QUESTIONS
Q: Are North Korean refugees economic or political refugees?

A: They are both. Even if they started out as economic migrants, the fact that they face persecution if they return to North Korea makes them de facto political refugees. Everyone who leaves North Korea without permission becomes a political refugee.

Q: Has South Korea government policy (I’m thinking about things such as the Chung dong-young’s interview with OhMyNews) made work with North Korean refugees more difficult?

A: I have to be careful how I answer that question publicly. [Peters paused to allow the question to be translated into Korean.] There might be some indirect consequences but the main pressure is the 2008 Olympics, which is causing the Chinese to try to ‘solve the North Korean refugee problem’ before they take place. Chinese policy is to get North Korean refugees like you get rid of cockroaches. They are using bounties and other strict methods to suppress refugees. Any negative influence from the South Korean government is comparatively marginal.

My thoughts
Tim Peters is a good man trying to do his best in a precarious position. As a foreigner in Korea, he is limited in the things he can say and still stay in the country. He seems to believe (rightfully, in my opinion) that his mission in directly aiding North Korean refugees is more important than calling the South Korean government to task for abandoning them. We are all given different gifts and, despite what he said in the lecture, Peters’ greatest gift is his ability to aid North Korean refugees from South Korea and to get their stories to the outside world. In the end, it is the Korean people who will have to demand a change in South Korean government policy (starting with the resignation of Chung Dong-young).

BTW, it is not only the Chinese and South Korean governments that are acting shamefully with regard to North Korean refugees.

Further reading
You can find out more about Peters’ views by reading this speech at a gathering of legislators from Korea, Japan, the USA and Mongolia that took place in Tokyo last August. There is a little more on Yoo Chul-min’s story here.

This somewhat dated article has more on the efforts of Christian groups helping North Korean refugees in China.