Documentary: Secret Victims

[Update: The link was bad before; fixed now.]This is the second of two documentaries by Journeyman Productions I’m featuring here. This one, an Australian production, deals with South Koreans who are abducted to the North and the unconscionable way various South Korean governments through the years have treated them and their families — either as presumptive spies (under rightist regimes) or as irritants to the Unifiction (under leftist ones). Although the docu was made in 2003, it nonetheless features plenty of information that was new to me.

I have to say that the most shocking moment for me was the way one South Korean abductee — who later escaped — recounted life in the North Korean countryside:

You might think I’m lying, but people were so hungry they would catch little children, and bathe them, and boil them to eat. There were times when a lot of people gathered at a place near my house, and I was curious because I didn’t know why. We went into the kitchen and opened the lid on an enormous pot — and inside were three little heads being boiled.

This is not the first time we’ve heard reports like this.

Once again, a big hat tip goes to commenter and blogger usinkorea.