North Korean “Court” Sentences Aijalon Gomes to 8 Years at Hard Labor
North Korea’s sham legal system has sentenced U.S. citizen Aijalon Gomes to 8 years at hard labor and a ransom fine of $70,000 for walking across the border into North Korea.
An American has been sentenced to eight years of hard labor and fined the equivalent of $700,000 for illegal entry into North Korea. Aijalon Mahli Gomes, 30, who had taught English in South Korea, is the fourth U.S. citizen in the past year to walk into North Korea from China and get arrested. [Washington Post, Blaine Harden]
More recent reports suggest that Gomes knew and may have been inspired by the dubious example of Robert Park, who walked across the border openly and presented a petition for Kim Jong Il to the border guards. Needless to say, no sentence of this kind would have been passed by any fair and independent legal system anywhere on earth. Were Gomes a North Korean, this would be a death sentence.
“His guilt was confirmed according to the relevant articles of the criminal code of the DPRK (North Korea) at the trial,” KCNA said.
“The accused admitted all the facts which had been put under accusation. The presence of representatives of the Swedish embassy here to witness the trial was allowed as an exception at the request of the Swedish side protecting the U.S. interests,” KCNA said. [Reuters]
There’s little doubt that Kim Jong Il will exact the maximum profit from Mr. Gomes’s well-meaning and ill-considered gesture:
Gomes, also a human rights activist, seems likely to be used by North Korea as a bargaining chip, as it negotiates with the United States and four other countries over the resumption of stalled nuclear disarmament talks.
North Korea could be in a mood to talk, as there are widespread reports of starvation deaths inside the country due to a bad harvest and bungled currency reform that disrupted food markets. In addition, U.N. sanctions are believed to be squeezing the government, limiting its sales of arms and missiles. [WaPo]
Nothing good will come of this, least of all for the North Korean people.
But to “judge” Lee and Ling is okay, apparently.
Lee & Ling should be ashamed of themselves. They think we don’t see their lousy motives for what it’s worth ; the whole world can now see they’re trying to cash in by conducting soppy interviews, releasing a stupid book and pay lipservice only to the plight of North Koreans.
I’d put these two donkey females in an even worse category than Park & Gomez as these two clowns were mainly stupid, whilst Lee/Ling try to advance their previously non-existent careers by opportunistic means. Hang’em, that’s what I’d say.
And Madame Lee & Ling, if you’re reading this, why don’t you just come clean and admit you’re a bunch of opportunistic lackeys ? Don’t worry, you’re not the only asian women suffering from severe inferior complex issues. So come clean, and donate the proceeds of this lousy book to organizations advancing the freedom of NK.
Of course they won’t, they’d rather buy some gold plated ironing bords & origami loo roll instead.
First off, to be clear, I haven’t once stated they have brought the Gospel to North Koreans. I stated *may* have, in some way, brought additional awareness to the situation and if that was their goal (as I understand it was), then they have achieved it. Therefore, I am not “judging” them, I am recognizing what their aims were (apparently) and that those aims have been achieved.
As for Li and Ling, you’re right that I do appear to be judging them. I guess I should rephrase what I was attempting to convey.
From what I’ve read on Kushibo’s site, it appears as if their motives were not as selfless. Additionally, they did put people other than themselves in harms way in their actions. Sitting safely in China, they attempted to arrange meetings with “dissident” North Koreans still living in North Korea through intermediaries. How do they know whom they could trust? Then they traipse across the border in an entourage carrying tapes of dissidents living in North Korea with them.
Gomes and Park walked across the border on their own while drawing the attention of the North Korean guards only to themselves.
Were they foolish? I don’t know. Were they brave? Not likely. If anything, they were (and I pray are still) filled with Faith and pure in heart and motive.
Far be it for me to defend Ms Laura Ling and Ms Euna Lee, but I think getting into their Asianness or their womanness as a factor in what they did is barking up the wrong tree, particularly when we consider that Caucasian male Mitch Koss was one of their crew and probably just as culpable. That we didn’t end up referring to them as the Three Stooges 2.0 is only because Mitch Koss was a faster runner.
And I’ll be the first to admit: I’m judging everybody!
I’ll confess sometime next week. 😉
You didn’t appear to make a judgment. You DID make a judgment. You read information about their experience, evaluated it, and then judged them as looking for fame.
Once again, you’ve made another judgment, this time about the motives of Park and Gomes. Let me repeat: making judgments isn’t by nature a good or bad thing. Judgment is a high-level critical thinking skill if it is actually the result of careful thinking. The problem is that you appear to reserve for yourself and other Christians the right to judge Park and Gomes as “pure in heart and motive” while assailing others for making contrary judgments.
Making a judgment regarding actions and/or making a judgment about a persons motives is different than judging the person. Judging is what people do when they say what they did they did because THEY’RE stupid, religious nuts, or whatever. My point is that I’m not going to judge the PERSON, but I will make a judgment about their motives.
I know I haven’t articulated that very well. My apologies.
You DID judge both people as persons when you described them as pure of heart and motive. See below:
Park and Gomes were stupid religious nuts.
Park and Gomes were pure of heart and motive.
The difference between the two statements is not judging a person versus judging a motive but a negative versus a positive judgment.
The reason why you cannot articulate your ideas well is that you appear to equate judging a person with saying something bad about him or her; colloquially that is the meaning intended most of the time, as illustrated by sayings about judging people by their appearance or before walking a mile in their shoes.
In plain English, some commenters have criticized the risky behavior of Park and Gomes and this has upset some Christian commenters. This has nothing to do with judging versus not judging a person as you yourself have defended Park and Gomes repeatedly with conditional statements about raising awareness yet declared that the two journalists were seeking fame.
Here’s the bottom line as far as I’m concerned:
I wish more of us Christians had the faith Park and Gomes appear to have, to have done what they did. Too many of us Christians (myself included) are too comfortable in their own lives to pick up the Cross.
That’s my judgment.
I’ll concede defeat in this debate.
Congratulations.
🙂
Here’s the bottom line as far as I’m concerned:
I wish people who — Christian or otherwise — who do have the desire to do something outside their comfort zone and are willing to endure hardship and maybe even risk their safety, would do so in productive ways that will actually do some good, instead of doing things that risk not just their own lives but those of others, while enriching and bolstering our enemies in Pyongyang and Beijing. Furthermore, I wish people would not egg on those who have already made such foolish choices as the walkabouts, which only serves to encourage more people to do such foolish acts, while distracting from the real good that can be done in places like China.
We’re all called to serve in different ways. For all we know, they were called to do what they did for reasons we’ll never understand.
Not sure how Park “enriched” the norK regime and, so far at least, it doesn’t appear as if Gomes has enriched them either.
Kushibo, you have no idea if their actions have been productive or not. For all you know, some guy sitting in New York, LA, London, Brussels or wherever, heard about the plight of the norK citizens through reading a story about either one of these two guys and was moved to donate a substantial amount of money to an NGO working to help norK citizens. We have NO IDEA what may have transpired because of these two and to sit here and assume we do is pretty arrogant.
Really, Thomas et al, how hard is it to just admit that the walkabouts are a costly mistake and that further would-be traipsers should be discouraged from such?
Who’s next after
ParkGomes?Like the beating wings of a butterfly in the Amazon initiating wind that grows into a hurricane in the Atlantic.
Kushibo,
I’m not going to admit something that I have no idea the true outcome. Sorry if that ruffles your feathers.
:’)
Yes, Sonagi, but more so in the sense of the larger meaning of Lorenz’s “butterfly effect”. The fact that we cannot track the connections – either way. Can we definitely say something as tiny as a butterfly caused the storm? Therefore, the point is we should consider cause and effect while also realizing no cut-and-dry answers.
Thomas wrote:
Which part won’t you admit? The part about the walkabouts being a costly mistake? Or the idea that further would-be traipsers should be discouraged from such?
And it’s not my feathers being ruffled that’s the problem, doubting Thomas. It’s the benefit the regime in Pyongyang gets from the walkabouts and the danger that befalls would-be defectors when folks like Park or Gomes cross into North Korea around the same time and/or place where they were going to leave that concerns me.
Your rhetoric and KCJ’s rhetoric and the rhetoric of people like you is the very reason someone like Gomes decided that he should follow Park’s lead, even though he gave the North a propaganda victory — as far as the people have heard, this great Christian came and beautifully recanted, which either means he was either enlightened or broken, take your pick — and later expressed that he wanted to kill himself. Is that what you wish for more people?
The only way this could really effect a change is if the numbers of people doing this are so high that they overwhelm the machinery designed to take them in and break them. I’m talking thousands during the same time period (so that they’re all in DPRK custody at the same time).
I think 5000 would be a minimum. If there were 5000 who quietly amassed along the Amnok and Tuman Rivers and then crossed at the same time, their capture and processing would break down protocols and that would be when they can infect the jailers and officials who have them. That might make a difference.
Of course, there is the risk of many of them getting shot, since five thousand people shouting in English, “I am an American citizen, I brought God’s love, God loves you and God bless you,” could look like an invasion, but being fodder for God just makes you godder, right?
[BTW, in the KT link just above, Michael Breen makes the Christian-versus-Muslim martyr connection…
… so it’s not as if Ernst was completely out-of-line for mentioning that, even if it’s a point I wholeheartedly disagree with (there have been Christian zealots who take others’ lives for what they feel are godly reasons, but I don’t think any of this resembles that).]
You just have to win don’t you? That’s fine, take from it what you want and I’ll take from it what I want. Why is your rhetoric acceptable, but mine is not? We each have a right to think what we wish.
BTW: why the sarcastic “doubting Thomas” comment?
You’re too sensitive. Get over yourself.
Kushibo,
Just to expand on my last post. I’m not here to “win” a debate, but to make comments on subjects that are of interest to me. I think that’s why most people are here. Just like you, I will argue my position and sometimes fervently. However, I also know I don’t know it all. You, on the other hand, come across as one that thinks their opinion is above everybody else. I hope I’m wrong in how I read you thus far, and perhaps over time you’ll prove me wrong.
You have a right to hold that position, just as I have a right to disagree. Remember, just because somebody doesn’t agree with you, that doesn’t make them an ignorant zealot as you seem to believe.
Now, have a blessed day.
Looks like the Christians are getting abused here. I’ll step in and say a couple words. First, as I’ve said before, I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all to think that the publicity surrounding the entry of these folks into NK has inspired greater awareness and probably greater desire for people to become engaged, make contributions, etc. to help refugees. I don’t think any butterfly discussion is needed to make the logical point. If something isn’t publicized, people can’t really know about it.
Second, all of you bashing the Christians are coming from a fundamentally different perspective. We’re all using rational arguments here, but the Christians also believe that God can work through his followers. Kushibo, you call yourself a Christian (I believe I read that), but you seem to ignore this argument. If you’re a Christian, it can’t be ignored.
Third, statements like Jon’s are an attack at all organized religion. Obviously, without “sharing” the word of different faiths, they wouldn’t spread. If someone genuinely believes that this word is necessary to obtain life, how could they not share it? Therefore, this kind of statement can be seen as a kind of a value judgment about religion in general. The absense of relgion (or even half-hearted, no sharing of a faith you supposedly believe is necessary to obtain enternal life, religion), however, is another kind of religion–putting self, society or family above all. These then become gods. So when we overthrow the Kimist religion, it will certainly be replaced with something. It’s disingenuous or very ignorant to say Christianity is “telling someone what to believe” while an anti-Kimist “self-first” message is not.
As for Jon’s attack on sharing a “foreign religion”. I also find that to be ridiculous. It’s an ancient Israeli religion originally. The variant that will likely enter N. Korea is the South Korean kind. South Korea is one of the most heavily Christian nations on the planet (and much more active per capita in missions activity than the U.S.). From what I’ve heard, Christian groups are practically the only ones who make any effort to reach out to defectors in South Korea and China, while intellectual organizations on the left pretty much refuse to acknowledge their existence. Jon, if you really care about helping the post-Kim regime North Korea turn into a non-Christian country, you should be out there giving some alternatives for those North Koreans escapees.
biff said,
Looks like the Christians are getting abused here.
——————–
Frankly, they allow themselves to be ridiculed by making fairly subjective statements, however that is entirely dissimilar to abuse as quoted above.
Good to see that Kushibo understands my point about the similarities in mindset(!) when it comes down to a retarted muslim suicide bomber and messiah driven person’ trying to liberate North Korea’. Whilst the former is a destructive act, the latter is, I agree, a subjective constructive, compassionate one.
The Spirit ( mindset, or ‘calling’) of both individuals in question is probably not too different, and both characters being delusional comes with the territory too.
Lee/Ling are still a pair opportunistic and shameless schoolgirls by the way, that point I won’t subject to moderation.
Biff is correct here:
They hazard their lives on the Sino-Korean border, spend vast amounts of their own treasure, unsubsidized by government funding, and often share the privations of the miserable North Koreans they seek to help. The New Testament calls this “true religion” (James 1:27).
Ling/Lee do not belong in the same consideration as Park/Gomes. Apples and oranges.
The North Koreans are saying that Aijalon Mahli Gomes tried to commit suicide. This may mean he’s coming home soon, but it might also mean they’ll make a lame attempt to get some sort of concession out of his release.
Oh, and it appears I forgot to answer this from KCJ:
That is a survey of refugees, the ones who have escaped North Korea. It does not and cannot accurately gauge the battle for hearts and minds of people who don’t choose to leave.