Search Results for: border

December 14, 2008

North Korea Imposes Harsher Penalties for Unauthorized Border Crossing

Although I recall hearing someone say recently that human rights would be an important part of the State Department’s negotiations with North Korea, I have yet to see any recent evidence that State’s masters of cerebellingus have applied their techniques to the task of lifting North Korea to a shallower level of hell. Somone had better tell Glyn Davies that a few more adjectives will have to be sacrificed for the cause: North Korea has imposed stiffer punishments on those...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Refugees
December 14, 2008

Chosun Ilbo Re-Runs Accounts of “On the Border” Refugees

If you haven’t seen “On the Border,” the Chosun Ilbo has re-posted the accounts of the refugees featured in the documentary: – Young-Hwa, a 19 year-old girl crossing China and Laos with her family. – Kim Soon-Ok, the young mother of a handicapped child, forced to leave him behind in China to earn money for his medical treatment and passage to South Korea. – Mun Yun-Hee, a 26 year-old woman who allowed herself to be sold to escape starvation in...

Categories Refugees
May 24, 2008

Murder, Plain and Simple: North Korean Snipers Killing Refugees Along the Chinese Border

[Updated below with photographs; Digg it here.] Helping Hands Korea, one of the most intrepid and trustworthy organizations that assists North Korean refugees escape from their repressive, famine-plagued homeland, has written to me with a detailed account of how the North Korean and Chinese militaries have joined forces to prevent North Koreans from escaping their homeland, one where large numbers are people are now starving to death once again because the government won’t feed them and won’t let them fend...

Categories Activism/Border Control/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Refugees
March 13, 2008

“On the Border”

Today, on Capitol Hill, I had a chance to see an excerpt of that Chosun Ilbo documentary on human trafficking in North Korea. As my friend had said, it does indeed depict drug smuggling. One smuggler is actually interviewed on night vision, just as he emerges from the freezing Tumen River with a load of drugs he is smuggling into China. His source? His brother, a soldier, who is pilfering from a state pharmaceutical factory in Nampo. I wasn’t able...

Categories Drugs & N Korea/Human Trafficking/Media Criticism
September 9, 2007

North Korea Is Losing Control of Its Border

[Update: Someone “Dugg” this post –thanks — and it’s climbing fast. The digg permlink is here. Page one of “Digg” gets far more attention than just about anything out there, so your diggs are greatly appreciated and are a great way to spread the word. Thank you.] Last week, North Korea announced that several “spies,” possibly including a foreign national, had been caught.  The Daily NK informs us that North Korea’s National Security has claimed credit for the arrests.  The...

Categories Deprogramming/Inside NK/NK Military
February 14, 2007

Japanese TV Interviews Two of the North Korean Border Guards Who Deserted at Hoeryong

A remarkable new report, with video, strongly corroborates recent reports that 20  North Korean border guards defected, en masse, and fled into China.  On the 12th, Japan’s Asahi TV interviewed two North Korean border guards who successfully defected from North Korea to a neighboring village in China. On the 4th, the DailyNK reported that 1 platoon of border guards from the district of Hoiryeong had defected to China, and that secret agents had been sent to China in search of...

Categories Google Earth/Inside NK/NK Military
February 12, 2007

N. Korea Still Hasn’t Caught Border Guards Who Deserted

You will recall that 20 of them dropped their weapons,  deserted,  and crossed over to China.  It looks like they’ve been successful in evading capture so far: A North Korean source from the district of Onsung said on the 8th “20 or so people who looked like secret agents formed a group at Sambong Customs. These people and a soldier which looked like their captain had received orders and were preparing to cross over to China. He said “It seems...

Categories China & Korea/Google Earth/NK Military
February 5, 2007

Disciplinary Erosion Hits N. Korean Border Guards

The Daily NK reports that two border guards were caught taking money to allow refugees to cross the border and will be executed.  Although the state can’t decide whether to hang or shoot the two unfortunates, or how to schedule it around the Dear Leader’s birthday,  past history suggests that  the deed  will be carried out publicly to make an example of the men.  Consider the  example set.  Of the two reported consequences, only one seems to have been intended: ...

Categories Inside NK/NK Military/Refugees
September 8, 2006

Six More North Korean Refugees Caught at the Laos-Thailand Border

The refugees, including one child, were arrested on September 2nd at the village of Sri Chiangmai in the Nong Khai region of Northeastern Thailand, along with Kim Hee Tae, a South Korean humanitarian aid worker. Mr. Kim was able to make bail by paying a large amount of money to the authorities; the refugees remain jailed in Nong Khai. Norbert Vollertsen is with them, and provided the details for this post. The timing is fortuitous, with the new E.U. Resolution...

Categories Refugees/Southeast Asia
February 8, 2006

Update on the Border Post Attack Story; When Resistance Does Occur, What Should Our Policy Be?

The partially defector-run Daily NK takes note of the reported border attacks and interviews the person I was most interested in hearing from: Lim Chun-Young, the former NK Special Forces soldier of whose words I was reminded by Tuesday’s Donga Ilbo report. It also has this great graphic, but nothing to confirm that any attacks actually took place. The Daily NK, which has contacts and reporters in that area, found no one who could verify the attacks, or that any...

Categories Uncategorized
February 7, 2006

‘Organized’ Groups Attack N. Korean Border Posts

[Post moved up] OFK, Jan. 20, ’05: “Down with Kim Jong-il! Let’s all rise to drive out the dictatorial regime!” OFK, Dec. 12, ’05: The North Korean Revolution, Coming Soon to a Border Post Near You. Donga Ilbo, Feb. 7 ’06: North Korean Border Posts Attacked Did I just feel the earth twitch? Unidentified armed men carried out a series of attacks on North Korean border guards along the country’s border with China right before the lunar New Year, according...

Categories Uncategorized
January 4, 2006

Daily NK: Regime’s Control Breaking Down Near Chinese Border; First Possible Signs of Famine Emerge

There are two interesting new reports in the Daily NK, both based on clandestine interviews with a small number of North Koreans. The obvious cautions apply. -I- First, an interview of a resident of Chongjin, in the far northeast: The security agents say that they no longer arrest blasphemers. They even say that they will enforce laws on the basis of scientific evidences. (Blasphemers refer to those who blaspheme the system of the Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il...

Categories Uncategorized
December 12, 2005

The North Korean Revolution: Coming Soon to a Border Post Near You

I’ve been expecting to hear of the formation of armed anti-government resistance groups in North Korea for some time, so it doesn’t come as a great surprise to me that some of North Korea’s vaunted Special Forces troops are now threatening to turn their guns against their former masters: Nine former North Korean special forces soldiers who defected to the South vowed Wednesday to push for regime change in their communist homeland unless it abolishes political prison camps and improves...

Categories Uncategorized
March 13, 2005

North Korea Tries to Crush Dissent Along Its Borders

Chosun Ilbo correspondent Kang Chol-Hwan has a disturbing new report on a North Korean crackdown on dissent and efforts to destroy evidence of the regime’s atrocities. Kang himself is a survivor of North Korea’s Yodok labor camp district, a complex of camps that covers a vast, remote area of northeaster North Korea. Kang was sent to Yodok while still in elementary school because of a political transgression by his grandfather. You can read the full story in his autobiography. The...

Categories Uncategorized