by Grace Warwick
 
Just a few weeks ago on May 10, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived at Joint Base Andrews accompanied by the three Americans who were being held by North Korea. The freeing of these three men is not something to be overlooked, as it is a definite win for human rights, as well as a win for these men and their families. Many people had speculated the detainees would be freed as the result of the U.S.-North Korea summit. However, this step has already been completed leading up to the summit. Given this step forward and other previous moves by the Trump administration to highlight the human rights situation in North Korea, this poses the question–what is next for North Korean human rights? Specifically, what should be pursued in human rights during the U.S.-North Korea summit, or any other negotiations and dialogue the two countries partake in?

The dialogue going on with North Korea is an opportunity for the Trump administration to bring up the fundamental issues in North Korea’s human rights landscape. The Trump administration has had human rights on its North Korea agenda for quite some time now. Some examples include the President’s speech to the South Korean National Assembly late last year, the State of the Union address earlier this year, the SOTU invitation to Otto Warmbier’s family and North Korean escapee Ji Seong-ho, the invitation of eight escapees to the White House, and Vice President Pence’s meeting with a group of North Korean escapees on the sidelines of the Pyongchang Winter Olympics. These are just a few examples of how the current administration has shined a light on the deep, dark issues that North Korea works so vigorously to conceal. The U.S. is negotiating and talking with the North Korean regime openly to prepare for the upcoming summit and other future negotiations. Now is the time for human rights workers, North Korean escapees, and citizens to encourage the administration to continue pushing for human rights as this dialogue with North Korea takes place, and as the June 12th summit approaches. Each of these encounters is another opportunity for human rights to be brought up in the early stages of negotiations.

In order to make some progress in transforming the systematic violations that North Korea carries out, the Trump administration needs to address the core problems in North Korea’s human rights. A few of these would be: political prison camps, guilt by association, inminban (neighborhood watch system), and other forms of surveillance and control. North Korea’s intensive style of surveillance is the heart from where the other human rights issues stem. The stability and survival of the regime rests on Kim Jong-un’s ability to inflict fear upon his people, keeping them loyal for fear of the horrific consequences. In no way is North Korea close to being a normal state or a part of the international community so long as it maintains its fear driven tactics. North Korea uses its nuclear weapons to fill the international community with fear–a leverage tool. Simultaneously, extreme punishment, torture, imprisonment, and execution is the fear North Korea uses to control its own people. Kim Jong-un is playing the same game of fear using different tools at the international and domestic levels. Therefore, a completely normalized, safe, and peaceful North Korea worthy of regular international status and relations is a North Korea that can no longer use fear to threaten its own people and the world.

If complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization comes to be, North Korea will likely get economic rewards or relief for following through. This will begin the process of North Korea becoming a normalized state. However, as more North Koreans take risks to escape due to a perceived “openness,” or pursue capitalism and other ideas contradictory to the North Korean system, we can expect that North Korea will crack down more on its citizens, ultimately leading to potentially even worse human rights violations than the current time. This is why the U.S.-North Korea negotiations and summit provide an opportunity to make Kim Jong-un know that we are aware of his systematic and widespread violations, and that we will hold him accountable.

The U.S. and the international community cannot sit idly by and allow a North Korean state where as the economic state begins to prosper, human rights stay stagnant, or even worsen. We also should not settle for a North Korean state that becomes economically sufficient, yet citizens are silenced and accept a controlled life simply because they are provided with basic needs to survive. North Koreans deserve the most basic and the full range of human rights. If we only focus on denuclearization and the economy as part of North Korea becoming a normalized state, it will get more difficult to bring up human rights and shine a light on these issues.

While Kim Jong-un claims that releasing the American detainees was a “good-will gesture,” we cannot assume that a few “friendly” or open actions by Kim Jong-un mean that he has had an epiphany. After all, the three Americans should not have been detained in the first place. The Kim family regime lacks international credibility especially because of its mistreatment of the people of North Korea. Therefore, from here on out, the U.S. must continue a pursuit of North Korean human rights that reaches into the darkest depths of the regime, making a pathway for a free North Korean society, as well as a truly normalized North Korean state. 

The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) was the first organization to combine satellite imagery and escapee testimony to report on North Korea’s vast system of unlawful imprisonment, in the first Hidden Gulag report by David Hawk, published in 2003. HRNK has continued to use satellite imagery in its investigation and monitoring of North Korea’s political prison camps, most recently through a partnership with Colorado-based satellite imagery company AllSource Analysis (ASA).

Now it appears that HRNK’s satellite imagery-based reporting has become so well-known that it is being used by conspiracy theorists keen on concocting bizarre stories. It seems that satellite images from HRNK’s Hidden Gulag reports were used as “evidence” to “prove” that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been secretly building… concentration camps in America (!). Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) published an article stating that James Meigs, then editor-in-chief of Popular Mechanics, noticed the images used by conspiracy theorists were actual images of forced-labor and political prison camps in North Korea.[1] The article reports that “the images, according to Popular Mechanics, were taken from a Washington D.C.-based human rights group’s report exposing North Korea’s hidden prison camps.”[2] The image is on page 118 of The Hidden Gulag. The image has absolutely nothing to do with the imaginary “FEMA camps.” It is actually an image of Kyo-hwa-so (Political Prison Camp) No.1 in Kaechon.

Conspiracy theorists further claimed that “there is a minimum of one confirmed concentration camp built on American soil in rural Wyoming.” They stated that such pictures were “accidentally released by the Department of Homeland security.” The fact is that these images were simply taken from The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps. Though the images were slightly altered, they were initially published by the US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea to raise awareness of North Korea’s gulags.[3] An estimated 400,000 people have died in North Korea’s political prison camp system since its establishment in the 1950s. Currently, there are 120,000 prisoners held inside the camps, in some instances members of three generations of the same family, detained together pursuant to yeon-jwa-je, a system of guilt-by-association inspired by feudal practices.
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Greg Scarlatoiu, HRNK’s executive director said: “In a strange kind of way, the misuse of our satellite imagery by conspiracy theorists is troubling, but at the same time testament to the quality, breadth and depth of our public information campaigns. By the time your work has become the stuff of conspiracy theories, you know you must be doing something right…” Scarlatoiu further added: “In recent months, we have seen bizarre claims by self-proclaimed ‘Korea watchers,’ who have placed HRNK at the center of ‘conspiracy theories’ ranging from goofy to loopy. Individuals who seem to have become mentally unhinged went as far as to claim that the DMZ landmines that maimed two South Korean servicemen in early August were planted not by the Korean People’s Army, but by… human rights groups keen on regime change…”

By HRNK Intern Suhwan (Alma) Seo


[1] Mark Potok & Don Terry, “Margins to Mainstream,” Southern Poverty Law Center, October 27, 2015, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2015/margins-mainstream.

[2] Link to the Popular Mechanics article: http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a12805/4312850/.

[3] Additional images taken from HRNK’s reports on North Korea’s prison camps were altered and used to show “evidence” of camps in Wyoming: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_FEMA02.htm. These images depict the following prison camps in North Korea: 1) Kyo-hwa-so No. 1 Kaechon (p. 118 of Hidden Gulag); 2) Kwan-li-so No.22 Haengyong (p.114 of Hidden Gulag); 3) Kwan-li-so No. 18 Bukchang (p. 103 of Hidden Gulag); and 4) South Sinuiju Detention Center (p. 119 of Hidden Gulag).