Former Prisoner in North Korean Prison Camp Tells Horror Stories:

[ThePopulist]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051122/ap_on_re_as/nkorea_prison_camps

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SEOUL, South Korea - A former North Korean political prisoner Tuesday offered grim details of life in a communist regime prison camp, saying he saw many inmates die from overwork and starvation.

The ex-inmate, who survived the prison camp at Yodok, about 70 miles northwest of Pyongyang, said a former defector was beaten to death for having contacted Christian representatives in China, he said.

"Most people died of malnutrition and its complications," said the inmate, who used the pseudonym Kim Chol-soo to protect relatives in the North from retaliation. Wearing a dark hat and hospital mask to hide his face, Kim told a news conference that prisoners received a starvation ration of 21 ounces of food a day.

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[bemildred]

1. Dunno what to say here.

On the one hand, I don't doubt that N. Korea sucks.
On the other hand, this stinks of propaganda.

[pinniped]

2. They are setting the stage to 'liberate' all those starving North Koreans.

.

[bemildred]

4. I think it's knee-jerk propagandizing.

Liberating N. Korea would be an ugly and unrewarding enterprise.

[amber dog democrat]

10. But we'd get the USS PUEBLO back.

finally after all those years.

That would stand for something... but of course it would be immediately sunk as a target or stricken and scrapped.

I don't see us invading the Democratic People's Republic of Korea either.

What would be the point?

[Daphne08]

20. Yes, it would. n/t

[nodehopper]

21. so an ex-prisoner speaking is necessarily propaganda?

I really hate it when the left dismisses claims of North Korea being an awful dictatorship as propaganda, that reminds me of idiocies like Chomsky saying that the Khmer Rouge were just peachy.

If anyone in the world needs to be liberated, it's probably North Koreans. The UN needs to remove Kim Jong Il.

[bemildred]

26. No.

An anonymous source claimed to be an ex-prisoner could be propaganda.
It's called critical thinking, you should try it.

[nodehopper]

27. he did not say anything other escapees from NK didn't say

and I didn't attack you personally.

[bemildred]

29. You inferred something I did not say.

I apologize if you feel attacked. I become annoyed when people put words in my mouth, but I must admit here that I may have been wrong.
Please see post #25 if you want to understand my position.
:hi:

[nodehopper]

31. thanks for clarifying!

[bemildred]

32. My pleasure. nt

[MnFats]

34. Chomsky digs Khmer Rouge? Source?

not dismissing it but i have not heard this.

[bemildred]

35. The dispute is real.

Here is a commentary with some quotes:

When Chomsky and his writing partner Edward Herman were charged with apologetics on behalf of the Khmer Rouge, whose assault on the people of Cambodia attained near-genocidal proportions, the attack had as much merit as it did in the Faurisson case. While poor judgment may explain the error in the first instance, Chomsky and Herman's scholarship on the events in Cambodia were simply not acceptable to established wisdom in left-liberal circles. Their sin was to compare the relative indifference to the slaughter in East Timor to that in Cambodia, just as it was more recently in comparing the September 11th attacks to the Khartoum bombing. A statement such as this, contained in "The Political Economy of Human Rights," was unacceptable:

In the case of Cambodia reported atrocities have not only been eagerly seized upon by the Western media but also embellished by substantial fabrications--which, interestingly, persist even long after they are exposed. The case of Timor is radically different. The media have shown no interest in examining the atrocities of the Indonesian invaders, though even in absolute numbers these are on the same scale as those reported by sources of comparable credibility concerning Cambodia, and relative to population, are many times as great.

Furthermore, Chomsky and Herman had the temerity to question the casualty statistics in Francois Ponchaud's "Année Zéro," a book that had a major impact on the Western intelligentsia in the mid-1970s, particularly through a review of it by Jean Lacouture that appeared in the New York Review of Books, a journal that has been responsible for demonizing one enemy of US imperialism after another for over three decades. While not questioning the cruelty of the Khmer Rouge, Chomsky observed that Lacouture had inflated Ponchaud's estimates of civilian casualties to the tune of two million. In a correction published subsequently in the NY Review, Lacouture withdrew his claim and confessed that he "should have checked more accurately the figures on victims, figures deriving from sources that are, moreover, questionable." In "Chomsky's Politics," Milan Rai observes that the two million figure--despite the correction--became part of official history.

http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/fascism_and_war/chomsky.htm

[nodehopper]

39. I don't think you presented information accurately

you cite Chomsky correctly but you don't mention the problems of the context in which these assertions about the media portrayal of cambodia was made. And his point wasn't merely that there are other genocides that go unpublicized. At least throughout the 1970s he really did write of the KR as a progressive people's movement with a mission of liberation.

There is an informative article here. It has a lot of context and many sources.

http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/chomsky.htm

[bemildred]

40. I didn't write that.

If you disagree with the writer(s) of the link(s) I posted fine, state your case, but don't attribute it to me. I stated no position on the subject. I just offered a couple links on the subject that I googled up.

[nodehopper]

43. oh ok. They are one-sided, then.

If you are at all interested in the debate, you may find the links in the article I linked to interesting.

hope you had a good thanksgiving!

:toast:

[bemildred]

45. I am familiar about the arguments about Mr. Chomsky.

I have read a good deal on the subject. I am not much interested in them though.

He is like most writers in that one must separate the wheat from the chaff, but the passion of the disputes over his writings gets out of all proportion to the magnitude of his errors and the importance of what he said. This seems to be because he comments on highly charged political issues on which people (on both sides of the debate) have positions held with dogmatic fervor. I simply find it tedious.

[bemildred]

36. Some more Chomsky on Pol Pot etc.:

In accord with the same principles, it is natural that vast outrage should be evoked by the terror of the Pol Pot regime, while reporters in Phnom Penh in 1973, when the U.S. bombing of populated areas of rural Cambodia had reached its peak, should ignore the testimony of the hundreds of thousands of refugees before their eyes. Such selective perception guarantees that little is known about the scale and character of these U.S. atrocities, though enough to indicate that they may have been comparable to those attributable to the Khmer Rouge at the time when the chorus of indignation swept the West in 1977, and that they contributed significantly to the rise, and probably the brutality, of the Khmer Rouge.

These achievements of "historical engineering" allow the editors of the New York Times to observe that "when America's eyes turned away from Indochina in 1975, Cambodia's misery had just begun,'' with "the infamous barbarities of the Khmer Rouge, then dreary occupation by Vietnam" (incidentally, expelling the Khmer Rouge). "After long indifference," they continue, "Washington can play an important role as honest broker" and "heal a long-ignored wound in Cambodia." The misery began in 1975, not before, under "America's eyes," and the editors do not remind us that during the period of "indifference" Washington offered indirect support to the Khmer Rouge while backing the coalition in which it was the major element because of its "continuity" with the Pol Pot regime.

U.S. relations with the Khmer Rouge require some careful maneuvering. The Khmer Rouge were, and remain, utterly evil insofar as they can be associated with the Communist threat, perhaps because of their origins in Jean-Paul Sartre's left-wing Paris circles. Even more evil, evidently, are the Vietnamese, who finally reacted to brutal and murderous border incidents by invading Cambodia and driving out the Khmer Rouge, terminating their slaughters. We therefore must back our Thai and Chinese allies who support Pol Pot. All of this requires commentators to step warily. The New York Times reports the "reluctance in Washington to push too hard" to pressure China to end its support for Pol Pot-with the goal of bleeding Vietnam, as our Chinese allies have forthrightly explained. The Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs rejected a congressional plea to call for a cutoff of aid to Pol Pot because the situation was "delicate." U.S. pressure on China "might irritate relations unnecessarily," the Times explained, and this consideration overcomes our passionate concern over the fate of Cambodians exposed to Khmer Rouge terror. The press explains further that while naturally the United States is "one of the nations most concerned about a Khmer Rouge return," nevertheless "the US and its allies have decided that without some sign of compromise by Vietnam toward a political settlement Eon U.S. terms], the Khmer Rouge forces must be allowed to serve as military pressure on Vietnam, despite their past"-and despite what the population may think about "a Khmer Rouge return."

---

p113
If the enemies of democracy are not "Communists," then they are "terrorists"; still better, "Communist terrorists," or terrorists supported by International Communism. The rise and decline of international terrorism in the 1980s provides much insight into "the utility of interpretations."

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/Necessary_Illusions.html

[nodehopper]

38. In the 1970s Chomsky wrote some really questionable stuff

about the KR.

Now, I love and admire the man, but I think the things he wrote about Cambodia show glitches where his ideology trumps his fairness and critical thought. In his introduction to Caldwell's book he wrote (correctly) about the travesties of American military "intervientions" in Cambodia and concluded that "By the impulse it has given to the revolutionary forces, this vicious attack may have also prepared the ground, as some observers believe, not only for national liberation but also for a new era of economic development and social justice."By 1972 there were enough disturbing reports coming out of Cambodia about the KR that for one of the most intelligent men of the century to write about them as "liberators" shows his ideology and romanticization of the KR movement. Caldwell, the author of the book the intro was written for, was a hardcore Marxist and failed to mention anything about the KR brutality.

As soon as the KR took over and Cambodia became "Kampuchia" the Zero Year started and so did the bloodshed. Members of the press trapped in the French embassy witnessed the giant massacre that was Phnom Pehn, as it was being evacuated as the first stage of the total re-agrarization of the country. A lot of this was documented in Francois Ponchaud's book "Cambodia Year Zero" published in 1977.

Chomsky argued that the media reportage of teh events was a farce adn wrote op-eds that were based in books like Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution, by George Hildebrand and Gareth Porter, which did not have a single sentence critical of the Khmere Rouge and consisted of ideologically motivated revisionist-history assertions such as: "The evacuation of Phnom Penh undoubtedly saved the lives of many thousands of Cambodians... what was portrayed as a destructive, backward-looking policy motivated by doctrinaire hatred was actually a rationally conceived strategy for dealing with the urgent problems that faced postwar Cambodia."

There is an article with a lot of information and sources here:
http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/chomsky.htm

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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[pinniped]

7. You're right, NK doesn't really have any spoils to pilfer.

.

[Name removed]

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[RaleighNCDUer]

3. When and where was this news conference?

Obviously not in N. Korea. How did he get out of N. Korea? I can't believe that N. Korea would just let him go. But then, how did he escape? Wouldn't former political prisoners be watched very closely?

There is no reason to believe that such stories from a brutal dictatorship are not true, but this sounds a little too propaganda-ish to me.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. Well, North Koreans have been sneaking into China and

trying to get asylum in foreign embassies and consulates there.

Only a river separates the two countries, and that part of China has had an ethnic Korean population for centuries, so the would-be refugees try to blend in with the locals.

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. Still, from everything I've heard, they would keep too close an

eye on a former political prisoner for him to get a chance to escape. Sounds like S. Korean or US propaganda, to me. Gotta keep us hating them, ya know.

Same sort of thing goes on in 30 other countries, and we don't hear a thing, especially if they are friendly to us.

True or not, it stinks.

[Karmakaze]

8. How recently was he imprisoned?

Because this man:



doesnt look like he has been on a starvation diet any time recently.

[nodehopper]

22. what are you implying?

[NYC Liberal]

37. Yeah well, some of these people don't look too bad either:

So what's your point?

[bluedawg12]

9. NK is a hell hole but neocons don't care.

So we toppled asshat and left the little troll in place.

Anyone see the CNN videos smuggled out of NK showing public exacutions?

[Name removed]

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[daleo]

28. Do you believe these church stories?

Because that story sounds like a Christian variety of an urban legend to me.

[nodehopper]

33. It might sound that way because it is so terribile

But things like that aren't unusual in "communist" (even when the reality has nothing to do with "communism") dictatorships, and I've read similar stories in literature on North Korea, except in those cases people were buried alive in the ground, rather than covered by cement. They have a very specific state-sanctioned version of "religion" which is essentially Cult of Personality, and they really don't tolerate deviance well! I mean, people who have radios have them sautered in such a way that they can only listen to one station and there are house checks to monitor that they haven't taken them apart to change the channel.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

44. Sounds like a light version of the Spanish Inquisition......

...that was implemented by good, God-fearing people, doesn't it?

The Church didn't tolerate different thinking either.

[Endangered Specie]

13. I cannot believe people here would think he is lying...

Everyone who escapes from North Korea (leaving is a capital crime) will tell you the same thing. That and the satellite photos will show you political prison camps that might even humble Josef Stalin.


North Korea is one of the worst places to live in the history of this planet.

There is extensive reading on this subject, here are some I recommend:

http://www.freenorthkorea.net/ (temporarily closed)
http://1stopkorea.com/index.htm?nk-trip1.htm~mainframe (long essay about this guys trip into Korea)
http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/champion/65/lankov.htm (many essays, translated from Russian)
http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/prk-summary-eng

[Name removed]

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[tx_dem41]

16. It's real simple, ES....to many "the enemy (N. Korea) of my enemy..

(Bush) is my friend (or at least someone to give a pass to)".

This thinking demonstrates a startling sense of naivete and a strong lack of principles. Politics is a game where power is to be won and your opponents are to be crushed, even if that means making a pact with the devil.

[nodehopper]

24. anyone who thinks that should go live in North Korea

or under Mugabe or any other regime they naively and self-servingly dismiss as painted worse than it is as "propaganda."

[bemildred]

17. Oh, yeah, I've read the stories, in places I give credence to.

I'm not trying to support Kim or N. Korea, in any form.

But this guy is an anonymous source, his credibility is the
credibility of AP, and I don't have much faith in AP. We see
stuff just like this coming out of Washington all the time, and
a lot of it is lies.

[Endangered Specie]

18. back in the day

they also once thought the concentration camps were lies, propoganda and overstatements...

Dont underestimate the ability of humans to effeciently torture and kill in mass numbers.

and I still fail to see why people would lie about such things.

[pelsar]

19. the problem comes after acceptance...

once its accepted that N.Korea is probably one of the worst facist regimes on the planet....then what?

does one sit back and do nothing?...invade? .....

for some, its hard to accept the regimes "excesses" because then a decision has to be made, even if its to "do nothing"...that too is a decision based on importence and the acceptance of political realities.

[bemildred]

25. It's called critical thinking.

It has nothing to do with whether the reports are true, and everything to do with the credibility of the source. I don't like tales told by anonymous sources. You seem to think I'm just supposed to accept this because you like the content about how bad N. Korea is. So basically anybody that says something you like must be telling the truth and anybody who says something you dislike is a liar. I can see that it doesn't matter how many times I say that I don't doubt that N. Korea is a badly run despotism, you will continue to think I am defending it.

[nodehopper]

23. Sadly

sometimes the left gets so wrapped up in thinking that anything bad about any "communist"/enemy of the US regime is just propaganda that the Chomsky/Khmere Rouge syndrome happens. Cuba is PARADISE! North Korea isn't that bad! People who fled the Khmer Rouge and spoke out were just too bourgois to get with the program! Mugabe is AWESOME.

Grrrrrrr.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

41. After all the lies you've been told about virtually everything.....

...by the NeoCon Junta, I'm surprised you're willing to take this NK story at face value.

Do you want another Iraq? Don't you see any parallels between the pre-war propaganda before Desert Storm (babies pulled out of incubators), and before the latest invasion of Iraq?

Do you see any similarities between the propaganda the NeoCons have generated about Syria, Iran, and North Korea? How about the rhetoric aimed at China?

While you're at it, tell us what the reasons were for invading and occupying the entire country of Afghanistan. Seems to me that our primary argument was with Al Qaeda, not with the Taliban. In fact, the the government of the Taliban was roughly eqivalent to Saddam's government, except for the fact that Iraq was fairly well modernized and didn't beat women publicly.

Tell us what you think you know about our reasons for entering the Spanish-American War, WWII, and Vietnam. I gurantee you that if you do any research at all, you will find a ton of propaganda villanizing each of our primary opponents in those wars. Sound familiar?

[chenGOD]

30. Although North Korean prisons are undoubtedly bad places...

and the North Korean regime is one of the worst that this planet has seen yet, the US should really clean up its own prison system before commenting on others.

Prison population: http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aaprisonpop.htm

Life sentences statistics:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/may2004/pris-m26.shtml

Compared to other countries:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Prison_System/Bad_Company.html

[Media_Lies_Daily]

42. Bingo.