Transcripts For CSPAN Perspectives On North Korea 20171231

Former official at the north Korean Embassy in london who defected with his family in 2016. This hearing took place in early november. Thae distinguished members of the House Committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. First, im glad to express my sincere gratitude to chairman royce, who kept his promise to accommodate my wishes to visit the United States and gave me this opportunity to testify before the House Committee on foreign affairs. As you are all aware, i worked at the front line of north korean diplomacy until i defected to south korea in summer of 2016. But my story is quite different from other defectors who may have experienced political oppression, Inhumane Treatment in prison camps, or to avoid hunger and other difficulties. I would like to tell you about my life as a north korean diplomat. Why i defected to the free world. Why kim jongun is developing a program and how best to deal with the north korean regime. I went through causes in north korea, which cannot be dreamed by ordinary citizens there. At the age of 14, i was sent to china for a special educational program. More than 20 years of my past 55 years of my life was very privileged by north korean standards. I lived and worked in Foreign Countries such as china, denmark, sweden, and the united kingdom. The north korean system provided me with all kinds of political privileges and economic benefits during this time and in the course of my last posting, i was fortunate enough to live in the u. K. With my wife and two sons. Throughout my life, my family members and relatives were all dedicated communists. Ironically, however, i ended up deserting that system and ideology and i am living in south korea where i did not have any friends or relatives. Today, i am even testifying at the United States congress, which i had always been taught to fight against. The reason why i gave up all the privileges and economic benefits was that i felt i could not let my sons lead a life like me as a modernday slave. I believed the best legacy i could leave for my sons was to give them the freedom that is so common to everyone in america. Had we not defected, i feared that some day my sons would have cursed me for forcing them back to north korea. They were used to online gaming, facebook messaging, email, and internet news. I believe my sons would suffer a lot if they returned to the north korean system. Indeed, how could any boys raised in the london Education System and familiar with freedom of thought ever go back and reclimatize to a life in north korea . I could not confiscate freedom or enjoyment of liberty from them. I could not take back the happy smiles of my sons by bringing them back to north korea. I could not force my sons to pretend to be loyal to kim jongun and the north korean system and to shout, long live kim jongun like i did all my life. As a north korean diplomat, every day services were like leading a sleeveless double life, which was psychologically difficult. I have to pretend to be loyal to the kim jongun regime even though my heart did not agree. I often was asked questions on my british friends which caught me flatfooted, trying to justify the north korean system went deep down i knew there concerns were fair and legitimate. They asked me things such as, how could he his uncle . White did north korea continue to appeal for military aid while pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into nuclear and Missile Development . Communism has always opposed dynastic transfer of power, so how does kims families prevailed so long in north korea . While dealing with these kinds of questions was always painful and they made me increasingly realize the deep rooted contradictions upon which the entire north korean system is built. You might think that leaving a member as an elite class of north korea is all about fine wines. Yet the reality for many privileged people is far different. For example, all highranking leaders have to live in separate apartments according to write. Moreover, getting promoted within this system actually requires more sacrifices, reduced freedoms, and an increasing risk on your life. Even though you might enjoy more economic benefits as a result. Indeed, if it is discovered a senior elite may have different ideas or express private dissatisfaction, then he or she could be subject to execution. Even the members of the kims family has been subject to this type of persecution, such was the case with kim jonguns uncle and halfbrother. Beyond this high profile instance, much more has been going on beneath the surface of the past five years. Hundreds of casualties have been persecuted without due process. For example, families of former north Korean Ambassadors to cuba and malaysia were sent to prison camps and nobody knows if they are alive or dead. Former north Korean Ambassador of sweden and the former north Korean Ambassador to unesco were also forced to return back to pyongyang and expelled from the foreign ministry. While on the surface, the kim jongun regime seems to have consolidated its power through its reign of terror, simultaneously there are great and unexpected changes taking place within north korea. Contrary to the official policy and wish of the regime, the free markets are flourishing. As more and more people get used to free and capitalist style markets, the state owned socialist Economic System becomes increasingly forgotten about. The welfare system of north korea has long collapsed and millions of civil servants, army officers, and Security Forces are dependent on bribes and state asset embezzlement for their survival. Citizens do not care about propaganda, but increasingly watch illegally imported south korean movies and dramas. The domestic system of control is weakening as the days go by. Back in 2010, many experts said it would have been possible to imagine such similar events taking place in north korea. These changes however, make it increasingly possible to think about an uprising in north korea. As more and more people gradually become informed about the reality of their Living Conditions, the north korean government will either have to change and adapt in positive ways for its citizens, or to face the consequences of their escalating dissatisfaction. Until now, the north korean a system has prevailed through an effective and credible reign in an of terror and by almost perfectly preventing the free flow of outside information. Today, kim jongun thinks that only Nuclear Weapons and icbms can help him avert the continuing disintegration of the will north korean system. He also thinks that the existence of prosperous and democratic south korea so close to the border is a major threat will to the border is a major threat to his dynasty. Will while kim jongun has the will will tools to destroy south korea effectively, he also believes it is necessary to drive American Forces out of the peninsula. And this can be done, he believes, by being able to credibly threaten the continental United States with Nuclear Weapons. On top of thousands of artillery pieces and short range missiles, the potential deployment of Nuclear Icbms means the threat is not only towards south korea, but also towards america. In face of this emerging situation, the u. S. Government is now pursuing a policy of maximum pressure and engagement. However, it will take some time to assess the effectiveness of the current economic sanctions and campaign of diplomatic isolation. As we wait to see the outcome, we should seek to continue the momentum and even expand sanctions until the north korean regime comes to the dialogue table for denuclearization. In face of the emerging threat, we should strengthen the u. S. And republic of Korea Alliance and enhance military preparedness in order to prevent potential nuclear and icbm provocations by north korea. The u. S. And republic of korea governments should enhance the level of their coordination and communication under the slogan of, we go together. It is a long established dialogue of north korea to exclude south korea while communicating only with the u. S. The United States and south korean government should frustrate this north korea footbridge through strong coordination. Frankly, kim jongun is not fully aware of the strength and might of American Military power. Because of this misunderstanding, kim jongun genuinely believes that he can break the regime apart once he compels washington to accept north koreas new status after successfully completing the development of his icbm program and putting the new missiles into development. Some people do not believe in soft power, but only in military options. But it is necessary to reconsider whether we have tried all nonmilitary options before we decide that military action against north korea is all that is left. Before any military action is taken, i think it is necessary to meet kim jongun at least once to understand his thinking and try to convince him that he would be destroyed if he continues his falling current direction. If we cannot change the policy of terror of the kim jongun regime, but we can educate north korean population to stand up by disseminating outside information. However, if the United States is not doing enough in this regard, the u. S. Spending billions of dollars to cope with the military threat and how much does the u. S. Spent each year on information activities involving north korea in the year . Unfortunately, it may be a tiny fraction. Yet we might not know that the soviet union and Eastern European countries crumbled as a result of dissemination of outside information and the subsequent changes in thinking caused among people in those systems. Indeed, the berlin wall would not have easily collapsed if east german people did not regularly watch west german tv. To sum up, much more needs to be done to increase the flows of information into north korea. German reunification could not have been achieved if hungarian government did not open its border with austria to provide an exit route for the east german people. Now, some 30,000 north korean defectives have come to south korea. In china however, tens of thousands of north korean defectors are living without papers under the shadows and are being physically or sexually exploited. While the u. S. Continues urging china and russia to support more economic sanctions, it should also do more to stop beijing from repatriating defectors back to north korea. The world was united to abolish the South African apartheid, now it is time for the world to stop the widespread and systematic Human Rights Violations in north korea, which are tantamount to the crimes committed by the nazis. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my opening statement. Thank you again for this opportunity and i look forward to your questions. Thank you very much, mr. Thae. You make clear in your remarks that as more and more people gradually become informed about the reality of their Living Conditions in what they are told is a paradise, but they find out how people are living in south korea or the rest of the world, that the north korean government will either have to change and adapt in positive ways for its citizens, or to face the consequences of the peoples escalating dissatisfaction. As you said, it has been a powerful impact in the soviet union and can have the same effect in north korea. My question is, what kind of messages should we focus on sending into north korea . Who are the best . Is it former defectives who have a story to tell who can report the news of what they have seen in the outside world . And should our message, as you said, the elites, should our message to the elites be different than the message we would help people send to the Common People in north korea . You have made clear that both are increasingly dissatisfied the regime, so what would be your suggestion . Mr. Thae firsn system can only be embraced by leader as a god. So, we have to find out where is the hill . Jongun, after five years in power, can still not tell the north Korean People his date of birth. Nobody in north korea knows who his father is. Nobody in north korea knows his halfbrother. Nobody in north korea knows he is the only third son of kim jongun, kim jongil. Now kim jongun is brainwashing the north korean population that the only bloodline. After five years of this kind of continuing brainwashing, he still cannot provide north korean population with a single photo with his grandfather kim ilsung. Why . Because he was the hidden boy by his father. He was kept secretly and silently in switzerland. But majority of north korean population do not know this fact. So we should disseminate this information about who he is, why even now kim jongun cannot present even a single photo with his grandfather, because his grandfather didnt know the existence of this boy. The majority of north Korean People do not know that his father kim jongil has several ladies to live with. So we should tell north Korean People that kim jongun and his father, kim jongil, and his grandfather, kim ilsung, the whole members of that kim dynasty that is the first thing that we should do. And we should disseminate the basic concept of freedom and human rights. North korea is a country with a system of classification. The population of north korea are divided to different classes and we have to tell the north population how stupid the system it is. It is similar like a feudal class system of several hundred years ago. So we have many things to tell to north Korean People that it is not a paradise, it is not a socialist welfare system, it is inhumann human system in human history. In terms of our dialogue with beijing, what should we be pressing beijing on in respect to north korea . Mr. Thae i think we should continue the momentum to inducing Chinese Government to support economic sanctions against north korea, but that is not enough. We should ask the Chinese Government not to repatriate defectors back to north korea. Chinese government knows once these defectors are repatriated back to north korea, they would be the subject of torture, they would be the subject of an enforcement of labor. So we should let Chinese Government open the route to south korea for all the hiding north korean defectors in china. I mentioned a little bit about the cooperation between the west German Government and the hunt area and government hungrarian government during the process of german reunification. Government, if the north korean defectors could go freely to south korea, i think that could happen a massive exodus of north korean population to china through their borders with china. To south korea through china . Mr. Trae yes, thats right. If chinese open their routes to south korea, north korean system would collapse in a very short span of time. Thank you. We go now to mr. Eliot engel, our ranking member. Your comments are very riveting, very important to give us insight. When i was there, kim jongil was the dear leader and his father was referred to as the great leader. Im wondering if kim jongun has a similar title you walk into every room, there were pictures of the two of them on the wall. There was something very scary. Is that still the case with kim jongun . Mr. Thae of course, and kim jongun even upgraded his Propaganda Campaign to make him as a god of north Korean People. Rep. Engel thank you, so is there any scenario in which north korea might freeze or dismantle its longrange Missile Program . What would be the best means to persuade north korea to do so . Mr. Thae i think, first, kim jongun Still Believes he can achieve his goal. So we should continue to tell north korean leadership and with kim jongun himself, that america will not accept north korea as a Nuclear Armed state. North korea has seen how india and pakistan achieved that goal and they want to follow india and pakistan. But we should clearly clarify that this would not the case for north korea. Rep. Engel from what you know about the internal dynamics of the north korean political and Economic Systems, how might increased external pressures , such as unilateral and multilateral sanctions lead the , north korean government to change course . If not, why not . Mr. Thae as i said, of the current economic sanctions so far, its not enough, so we should increase more sanctions, and the second we have to wait and witness the effectiveness of the current economic sanctions. North korea is used to that kind of sanctions and north korea has a certain amount of stockpiles of war. So we have to wait until when north korea opens its doors for war stockpiles. Then north korea starts to open its stockpiles of food and oil and we may see how long north korea can sustain. Rep. Engel one of the things that shocked us when we first came into pyongyang were these massive billboards, political propaganda ones, and one of them, i dont know if joe wilson is here, but he took a picture of one of those posters and it was a north korean soldier putting a bayonet in the head of an american soldier and we knew it was an american soldier because his helmet said usa on it. It was very frightening, very scary. We mentioned it to the north korean authorities. One thing that stuck in my mind, when we were talking about the nuclear program, we never did meet with the dear leader, but we met with his next person, whose name was i think was also kim. We were told, he said Saddam Hussein didnt have Nuclear Weapons and look how he wound up. And it really, really showed me a bit of a mindset how they really think Nuclear Weapons are the key to being players. Otherwise, south korea would run circles around them because of the prosperity and the Economic Opportunities of the seoul regime. But even back then, this was about 12 years ago, talked about Nuclear Weapons as their key to success in the future. Is that still the mindset . Mr. Thae yes, still kim jongun regime Still Believes they can guarantee permanent system of north korea by Nuclear Icbms, because they think prosperous and democratic south korea itself is a threatening the existence of north korea itself. Thats why they think and believe that icbm tipped with Nuclear Weapons is the guarantee for their survival. Rep. Engel let me ask you one brief question. My final question is, have you observed any changes in north korea in recent years that might suggest an expanded United States Information Campaign targeting audiences inside north korea might be more successful than past efforts . How would you go about changing north koreas perception of the outside world . Mr. Thae when the south korean content first arrived in north korea through smuggling, north korean authorities tried every measures to prevent it even by conducting public executions and rampant arrests of the people who watch south korean movies and dramas. But whatever measures they take, the demand for south korean cultures increased. So north korean regime learned that that kind of enforcement cannot solve the problem. Thats why, for the past few years, they are now developing their own footage to prevent north korean population to watch south korean movies and dramas. How . They decided to open the archives of kim jongil, and decided to filter those photos from the former soviet union and the former soviet eastern socialist Eastern European countries to find out which films can meet the demands of enjoyment for the north Korean People. There are stores where they sell those dvd discs with hundreds of russian films, former east german films, chinese films, and even american cartoons like lion king, tom and jerry, or the like. They learned that in order to fill the demands for outside cultural content, they should do something. The north korean regime is very afraid of dissemination of information. So i think if we continue to disseminate, and if we continue to make a tailormade content for north korea, we can make a change in north korea. But up until now, those contents of south korea which north Korean People are watching are those which are produced for a south korean audience, not North Koreans. They just watch it for their amusement and entertainment. But, those contents so far do not actually relate to the north korean citizens way of thinking. This cultural content cannot make them critically analyze the life of north korea. That is why we should make tailormade content, which can educate north korean population. I think it is time we should invest to make that kind of very simple content which can compel the basic concepts of freedom, human rights and democracy. Chair mr. Chris smith of new jersey. Mr. Smith thank you for your courage and for being here. For providing your insights and observations. I remember during the cold war, it used to be said that the iron curtain is not soundproof. Your idea of ratcheting up the freedom broadcasting could not come at a more timely point in this terrible, escalating conflict. Let me ask you two things. First, you have made a stunning observation that if china were to receive defectors and facilitate passage into south korea, that it could truly debilitate the regime. I have held several hearings on this. China violates the Refugee Convention with impunity. The whole idea of rapprochement is to send them into the gulags or benefit by trafficking those people who come in particularly, the women, who come into sexual or labor trafficking. They are making money off it. They are violating the convention. My hope is that your words to the Chinese Government, as well as ours, will be actionable. That is a very benign way of trying to deescalate and end this crisis. [no audio] [applause] thank you. You might want to speak to that further. Secondly, we underestimate the whole idea of cult of personality. The fanaticism of Imperial Japan was based upon the believe that this was god. That he was god. And you said that that is exactly how they look at the kims. That leads to fanaticism, because he is god. I was wondering if you could shed some insight on whether or not people believe that, and to what degree. Particularly in the army. That is a potent force coupled with Nuclear Weapons. Mr. Thae about the case in china. If you visit the chinese border with north korea, you can easily learn that the Chinese Government has built up an Extensive Network of catching north korean defectors along its borders. If a defector is caught, then he or she is caught. He or she could immediately be repatriated. These days, they have built more fences to stem the mass exodus of the north korean population. Now, the Chinese Government is saying it is concerned about any possible refugee crisis if the north korean system collapses. But, that is not really the truth. North korean defectors and the population in general have a place to go. South korea would accommodate all north korean defectors from china. So the chinese argument that they would cover or burden the cost is not true. Because there is a government of south korea, which can accommodate all of those north korean defectors. So we should continue to ask Chinese Government to open the exit route for north korean defectors to go to south korea. We should ask the Chinese Government to establish camps for defectors temporarily, and for the continuation of their journey to south korea. I think that is the thing we should do. And china is a member of Refugee Conventions. The Chinese Government has an obligation to observe its international obligation, by lifting north korean defectors to go to china. The second thing, the idea of, you know, personal culture in north korea. It is really, really surprising, because in north korea, when you reach the age of four or five, you are brainwashed. For instance, every morning the Young Children are forced to bow in front of the portraits of kim jongil, kim ilsun, and kim jongun. When they are offered a cup of milk, they should stand up and express their thanks before they drink it. Distributed to the population as a gift of kim jongun. As the regime established a full scale of a brainwashing system, they depicted the kims as gods. We should continue to educate them. Kim jongun is not a god. He is a normal human being. Kims family is human. We should continue to urge this point. Up next, a north korean refugee, minhee grace jo, spoke she spoke at an event in new york city earlier this year, george w. Bush institute. Posted by the we begin with an introduction by first lady laura former first lady laura bush. Grace jo is committed to spreading liberty worldwide. Grace jo came to the United States as a refugee from north korea. She knows what life is like when freedom is absent. As the recipient of the north korean freedom scholarship, grace wants to help other North Koreans trapped beyond pyongyangs iron curtain. George and i are honored she is here to share her story. Please join me in introducing grace jo. [applause] grace my name is grace jo, and i am an american. [applause] thank you. It is my privilege to be an american. When freedom is absent in my life, it was dark, sad, desperate. I was fearful. My grandmother raised me until i was seven years old. She passed away. She starved, and she did not have food to eat. Her last words were to ask us to leave the village and survive. Her last wish was to eat baked potato. I was so little, i could not provide for her, but by the grace of god i survived and came to america. I found freedom. My father, who was a hero to me, he tried his best to help us find a way to leave north korea. However, the regime ruthlessly killed my father. His only crime was to cross the border between china and north korea, and his own crime was to bring a bag of rice for his dying children. He was handcuffed on a train. He was not able to see or stand completely. He starved for many days, and was a severely tortured. Was severely tortured. My youngest brother died because of starvation. We did not have enough to make his porridge. He decided to leave us first, maybe because he realized that the regime and the country were not worth staying. When i grew up in china, i was able to eat white price and pork, and sometimes, i could eat meat. Life in china was difficult, but way better than life in north korea. However, i had to run from place to place every time in china. We tried very hard. However much we were careful in china, we were caught many times by Chinese Police and forcefully sent back to north korea. Each time we were sent back, i had unforgettable memories. They remind me that freedom is a treasure. I am now a happy College Student in the United States. It is almost the dream life. I always dreamed of going to university and studying all i want. I became a College Student, and i am very honored and happy to share this news. I also work at a private dental office and support my family, traveling from place to place to raise my voice for my people. I cannot imagine if i lived in north korea or in china, so i feel very blessed, again. And i am happy to be an american. [applause] grace American Leadership to advance freedom in the world is essential. Keeping people alive it is the most important and valuable thing in this world, i believe. When people try to help other people, it is difficult, and they also faced challenges and difficulties. Keeping a person alive is 10 times harder than killing one, so you are doing a good job. Keep going. Working together, americans have the ability to change the world. Thank you. [applause] journalist Blaine Harden is the author of escape from camp 14. The book tells the story of a man born into captivity at a north korean prison camp, and escaped in 2005. Mr. Harden talked on cspans q a program in 2012. Your book is called escape from camp 14. His first memory is an execution. What are you talking about . Mr. Harden he was born in camp 14, 1 of the political labor camps in north korea. His first memory, at the age of four, was going to a place where he grew up to watch someone get shot, in the camp. Public executions in the camp were held every few weeks. They were a way of punishing people who violated rules, and of terrorizing 20,00040,000 people who lived in the camp to obey the rules. You say in your book you have been to north korea once. Did you see a camp . Mr. Harden nobody has seen a camp besides guards and people who go into them, and most of them never come out. There are now five or six of these camps, and they contain between 150,000 and 200,000 prisoners. With the exception of one camp, they are places where one goes if you are believed by the north korean government to be a wrongdoer or wrongthinker. You go there without trial, usually you will be taken away at night. You will stay there for the rest of your life. The rest of your life. And very often, you will go with your kids and your parents. I was at a conference the other day on concentration camps, and the latest information is that half of the people in the camps are believed to be just the relatives of wrongdoers or wrong thinkers. Collective guilt is very much a part of this system. The reason the camps exist and have existed for more than 40 years is because they are an instrument of terror of the kim dynasty. What they do is, they put away those who might cause trouble. And they terrorize the 23 million, 24 Million People in the country to not even think about causing trouble. To that end, they have been pretty darn successful. North korea has been the longest lasting totalitarian state in world history. We have a google map shot of north korea. You can see on there the line of china. When you were there, what do you remember . What is in your minds eye . Where did you go . Mr. Harden going to north korea is not a good way to report about it. I went with a group of about 600 westerners, when the new York Philharmonic went to pyongyang at the invitation of the government for a special concert. And like almost all western visitors, we were housed in a Highrise Hotel on an island in pyongyang, and taken to places they wanted to show off. Statues, grand avenues, the subway. We were taken to the airplane and left, about two and a half days later. My experience, is that the country is bizarre, and full of white concrete and immaculatelydressed guards. But that is not the reality of north korea. The way you find out about the reality of north korea and it is increasingly easy to do it is to go to seoul, south korea. There are close to 30,000 defectors from north korea. From south korea, almost there are close to 30,000 defectors from north korea. Almost all of whom have arrived in the past 10 years. They are by far the best sources of what it is like to live in that country, and how difficult it is to get out. There are now 60 former camp inmates and former guards in total who have been interviewed by human Rights Groups, who have picturesailed, nuanced of what go on in the camps. Their words have been supplemented by increasingly detailed satellite imagery of the camps. North. Illion in the how many in the south . Mr. Harden more than 50 Million People, and there are two different universes. South korea is the 11th largest economy in the world. People are obsessed with education. They work really hard. They have less leisure than any other country in the developed world, and they commit suicide at a very, very high rate. The highest rate in the world, in fact. It is a high pressure, high achieving, educationobsessed culture, that does not Pay Attention to north korea in the cultural or aspirational sense. It deals with north korea because it must, as a troublemaking neighbor. We lost 50,000 americans in the korean war back in the early 1950s. What was that war about, and what was south korea then, compared with north korea . Mr. Harden both were poor, and recovering from the ravages of world war ii. The United States divided the Korean Peninsula in the wake of world war ii between north and south. The south was sort of a military dictatorship aligned with the United States. The north was a military dictatorship aligned mostly with russia. Kim ilsung was the leader who emerged in north korea, and he , over 10 years created a cult , of personality around himself. He modeled his state after stalins state. Then, he invaded south korea in 1951. He made Real Progress across south korea. There was a counterattack by u. S. Led forces, and over the course of three years they fought to a stalemate. The same line was returned, and north korea and south korea were divided ever since. North korea remained aligned with china and russia, but it developed a brand of totalitarian leadership that became increasingly isolated and increasingly cruel as time went on. Kim ilsung was a popular leader who had real grassroots support from lots of North Koreans. When he died in 1994, people genuinely wept. His son, the first hereditary dictator in a communist state, kim jongil, was less popular. He did not have the popular touch. But he was shrewd. And he was cruel. He used the camp as an instrument of enforcement, and that became increasingly important, and their population grew. There are indications now with this third leader, kim jongun, who is 28 or 29, interestingly about the same age as the hero of my book it is unclear how , popular he would be. Or even if he is in control at this point. This book has on the cover picture of this young man. Who is he . Mr. Harden he is a survivor of camp 14. He was born in the camp and escaped in as far as we know, he 2005. Is the only individual on earth born in those camps to get out and tell what it is like to grow up in them. Where did you get the idea to do a book about him . Mr. Harden i interviewed him in 2008. I wrote a story that was on the in anpage that resulted incredibly emotional reaction from readers. They wanted to learn more about the camps. They wanted to give him money and save his soul. So i went back a few weeks after the piece came out and i said, look, lets do a book. Lets dig into everything you know about that camp, and what it was like to walk across north korea. He did not trust me, and he did not want to do it. So i begged him for nine months, and human Rights Groups who had become familiar with his story said, you know, you should cooperate, because this would fulfill your goals about making people aware of what is going on in these camps. It may create some sort of governmental pressure in the United States, so that north korea and human rights goes to the top of the agenda. You made an arrangement with him about the money. Mr. Harden we split the money evenly. He doesnt have any. And he really does not have any business, other than being a survivor of this camp. Then, we started to work on it. Where did you get the idea that he even had a story to tell . Mr. Harden a friend of mine who has become a really close friend, who was with the u. S. Committee on human rights in north korea, she met my wife at a book group and told her about this guy. And then i talked to him. That resulted in the newspaper story. How did you deal with the language . Mr. Harden i dont speak korean, and he doesnt speak anything other than korean. I had a series of translators. We did interviews in seoul, interviews in seattle, and hundreds of emails. I want to show this picture of you in front of the Louis Vuitton store in seoul. What was the circumstance there . Mr. Harden this was one of our interviews in seoul. How tall are you . How tall is he . Mr. Harden i am about 61. He is about 56. He is a stunted from malnutrition. His arms are bowed from childhood labor. Most of the male population in north korea is stunted from malnutrition. When males come to south korea, and now there are about 30,000 of them, according to the south korean government, they are more than five inches shorter than their south korean contemporaries. That is an amazing statement about the state of nutrition and north korea. Where is he today . Mr. Harden he has moved about six or seven months ago from the United States back to south korea. He is doing webcasting with human rights friends, and he invites other defectors to come on and talk about north korea. So the translation was expensive . Mr. Harden no, it was not that expensive. A lot of people care about his story and want to get it out. I had a really good translators, some of whom work for the washington post, but the most important translator was a young guy named david kim. His family befriended shin in Southern California when he was living in torrance, which is a suburb of los angeles. David offered to be a translator. He is a yale graduate. And, he is incredibly smart and multilingual in idiomatic american english, as well as he speaks korean with his parents, who do not speak much english. So he did all of the translating in Southern California, which is where i did the bulk of the reporting, and where shin opened up to me. Where was this taken . Mr. Harden this is taken from the group house in torrance, california, where he was working for a group called liberty of north korea, which is a Human Rights Group which helped bring him to the United States in 2009, and where he was an unpaid volunteer. They gave him group housing. Between 12 and 25 people lived in that house, mostly people younger than him. How old is he today . He is 29. Youve got a lot of torture stories in this book. This is out of context, but so people can understand how far it went with him, the story of him being put over the flame. Mr. Harden when he was 13 years old, he was taken to an underground prison. I will explain the context for this later. He was taken to an underground prison and asked about the escape plans of his father and mother and brother. He didnt have good answers. He was very afraid, very confused. And at one point in the underground prison, he was taken into a room that looked like a machine shop. He was stripped and hung upside off, in ahis clothes kind of u, with his back hanging down. A cart was brought in which a coal fire. The bellows came. Underneathlled his body, and he was burned as they asked him questions. And he passed out. What are the extent of his injuries . They are still visible. He has terrible burns on his lower back and buttocks, a most severe burn you would get from being held over a fire. He has other marks on his body from other events. He has the middle finger of his right hand is cut off at the first knuckle. When he was 22, 23, he was working in a military uniform camp. Military uniform factory, inside the camp. He was working with a crew of seamstresses. He dropped a sewing machine. They got real mad, because sewing machines were valuable, maybe more valuable than the human beings who fix them. They hacked off part of his finger as punishment. Right there . Almost immediately. He has scarring on his legs from when he was hung upside down as part of the torture to get him to talk about the escape of his mother and brother. When he escaped the camp, he crawled through a highvoltage fence. His legs came into contact with the lowest strand, and it burns ed his knees on both legs. This scars are really horrible. You are talking about when he escaped that camp and went to china. That was 2005. How did he get into this camp in the first place . He was born there. His crime was to be born. His parents were there for reasons that are almost as flimsy. His father was in the camp because his fathers brothers after the korean war had fled to south korea. After the authorities had heard about that, his father and his fathers many brothers and parents were rounded up and taken to camp 14. That is where shin was born. He did not know why his mother was there. She never told him, and he never asked. They do not have the kind of relationship where they would talk. His mom and dad conceived him because they were chosen by the guards for something called a reward marriage, and shin was bred in the camp like a farm animal and raised by his mother. He was physically his mother gave birth to him, but he was raised with the values and rules of the guards, and was not close to his mother at all. He had to memorize 10 rules of the camp, most of which end by to his mother at all. Saying, if you dont do this, you will be shot immediately. The most important rule is, if you try to escape, you will be shot immediately. The corollary is if you hear about an escape and dont report it, you will be shot immediately. These were his 10 commandments as a little guy growing up in that camp. Let me read the rest of those 10 quickly, so that people can understand. They almost all have will be shot immediately if they are caught doing this. Do not try to escape. No more than two prisoners can meet together. Third one, do not steal. Fourth, guards must be obeyed conditionally. Five, anyone who sees a fugitive for suspicious figure must be reported. Report any suspicious behavior immediately. To fill more than the work assigned to them each day. Beyond the workplace, there must be no intermingling between the sexes for personal reasons. Prisoners must genuinely repent of their errors. Who finally the laws and regulations of the camp will be shot immediately. Were they really shot immediately . They were shot often. Shooting was one of the only forms of entertainment in the camp. The only time people would get together to watch something was an execution. The rules were taken very seriously, particularly by the kids who saw the results of disobedience very clearly. What was the first execution that shin saw . It was the one that begins the book when he was four years old. How does he remember anything from being four . I said, what is your first memory . He said, i remember going with a crowd of people and he was very excited because it was the first time he was around a lot of people. Camp ishe rules of the you dont spend time with a lot of people. That is what triggers his memory. He never been around a crowd of people. He had never heard this hubub of people being together in a crowd of many thousands of prisoners. What is the business of putting marbles in their mouth when they are shocked . When they are shot . Mr. Harden that is a very common practice. I talked to three others who saw this happen. They do that so that people do not denounce the guards, or particularly the leadership of the country. They cant say anything. Its rocks, actually. Rocks . And they put a hood on them . Sometimes they do, sometimes they dont. What did he see with the death of his parents and his brother . The real heart of this book, and the psychological trauma of the rest of his life comes out of the escape plan of his mother and brother. When he was 13, he was living in a boarding school, which was all kids leave their parents at 12 and go to live with other kids in the boarding school. In the camp. This was a couple blocks from where his mom was staying. Shin had been in the boarding school for a while. On friday night, his teacher, a guard who wore a gun, told him you can stay with your mom tonight. Shin did not want to because he did not particularly like his mom. But he did because he was told to. His brother was at the house, which was unusual, because his brother lived away from the home. He lived in a concrete factory. His brother was eight years older than he was. Shin hardly knew his brother. He knew who he was, but they had no relationship. They had supper. The only meal he had ever eaten in his life, which was salt, corn, and cabbage. That was breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They put salt in cabbage soup and corn. It is a kind of gruel. That is the primary thing. Other than small animals they could catch in the camp, like mice and rats. This was that classic meal. He went to sleep. The house had a central kitchen and one bedroom. The central kitchen was for 3 other units besides the one where his mother slept. He was awoken by a conversation by his brother and mother about midnight. He heard them talking, and he also saw his mother was cooking rice for his brother. Rice is something that hardly exists at all in the camp, but it is grown there, so some farmworkers can steal it. His mom worked in the farm in the camp. So she must have stolen some overtime and was making rice. She never made rice for him. He was really jealous. He was 13 years old. That piqued his interest. Then, he heard them talking. You have to understand his brother was in some kind of trouble in the camp. He apparently violated a rule and had left the concrete factory without permission. And had gone to his mother. Guards would soon come for him and punish him. Probably not execute him, but beat him up, which was the common way. Shin heard his brother mentioned the word escape. Shins heart started to pound. He became very very upset and afraid because of these rules. If you dont report an escape, be executed. Then he heard his mother countenancing that conversation about escape. Shin listened for a while. It was clear they were talking about trying to escape the plant, and the rice she was cooking was food for flight, after heo take and eat had gotten out of the camp. Shin got up, told his mom he had to go to the bathroom, and went out and found a guard and reported them. First, he went to a classmate. They went together. When he reported this escape, he was thinking, how can i turn this to my advantage . So he asked the guard if he could have more food as a result of his snitching, and if he could be made class leader, a position that would allow him to do less work, take fewer beatings, and maybe more food as well. The guard said sure. Shin went to bed in the school where he lived. The next morning he was awakened, told there were guards waiting for him. They put a blindfold on him outside the school, put him in a jeep and drove him to this underground prison inside the camp, which he did not know until then had existed. He was interrogated. He went, thinking they would see him as a good snitch, so they started asking him questions about his involvement in the escape. He was frightened and confused and did not answer in any coherent way for his first two rounds of interrogation, which included that torture i told you about. In the third interrogation, when he was too weak to get up because he was burned so badly. He said, i did a good job, i turned in my mother. You can check this out with my classmate. They did check it out. Shin was allowed to recover in that underground prison. Then he was taken out after seven months. He was taken back to the same officers who had originally interrogated him. He saw his father was in the camp. His father had also been tortured, and looked horrible when he saw him. His fathers leg had been broken in the torture, and he could hardly walk. They were both taken together in that jeep with blindfolds on back to the execution grounds, the place he remembers from when he was four. Shin had his blindfold taken off and said, oh, they are going to kill me now. He was terrified he was going to be shot. They took his father, helped him and shin to the front of the row. They dragged up his mom and brother. When his mom came out, she was put on a makeshift gallows right in front of him. She was not blindfolded. A hood was not over her face. She tried to catch shins eye. He hated her for the horrors hed just gone through in this underground prison, and for her reckless talk of escape. He refused to catch her eye, and she was hanged in front of him. And then his brother was shot in the head three times by the guard. Shin went back into the camp population as a 14yearold. What happened to his father . Mr. Harden his father lost his good job as a slave operator. He began to work as a common laborer, limping around the camp. He and shin had a very strained relationship after this execution. His father tried to say, i am sorry as to being so selfish to have children in this camp. I hope somehow you can get out of here. Shin said, i dont care what you say. He rarely saw him. Host is he alive . Shin escaped a decade later when he was 23. Host the year he escaped . Was 2005. Host and how did he escape . The escape is really a very important part of the book. One thing i want to say about the experience of the execution is that shin was raised in such a way that he did not really love his mother. He did not have feelings of affection, trust towards his father or his brother. I first asked him about those things. How could you hate your mother . How could you not look her in the eye when she died . He said, these people were competitors with me for food. They did nothing for me that was useful, as he saw it. Host what about god . Hed never heard of god. Hed never heard of god. This was a concept he heard about when he got to south korea. Learning how to trust other people, and learning to feel guilty for what he did with his mother is something that he has had to do since he got to south korea and the United States. He has seen other families. He has seen other mothers and sons together. He has begun to feel terribly and he has begun to feel terribly guilty about the kind of boy he was and what he did. But he wasnt guilty. Host does he know what happened to his father . Mr. Harden no. He assumes his father was tortured or killed as a result of his escape. I know this is a book that people should raise it from your perspective. Wasescaping from china difficult for him in what way . It has never happened before that someone born in the camp escaped the camp. That would give you good indication that this this camp has existed since 1968, and no one was known to have escaped it until shin. It is damn hard to get out of there. Methe did it because he someone who inspired him to think of the outside world. Shins this is sort of birth as a human being. He was in the camp, working in a sewing machine factory, when he was assigned to work with an older guy in his early 40s. His name was park. Hek had lived in pyongyang, had been educated in the former soviet union. He was a worldly and nice guy. Him,s job was to snitch on because he had proven himself as a snitch over the years. He did it with his parents and other people. But shin started talking to park. Shin was interested in hearing these stories. Startedrted park talking about something that shin was interested in, which was food. , and he talkedat about the joys and wonders of grilled meat in china. You could get beef, chicken, pork. You didnt have to be rich or important. That was how people lived outside. That was a revelation that shin could not get out of his imagination. He fantasized about eating well. Park told him other things that were news to him,. Thats the world was round, that china existed, that the United States existed, that the leaders in north korea were a bunch of thieves and thugs. But none of that was very interesting to shin because he had no context. His context was that he had been hungry his whole life. He learned if he could get out of his cage, he could eat. He said that was enough for him. Host camp 14 is how far from the chinese border . It is about 300 miles. And it is about 50 miles north of pyongyang, in the mountains of central north korea. Host what was the camp surrounded with . It was a barbed wire fence between eight and 10 barbed wire lines. Wherethis was not a sense you touch it and jump. If you touch, it will grab you and kill you . That is the kind of sense it is. Inn heard about grilled meat china and center park, lets try to escape and said to park, lets try to escape. And park was ok with that idea. He met park two months before he decided to escape. It was very sudden. Chin got very excited, and they. Veryery lucky shin excited and they were very lucky with the timing because they were assigned to get firewood near the fence, not near where the guards look down and shoot people running for the fence. They waited until Late Afternoon 5, until dusk. 200 toward the fence. When shin decided to go, he park ts go,. To lets go, to park. Park was not so sure, and shin grabbed his hand and pulled him to the fence. As they ran, shin slipped and fell on the snow. Park got to the fence first, shoved his torso between the first and a second part of the wire and was executed, and fell dead. Momentsled without a and goton over his body most of the way across that fence. His leg slipped off on both sides and he got these terrible burns from the voltage. I talked to an expert on alexa keisha and on electrocution from the university of washington. Which struck me as pretty weird and odd, not very believable, he says it is completely believable this would happen. He needed that insulator of a human being grounding the voltage to the ground so he could get through the fence without taking a lethal charge. Host he would have been electrocuted himself. He was lucky to get through the fence, but it is not like winning the lottery. It is conceivable to do, according to experts. And he got through the fence. Be plan was for shin to inside. They got to the fence in a way that they would not be shot, but once they got to the fence, mr. Park, who had grew up outside the fence in the real world, he was supposed to be mr. Outside. He was supposed to get them to china and arrange for their shipment to north korea, but park was dead. Host there is plenty to read on this, but after he got out of the prison, how long did it take him to get to china and south korea . It took him one month to get to south korea. In month of walking, riding trucks. He hopped a train. One of the things that was interesting about his journey across north korea, a Totalitarian Police state and this was a kid who did not know which way was north. It really is an incredibly lucky trip he made, but shin had a couple things to his advantage. He had a cunning sense of survival. That was how he managed to survive in the camp. He was also smart enough to keep his mouth shut. He did not tell anyone he was from a camp. He got to a barn, he found some military clothes that he put on. Host this was in china . North korea, just outside the camp. North korea is the most militarized country on earth. People. 2 or 1. 3 million there are military people everywhere. Sofound a change of clothes, he was no longer dressed like a camp inmate in distinctive clothes. He then walked into a town, and he looked very much like a lot of young North Koreans. Wearingkinny, filthy, an old military uniform, and he did not have much to do. There are a lot of Unemployed People who drift around in north korea, in the wake of the great famine. North korea at the lowest level is a very disorganized place where the Food Distribution system is very informal. It depends on smugglers from china, it depends on farmers bringing in food from cooperative farms when they are not supposed to. They put out a messy, informal market system because it is the only way people can eat. There are estimates that 80 to 90 of the calories in the stomachs of any north korean comes from this system. Shin fell into this system. He didnt know it was exist he didnt know it existed, but he was lucky. Later, he stole warmer close and a big bag he stole warmer clothes and a big act of rice. 10 pound bag of rice. A market lady said, what do you have in the back . He said, rice. It was his first transaction with money. Park had only told him a few weeks before that money existed. He bought some crackers and nuts and other things, snacks, and saw some other traders, who were basically moving north toward china to do more trading. That was his route to china. Host how many hours did you talk to shin to get this book . I am notm not sure how many hours, but we had seven sessions of interviews for of those sessions we had seven sessions of interviews. Four of those sessions were Late Afternoon. Host how did you document it . The interviews . I recorded them. On audio only, and i also took notes on the computer simultaneously. There is the question of verifying the story, and it is important to deal with. He lied to me about his role in the training his mother. When he got to south korea, he did not say he had betrayed his mother. He simply said they were executed and he saw it. If heught if he said told that story, the south korean government would arrest him and other people would think of him as not human. That was his words. Extricate he would his story a little bit. About one year into our interviews, he decided he would tell me the truth. He says the reason he didnt is he was surrounded by people the reason he did it is he was surrounded by people who were telling the truth and he felt an obligation to tell the truth. Host when you see this picture of him, what do you see in that face, in your knowledge from sitting with him so much . What is interesting about his face is he looks so young, given the hardships of his life. He has aged a little bit. Host his age now . This was taken when he was 28 or 27. When i met him a few years before that, he looked like he was a teenager. I saw him yesterday. He has a useful he has a youthful look. Host how has he changed . He has become less wary, less suspicious, and more at peace with himself because he has told the truth about the but trail of his mother about the betrayal of his mother. He talked about selling out his mother and why he did it, and what he hopes will come from the truth he told. He wants people to know these are the kinds of human beings they are trying to raise in these camps. The human abuse of starving people, shooting people, but there is also raising children to be little monsters. Host did you ever see him get mad at you . He got mad at me because he did not want to talk about this stuff. Journalists want to keep drilling. I say in the book it was like being a dentist and not using anesthetic. Sometimes he would say no and leave. Host why do you think the American People will be interested in this book when you say in the book the south koreans could care less about north korea . The reason people will be interested in this book is because it is a great story. It is an adventure story. It is also a psychological story, because it is about how a person can go from having no Human Emotions to figuring out they are a good idea and developing it. The normal trajectory of escape stories or concentration camp stories is you have someone who sophisticated, civilized families. They are taken to the camp. Their other relatives are killed. They have to behave in an inhuman way to survive. They come out and tell their story about a dissent into about a descent into hell. Shins story was different, because he was born in hell. He has now discovered that the world and what it means to be a human being are completely different. Host why do the south koreans not care about the North Koreans . Because they have moved on as a colter and an economy. There aspirations are their aspirations are for greater wealth, technological achievement. Inth korea, which exists some ways in the middle ages, is a dead weight on those goals. Most of the family ties between north and south korea have been attenuated by time and weekend and weakenedb by age. Most of the people with living relatives are in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. Germansran into some the other day and asked how is it going in your country . They said, eh. I said, how are they doing in east germany . They said, they are doing very well. Does it they worry them to pick up the cost of those people . Host they are very worried. Estimate there are estimates it could cost three times as much in comparable dollars to have unification with the north, because of the Development Problems in north korea. If you fly over the Korean Peninsula at night, north korea is light. China is light. It is just dark in north korea. It is a good symbol of the stage of development. There are very few roads. Education has largely collapsed. Factories do not work. The place is a basket case run thatmilitarized state survives because of aid from china and because of the sales of missiles to places like iran. Our specialn program looking at north korea, remarks by joseph kim, a Young Refugee who escaped north korea at the age of 14. He spoke at an event hosted by the Hudson Institute in 2012. A reminder, you can watch the events featured in this program on our website, cspan. Org. Kim, and iis joseph was born and raised in north korea until i was 16. Although my family constantly fought against poverty, i was always loved and cared for first, because i was the only son and the youngest child in the family. However, that kind of luxurious life was not reserved for me forever. When i was 13, my mother died of my father died of starvation, my mom disappeared, and my older sister went to china for money. But she never returned. I became an orphan. It was a huge transition where i had to grow up overnight. There were not many jobs other than begging on the street tirelessly. I lived like an animal. My daily life was very simple, but very hard. My michael was to find the best piece of red my goal was the of find the best piece red from the trash. I did not have hope for the future. I did not have ambition. My only goal was to be full. For a hungry child, politics and freedom are not relevant. After years of waiting for my sister to return, i finally decided to leave north korea. It was the biggest decision i had to make. First, it was risky. After all, it was still my country where i have friends from preschool to elementary school. And it is still the place where i grew up with all kinds of memories, where i swam and where i played soccer with my friends. My escape was very successful. I am thankful that god protected me during that time. While i was in china, i encountered link. That time, link had an executive director. Because of their hard work, i was able to come to america successfully. My life has been changed. And my perspective of the world has been changed after i came to america. I dont starve anymore. And more importantly, i live like a human being. I do have goals, and i have dreams, and i have hopes. My life in america is close to heaven. My dream is one day that all North Koreans will experience the life that i have now. It is a big dream. I might be aiming for an intangible goal. I can do so little, but with when you join in my dream with unity, we will make this possible. When i was 12 years old, my little sister and i went to the mountains to collect wool to would to cook and to warm the wood to cook and to warm the house. My father could not join us. He stayed home because his strength was weakened from malnutrition. We left at 5 00 a. M. When we returned home, it was already midnight. We had to bring the wood by hand. By the time my sister and i had finished collecting wood, it was already midnight. It was already dark. We were exhausted. And i was afraid we could not make it home. Maple maybe we were at the midpoint toward home when i saw my father walking towards us out of the dark. I was so happy he was with me, although he could not help that much due to his weakness. Because my father was with us, our journey home seemed so much better and shorter. Is there anyone who doubts that you are too weak to do anything, my answer is no, you are not. And you never were. My father was not strong, nor did he have magic powers. But the fact that he was with us, my journey from mountain to home was shortened. To bring change to north korean human rights, you dont have to be strong or special. It is ok if you cant support financially, and it is ok if you cant invest all of your life, and it is ok if you cant think of ideas. But please, please do all you can do. If you can only pray to god, pray for them. If you can only cry, cry for them. But please dont ever forget my friends, those who are orphans. Even at this moment, they are tirelessly waiting for help. I hope and i believe the book escape from north korea will be used as a a bridge to connect the river from north korea to china, and eventually bring all of my friends to freedom of the land. Thank you so much for coming out to listen to my story and our story. Thank you so much. [applause] when i met joseph in china years ago, he did not speak a word of english. This is actually extremely impressive. I dont think he needed that speech class as badly as he thinks he did. One thing i want to share will click real quick before i forget, when joseph first got to the United States, i purchased some books for him. Because i figured he had a lifetime of poor education or propaganda. I figured he might want to know what the real story was of how korea got to where it was. We got him a bunch of history books in korean. I asked him what books he might request. And he asked me for shakespeare, which was very strange. Because he would have no reason to ask for shakespeare, but it turns out he had heard of shakespeare before he had actually left north korea. Which is impressive. The next day, i asked him if he read the books. He said to fully digest a book he has to read it three times. He read it three times at night. I think that speaks a lot to josephs intellect and the extraordinary nature of his story. One challenge i always have when speaking about north korea is i run out of adjectives describing how bad things are. Those of you who follow human rights situations get numbers. Another horror story, oh, it is only a halfmillion. Not it is easy for us to write one million. Off bad things, because we assume they happen over there. Also, the challenge with north korea is things are so bad in particular is that things are so bad on such a scope and scale that it sounds fake. It sounds like a lie. Or it sounds unfathomable. It is hard to comprehend. North korea is all of the things the panelists have talked about and more. If we want to go down the list and bullet point Human Rights Violations, we would be here for hours. That has always been a challenge that those of us have had when trying to articulate what the circumstances are like there. But i will just point out a few things so we can have the framework of what is going on. Not only does the book do a great job of painting the story of the underground railroad and to get outhey take of that situation it is a very real situation where they decide to put their life into their own hands and escape. When i first met joseph, he was very young. We may wonder if he was fully aware of his decision to leave. The fact is if you leave a shelter in china, you are well aware you could be caught on the way and tortured and killed. In order to drive someone to go through that much risk, whenever you are escaping from has to be pretty bad. Extraordinarily bad, far worse than what you are facing. North korea is that bad. At least one million if not 2 million koreans start to death starved to death in the when 1990s the government had access to food and was able to feed its own people and did not. The north korean government it is not there in order to facilitate the wellbeing of its people. It is there to facilitate the wellbeing of 2000 or 3000 elites. Particularly one family with the last name kim. About 6 million or 7 million North Koreans are on starvation level. Every year regularly, that u. N. Issues emergency calls for aid, saying millions of North Koreans are going to die, and yet north korea continues to spend 4 billion on Nuclear Tests when its people are starting. That by itself shows you priorities of the country. Then you get into massive human rights violation, getting arrested for listening to a pop song, there were people who got arrested because they put down a glass of water where the condensation covered the dear leaders face. Others have been tortured because a relative left to find food and housing. When i was in chinese hospitality in 2006, the head of that prison was ethnically korean. I happened to speak korean. We talked quite a bit. Nothing subversive. He was not going to get in trouble. Me one thing he shared with is they get North Koreans all the time in prison. Monday and thursday, they get sent back to north korea. It is a normal thing. It is the day they send North Koreans act to north korea. He told me the young boys in particular would always beg him, can you cut my hair . He realized the reason they ask for that is north korea has rules about how long your hair has to be for males and females. If your hair is a different style or at a different light, that means you have been out of the country for a long period of time. If the hair is cut, the kids had a shot at saying, i got lost, i was not there for six months. Everybody involved in any way with north korea knows what is happening. There is no allusion as to how bad the regime is. The illusion is in the sense that we cant solve it. The delusion is that we think this is an inevitable crisis, that we have no right or ability to do anything about it. I think that north korea is not just an issue for human rights. It is a most this blackhole in modern civilization. By any measure, regardless if you have some connection to north korea or not, it is a huge problem for the reformation, conventional weapons, counterfeiting statesponsored , terrorism. Is astonishing this is not a huge issue not just in general, but in the president ial election, where you have a Nuclear Armed state. This is a big deal we keep pushing under the rug. Keep it can down the road. Kicking the can down the road. I think there will be one day when north korea is free. That day will come. Most of us involved in government and policy positions will realize there is more we could have done. The circumstances were worse than we anticipated. This is much different from the holocaust in one very important measure. We have documentable, verifiable evidence that is overwhelming. There was evidence during the holocaust that policymakers did not choose to act on and they could have. People say i would have acted differently. Today everyone watching this online or cspan can google and find concentration camps. Joseph sat on google and showed me the route he took from school to home every day. The fact that he can do that in there is no excuse in terms of ignorance. When you look at what the republic of korea has accomplished, the Korean People and korean soul when it is unchained can do amazing things. It is incredible. Look at what koreanamericans have accomplished in america. North korea is the part of korea that never got that freedom. The first part of the 20th century is old news the last part of the 20th century is old news, but for North Koreans, they are still stuck in a 20th century. I remember we have a special responsibility to try and fix it. I remember when joseph came to the United States after being in china and we took him to a grocery store, just to buy snacks. I dont know if he remembers this, but his jaw dropped when he went to the aisles. 50 types of yogurt and cereal. It is amazing how much we have here. He had his first strawberry. To explain what a strawberry was and watch immediate was an amazing experience. We took him to the zoo. They had a diorama of dinosaurs. I have so much difficulty explaining to him what a dinosaur is when there is no context for a dinosaur. You take that level of education and isolation from the outside world, and you can imagine a nation that is crippled. Entire generations of children that are physically stunted, but also braindamaged because they have not had proper food for the first five years of their life. I think north korea is not just a problem for koreans, for human rights, it is a problem for everybody. Many of the people here in this room or who are watching this have a special responsibility to fate of thosee people. I would share the perspective of having sanctions and approaches that have had Measurable Results with north korea. We had regular feedback from our own sources within the country that those things are working extremely effectively. We can get in that a little more during the questionanswer session. This is not a problem that will go away. That those things are workingata hard or soft landing. At some point, those people will be free. The question is, how many people will have to die to get to that point . There is no question at all it will end in a big way, end it and it will be the issue for everyone to deal with. Punk rock singer, actor, and author Henry Rollins published a photo book in 2011 titled occupants, featuring images from a trip to north korea. Mr. Rollins talks about the journey and shows his photographs at an event hosted by the National Geographic society. Overlook, its pyongyang, north korea. It took me about two years to get this visa. They let about 100 or less americans per year into north america. I got in in time for the games. This is the famous room where the north and the south meet. That backdoor is south korea. My back is to north korea. I am there with tourist spies, a few norwegians. They are making noise, trying to take photos of the soldiers. I said you are screwing up my man alone in north korea vibe. I am just going to sit. I sat in those chairs, and everyone left. They say, we are walking. All of a sudden i am alone with is uy who became here who became serious i dared to sit with him. He raised his hand, get out i took that photo, and bolted out of the door. I said thank you, and i bolted out. I was thinking, if i can get this shot out of the country, i am going to have a slideshow one day. [laughter] as you know with the camera, you want to get the fstop right, and all of a sudden you get this Michael Jordan shot with one minute left on the clock situation. Even a guy like me stumbled into a shot like that. Which i think says a lot. But that room, you have seen it in a few documentaries. On the outside of that wall, there are american soldiers basically playing peekaboo. They are looking around that corner. There are soldiers behind that in a triangular shape. One guy in front where they can yank back if americans start firing bullets. It is so grim and ridiculous, this stare down. Argue adult people are you adult people, having a stare down . What is this, 3 00 p. M. After third grade . They should put on the ramones and get it over with. The largest stadium in the world in pyongyang, north korea. It is not a large Television Screen you see. That is thousands of school kids holding up colored cards. The do this in perfect synchronization, like one image every minute for every 90 minutes. Thousands of people in brightly colored outfits, they leave, and another 1000 people come out. It is like Cirque Du Soleil on growth hormones. It is remarkable. Unfortunately nobody has money to go see it. You could park three soccer stadiums inside of this place. It is as big as long beach, california. And no one can afford to go in. We tourist, we have the 1. 25 seats, and there are locals going in for 0. 10 cents in the nosebleed seats. The rest of it is completely empty as these people for 90 minutes run around in beautiful harmony, and no one gets to see it. They do six shows a week for months, and nobody gets to see it. It is incredible. They insist on having the biggest things. The biggest stadium. The arch of triumph. My tour guide said, that is our arch of triumph. I said, it looks very triumphant. He said, it is bigger than the one in france. I said, yay. [laughter] mr. Rollins a few days later i went to see kim ilsung mausoleum, because you have to see a dead guy in the glass box. We were looking upon kim ilsung square, which is as big as new york. The tour guide said, this is bigger than Tiananmen Square. I said, here is my in. I am going to have fun. I said kim, i believe Tiananmen Square is a little bit bigger. Hes like, no. He knows exactly down to the inch how much bigger kim ilsung square is. I said, no, Tiananmen Square is bigger. In fact, i walked your square because it is cute, and i want the specs on it because it is cute and i want to build one. He stopped talking to me. He sulked. It is the only moment alone i had by myself in north korea. He left me to walk back to north korea with a lump in his words. Like, mine is bigger. Men have a lot of work to do. [laughter] sorry ladies, there is only one of me. [laughter] this is another things that you can see how radically changing, this is the games here. It is incredible. This went on for 90 minutes. I saw it three hours after i got out of the airplane. I went from my illsmelling stalinist room. They keep all of the tourists in one hotel. This massive thing coming out of the ground. You are woken up at 4 00 in the morning by a woman yelling through a bullhorn. I ask kim, what is the yelling and the music . They are building a building across the river. In front of your hotel. The woman is yelling things to inspire the men to build. And the music inspires them. It is 5 00 a. M. , there is no coffee, and there is a woman yelling, go faster, you bastard build it it is not the most inspiring environment. Robbed me of sleep the entire week i was there. What would a trip be like without huge statues of kim ilsung . You buy flowers. You put them in front of the statue of kim ilsung. You bow, as long as the tour guide bows. No arguing about that. He would always politely thank me for bowing to the great leader. Sorry, kim he does not son, get many statues. They give him a lot of paintings. Sometimes, they paint the lifters on his shoes in. Sometimes they leave him out. His father was a darrell chested wrote man. Heroic man. Chested kim jongil got the backhand of mother nature. In these paintings, he has these forearms, and he is always hanging out with a soldier. He has these fists like ups trucks and he is doing something powerful. In real life, he is this guy with amazing dress sense and crazy hair. Everywhere you look, there are statues of kim ilsung and paintings of kim jongil. The final portion of our special program on north korea features victor cha, serving on the National Security council who served on the National Security council during the george w. Bush administration. Mr. Cha is reportedly under consideration to be the next ambassador to south korea. He appeared on cspans afterwards program to discuss his new book the impossible state north korea, past and future. The basic basic thesis of the book is that north korea is the impossible state because no one inside is empowered to overthrow it, and no one on the outside cares enough to risk the cost of changing it. I want to ask you about both of those. In particular, starting with no one is empowered to overthrow why do you think that is the case in north korea . Especially from a comparative politics perspective, this makes north korea an outlier compared to what we saw with the former soviet union. Right, and i think that observation is quite accurate. When we look at the soviet union, when we look at regimes in the arab spring, all of which had leaders in power longer than the former recently deceased north korean leader. They have all collapsed, and north korea continues to survive. That alone is evidence that nobody within the system is entitled to overthrow it. , as is also just because you know well, the very strict controls that exist in this country, it is a society to use the term strong state would be an understatement. This is about the strongest state in terms of the control it has on the society and political freedoms, and even the way people think. For that reason, it is difficult to imagine that they are could that there could be a group within this society that could speak out, that could challenge a view. These things just doesnt happen in north korea. That is why it has lasted for this long, i think, because in spite of a lot of its problems, economic problems, human rights, food problems, it has lasted this long. That is because no one within the system is capable of changing it. Mr. Snyder there are potential forces for change going on inside north korea. Information flows. It is maybe post utilitarian, but we are obviously not at a place where there is organized opposition. How long do you think it will take for us to see the evolution of politics in north korea where to bepossible for dissent discussed . Mr. Cha it is a good question. As political scientists we are supposed to be able to determine when these things are supposed to happen, when we reach a critical Tipping Point, but i dont think we can. I dont think we can say with any degree of accuracy what the Tipping Point in terms of when society is ready to act up rather than simply be follow the rules of the current political system. In the case of north korea, in the book i talk about the element that i think is new in this picture, which is the growing markets in the country, really starting from the famine of the 1990s, in which people basically had to sell whatever ,hey could find, a cup, a pen for food. That was the start of a market system. That has been going on for 15 years. What we can say is there is an element that was not been in the past. It has created more of an independence of mind by the people in north korea and not being solely reliant on handouts from the government, but when exactly that is going to reach a point where the system will tip, it is hard to say. Mr. Snyder how do you think the state is adapting to those changes . Mr. Cha part of the way they are adapting is they are trying to crack down, certainly on the unofficial markets that have existed. Some of the official markets. Atre have been efforts reform, what you might call reform, in north korea. These have largely been aimed at bringing hard currency into help the regime, not so much to create real market reform in the country. And so, i think that what we are seeing now, if we do see efforts of Economic Engagement with the outside world, the north korean leadership is doing this because they seek hard currency, not because they are seeking necessarily to create a better life for their people. Mr. Snyder in what ways do you think pockets of protests could emerge, or do you think it is going to be a case where anything that happens is going to be stamped out . Do you see any possibility for the elites tolerating certain forms of dissent . Mr. Cha right now, it is hard to imagine that. The question as to whether you can at which point we will see either toleration of dissent or the emergence of dissent. Again, as social scientists, we cant predict that. But what we can do is we can point to certain preconditions that exist. That could lead to that. Certainly, the market mentality is certainly one of the things. But it is very hard to say. At least, there is not a lot of evidence that this regime is tolerant of any sort of dissent. There is not a lot of evidence that they have tried to listen to what the content of whatever protests have taken place. Of course, it goes without saying that this is a country that it is very hard to get any information on what is happening inside the country. So, when we talk about dissent or protests, these are anecdotes. We hear stories of things that might have happened in this military unit or this city, but we really dont know. It is such a hermetically sealed country. When the day comes when it opens up or if it collapses, falls and you see unification like the germanys, i think we will learn a lot about what sort of political dissent existed in the country. It is very hard to find that today. Mr. Snyder do you see their regime has really rigid, and therefore more likely to crack, or do you think it is flexible in the sense that it has modeled trough now, it has muddled hrough now, despite incredible global changes, how should we evaluate the character in order to have a sense of what might come later on . Mr. Cha i think it is if you pose that spectrum, it is more on the brittle end of the spectrum. A regime that will crack rather than one that is malleable and has managed to muddle through. The reason it is been able to muddle through is because of the second factor we talked about. It has managed to muddle through not because of anything internal, but because of what is happening outside of north korea. That is this dynamic where nobody really wants to put in the effort to change it or solve the problem, and there is one country in particular that wants to ensure that are no big changes or other stable or unstable occurrences within the country. Mr. Snyder that is the second part of your observation about north korea as an impossible state. Nobody cares to risk changing it. Really that, i think, is quite striking when we look at the history, especially of how Human Rights Concerns have created have motivated International Motivation in other parts of the world. You think about rwanda, kosovo, north and yet somehow korea hasnt been subject to that same international activism, despite the fact, arguably, the humans rights conditions are just as bad. Certainly for large portions of the population. How is it that this is the case . What makes north korea immune to that sort of focus of the International Community . Mr. Cha i think when we say International Community, we have to be clear what we mean. We mean the developed west. There are certain issues that the developed west has taken up in terms of human rights. You mentioned some of them. Very clearly they have taken up these causes. There are others, sudan, tibet, others that have been taken up to a great extent by the International Community. But north korea is just not one of the issues. For two reasons. The first is very successful efforts by the north korean regime to ensure that this remains a nameless and faceless policy issue. And not a personal story, a personification of a story that the average american will somehow be influenced by or take up a cause for. Many of the North Koreans who defect through the border with china are sent back by the chinese on buses with the curtains drawn so that there is nobody that could associate a name or a face with this terrible human rights situation in north korea. By example, south korea, during its military dictatorship, had this person by the name of kim dayjun who eventually won the nobel peace prize. He became a voice, a face for democratic activism in south korea. In beijing, in south korea, you have these personalities that can be identified with the problem. The North Koreans have been very good with not allowing that to happen. The chinese have been complicit in that. I think that is certainly one of the reasons why it has not been taken up. The other i think is that it just hasnt captured the imagination of some major personality in the west. I know this may sound a bit catty, but practically i think it is true. When someone like richard gere takes up to bet or mia farrow takes up chinas policies in darfur, this is something you wouldnt normally see. In the case of north korea, we havent had that. We havent had an individual that does that. I think one of the things we are seeing more of, and there are stories of this in the book, americans are learning more about the stories of some of these defectors that are getting out of north korea. There have been several books that have been written recently about defectors who have left, managed to escape, telling their stories. I think that certainly helps, but still, compared to other cases of human rights, we just dont see the same with regard the same resonance with regard to the issue. Mr. Snyder another distinctive feature of north korea that could have an impact on human rights observations by the International Community is the fact that north korea has been trying to become a Nuclear Weapons state. I think that is particularly interesting when we look at iraq. You were in the Bush Administration for part of the time that this issue was playing out. It turns out that we decided to attack iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. He didnt have Nuclear Weapons. The North Koreans arguably have just as oppressive a regime, but we decided not to pursue that course of action with north korea. How do you see the difference . Mr. Cha it is a tough question to answer. Without recounting the whole history of why the Bush Administration went into iraq. That was not my area of responsibility. So i am not really capable of commenting on that. I think in the case of north korea, there are two issues. Is why iraq not why iraq instead of north korea, but if in iraq, then why not also in north korea . There are two answers. The first is, you have china. China sits right on the border with north korea. The last thing the United States or china wants is some sort of confrontation or conflagration on the peninsula that would cause the two to but heads. As they did in 1953. I think anytime there is serious thought given to any sort of military action, this is constantly at the top not even at the top, halfway up the escalation ladder. This is constantly a concern that every u. S. President has had to think about seriously. I think that certainly is one of the reasons, the china factor. The other is that the United States went to iraq or afghanistan because it became the top foreignpolicy issue on which the administration saw to josh saw a final resolution. We can debate whether that was the right or wrong thing. Many americans think it was the wrong thing. Many americans think nothing was resolved there. That is a completely different question. I think the point for korea is that i dont really think that the north korea issue has risen to that level of priority for an administration. It has been a crisis that you wanted to solve, at least in the sense of preventing it from becoming a bigger crisis through diplomacy. But the United States historically, when it has sought to solve a problem, it has been willing to use both force and diplomacy. To really try to solve the problem. I think in the case of north korea, it is just not registered like that. That is not specific to any administration. We have had crises with north korea with successive administrations, and every administration has made the same calculation. When we reach a crisis with north korea, are we willing to go all out to the end to solve this thing, or do we want a solution that will at least park it momentarily, put it on the diplomatic track, freeze it, cap it, and then move on to the other issues that most concern us, whether the domestic Economic Situation or iraq or afghanistan or syria . Or the middle east peace process. These tend to be the more important issues, traditionally, in u. S. Foreignpolicy. Mr. Snyder the other issue that makes iraq different from north korea is the u. S. Korea alliance. How do you see the dynamics of the alliance playing into our ability to address the top concerns that the u. S. Has related to north Koreas Nuclear program . Mr. Cha undeniably when we looked at the situation on the peninsula, the alliance was more important than any policy towards north korea. South korea is a key ally for the United States today. It is a major partner in a lot of International Initiatives around the world. A big trading partner, all of these sorts of things make south korea extremely important to the United States in terms of its position in asia. Mr. Snyder let me go back and ask about north korean prospects. They are still cash hungry. Maybe we dont see any immediate evidence that the leadership has committed to reform, but of course the chinese are always there, suggesting that the North Koreans should follow their path. What really is the way to cultivate an environment where north korea can move in a reform direction . At this point, it is so obvious they are looking for cash, but is there a way of drawing them into a positive path rather than pursuing the negative activities that we have been talking about . Mr. Cha the positive path that has been on the table, really i think for successive administrations i know there are always conversations about the extent the Clinton Administration was different from the Obama Administration in terms of how they dealt with north korea. In the book i go through these. In the end, the packaging may have been different, but there is a positive path that has been on offer. In return for giving up their nuclear program, the United States, the International Community would provide security guarantees, we would provide economic assistance, energy assistance, it would provide political normalization, money, it would provide a Regional Security environment in which north korea could feel safe and secure, all these sorts of things in return for giving up their Nuclear Weapons. But that has not worked. It has failed. It has failed for every administration going back to george h. W. Bush. I think with the Obama Administration, we have really reached the end of the road for this. Many would argue that the Obama Administration, at least in terms of initial intentions, was the north korea problem. What is being done in the interim . The most that can be done is to try and get more information into north korea. Interms of what is going on terms of the outside world, the internet, cell phones. This is the only way to really make inroads to seeing any change. From the perspective of need economicey reform, money, food. On the other hand, regimes like forceslease all sorts of that inevitably lead to loss of political control, and maybe even the collapse of the regime. Particularly this new coming to power, that is the last thing may want to consider at this moment. It is aay you framed the chinese may have a different idea about what would be necessary, that is not quid pro quo. Us, and you find a stable path. That is the argument. The question i have, based on what we are seeing in china north korea doesnt seem to be willing to dip its toe in the water. How would we know if we see a north korea leadership that was moving in that direction . I have many friends when i talk to those friends, they are always optimistic about north korea, the prospects. I never understood why. , they havek them , from thed seen china greatly lowered to the country it is today. Leap forward to the country is today. If china can do that, north korea can. Pingwo big differences was a charismatic leader. Largerthanlife. Inexperienced 29yearold running the country in north korea. Thesecond problem is chinese say, to get rich is glorious. Making money was ok, even if it meant giving up a degree of political control. The current north korean leadership for the foreseeable future there is nothing more important than political control. Case, for to be the the last leadership. It looks to be the case in the current leadership. That kim jongun will be the leader of north korea, who spent part of his life in switzerland. That he might be ping. But given the recent crisis and the missile test and the failure of the Obama Administration to reach north korea, i dont think there is a lot of hope that he shows signs of being a future pi ng. Militaryre is a general that isnt happy with the current situation, the young leadership making bad decisions. But we dont know. The prospects to look very good lookhat sort of dont good for that leadership. The founderakers, of the need to impeach campaigner talks about what he on theding 20 million effort to impeach donald trump. Sunday at 6 p. M. Eastern. Now a discussion on the impact of the 2008 recession, from washington journal. This is about an hour. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] , she is the author of nomad land, surviving america in the 21st century, and she is joinings