The Ghastly Hellhole of Camp 14

Townhall.com ^ | May 10, 2012 | Jeff Jacoby

[Kaslin]

SHIN DONG-HYUK grew up in North Korea's Camp 14, one of the monstrous slave-labor prison complexes in which the world's most tyrannical regime has crushed hundreds of thousands of its citizens, working them to death in conditions of excruciating brutality and degradation. Though the North Korean concentration camps have lasted far longer than their Soviet or Nazi counterparts did, Shin is the first person born and raised in one of them to have successfully escaped abroad. His story is told in journalist Blaine Harden's Escape from Camp 14, a heart-crushing reminder that man's inhumanity to man has no limit.

It is a book filled with harrowing passages. At the age of six, Shin was forced to watch as one of his classmates -- a short, slight, pretty girl -- was beaten to death by their teacher when he discovered five kernels of corn in her pocket. When Shin accidentally dropped a sewing machine while working at the camp's garment factory, half of his middle finger was chopped off as punishment. Time and again he sees other inmates maimed or killed when they are forced to work under appallingly dangerous conditions. And time and again he joins in collective punishment, unhesitatingly obeying when ordered to slap and beat a classmate or some other prisoner singled out for abuse and discipline.

When Shin was 14, he witnessed the execution of his mother and brother for attempting to escape. His dominant emotion as he watched them die was not sorrow, but anger: He was furious at what they had caused him to be put through. Because of their infraction, he had been savagely tortured, suspended in mid-air over a charcoal fire as interrogators demanded information about where his mother and brother were planning to flee after their escape.

"Shin, crazed with pain, smelling his burning flesh, twisted away from the heat," Harden writes. "One of the guards grabbed a gaff hook from the wall and pierced the boy in the lower abdomen, holding him over the fire until he lost consciousness."

North Korea's slave-labor gulag would be horrific even if its inmates were guilty of actual crimes. But most prisoners are guilty of nothing except being related to the wrong family.

Under a demented doctrine laid down by Kim Il Sung, the communist tyrant who founded North Korea, "enemies of class … must be eliminated through three generations." The regime therefore fills these unspeakable camps not only with "enemies" who dared to practice Christianity or failed to keep a picture of Kim properly dusted, but with their entire families, often including grandparents and grandchildren. Shin's father ended up in Camp 14 because two of his brothers had fled south during the Korean War. He and Shin's mother were assigned to each other by camp guards years later as prizes in a "reward" marriage. They were allowed to sleep together just five nights a year. Shin was thus conceived -- and spent the first 23 years of his life -- behind the electrified barbed wire of Kim's ghastly hellhole.

Harden's book is gripping and enlightening. Yet not even the most gifted writer can fully convey what it means to grow up in a Camp 14 -- a realm in which "love and mercy and family were words without meaning," in which betrayal was routine and compassion unknown. How does a human being overcome such damage? Grisly physical scars mark Shin's body, Harden writes, but there are severe psychological scars too. He struggles to show affection and to trust other people; to be capable of sympathy and sadness.

How could it be otherwise? After a lifetime of dehumanization and institutionalized cruelty, Shin can hardly be blamed if he wrestles with emotional paralysis.

But what excuse do we have? We who know what freedom and civilization mean, who live with law and justice and decency, who intone "Never Again" after accounts of genocide and holocaust -- how do we justify our emotional paralysis?

There is no cruelty so depraved that people cannot be induced to do it, or to look the other way while it is being done. Escape from Camp 14 reconfirms what we have known for years: North Korea's rulers brutalize their people with unparalleled and bloody barbarity. Why do we find it so easy to look the other way?

[majormaturity]

1. Complete and total quarantine, enforced by naval patrols and air power. Nothing goes in or out. Financial as well.
2. Air drop military equipment (rations, small arms, ammo, RPGs, etc.) throughout the countryside so those who want to fight, can.
3. Drop leaflets telling the people to rise up and fight - they will be supported with #2 above.
If Obozo can assist with the “Arab Spring” then the next president can assist with the liberation of NK.

[silverleaf]

This was Clintons Secretary of State, enjoying herself openly, publicly, with a monster

Did she know he was a monster?
YES.

This was published in 1998

http://www.scribd.com/eric_asalas8874/d/16272997-Hidden-Gulag

2d edition published this april
http://hrnk.org/publications-2/

[RoadTest]

Again the world sits around giving assent by its silence.

[DuncanWaring]

North Korea's rulers brutalize their people with unparalleled and bloody barbarity.

The barbarians on the other end of The Won's Blackberry plan to do the same to us.

Remember, they have previously expressed a willingness to send 1-in-8 of us to the ovens - and not a pastry chefs.

[RoadTest]

“Conquer the doggone place....”

Well, yeah, that would solve the problem. Wait! China and Russia would jump to its defense. Would that war be called WW3?

[RoadTest]

“So why aren’t international bodies like the UN and Amnesty raising hell about these atrocities?”

Because the UN is controlled by China and Russia.

[wrencher]

Let their neighbors deal with the problem. We could air drop radios, food, and small guns and stop feeding the govt. I wouldn’t do much more than that.

[Publius Valerius]

I am very much in favor of a free North Korea, but it’s not as simple as that. I think liberating NK would be no problem for our military. Then what? Is the US or UN going to be committed to a Marshall Plan that will rebuild and retrain North Koreans to be competitive in the world economy?

NK has a GDP behind interior African countries. The GDP per person—something we really don’t know because the country is so closed—is estimated to be $1,800 (US is $48,000)—behind countries like Senegal, Ghana, and East Timor.

We don’t know how many people are imprisoned in the camps in Korea, but they estimate it’s a couple hundred thousand. Of those, only the fortunate ones are even schooled long enough to learn read and write.

The fellow in this book is an exceptional person who escaped from these camps, and he has had tremendous difficulties in finding and holding a job and supporting himself. What do you do with a whole nation of these people?

[mo]

“So why aren’t international bodies like the UN and Amnesty raising hell about these atrocities?”

Because the UN is controlled by China and Russia.

Your far too kind....IMHO these atrocities are “professional courtesy” .....and are tolerated by leftists in general who would, if they could, universally apply them to all central government resistance.

[married21]

We have a Korean woman who is studying English staying with us right now. I really didn’t realize how geographically isolated Korea was, and how vulnerable it makes Koreans feel. They first met westerners only about 100 years ago, because they had been blocked by the Chinese on land and at sea. Then, the Japanese became colonial powers over China and Korea and came in with the first modern technology, about in the 1930s. Briefly, after Japan’s defeat, Korea was free, and then it’s been war ever since. And yet it has become a developed country. Think of all the countries that have been independent only since the mid-20th Century. How many of them have done what Korea has done?

I used to think it was not fair of the South Koreans to sit there in prosperity and not do more to liberate the North. Now I see better how fragile their position is. They have an amazing country in a terrible location. They may not be able to do much to liberate North Korea until the next time China falls apart. And then they will have a job much worse than knitting together East and West Germany.

[Popman]

Never forget this type of evil lays just beneath the surface of every hard left progressive...

Remove the rule of law and replace with the rule of a single madman...

Depravity has no limits

Obama and his fellow travelers are well capabale of lowering themselves to this level to acheive their goals

[whd23]

MacArthur would have done the job had Truman allowed him to.

Yup. It's all explained here. (warning: language)

[Road Glide]

[[ Under a demented doctrine laid down by Kim Il Sung, the communist tyrant who founded North Korea, “enemies of class … must be eliminated through three generations.” ]]

The left would do the same right -here-, if they could.

[W. W. SMITH]

Obama and his fellow travelers are well capabale of lowering themselves to this level to acheive their goals
*******************************************************

Anyone not believing this, google Bill Ayers and his solution for the American conservatives who wont bow down to communism.

[Lurker]

Is it just me or do Asians seem to have a special penchant for brutality?

It's just you. The Germans, Russians, Turks, Romanians, Serbs, Croats, and dozens of other ethnicities are just as susceptible to it. We all are.

[denydenydeny]

At the age of six, Shin was forced to watch as one of his classmates -- a short, slight, pretty girl -- was beaten to death by their teacher when he discovered five kernels of corn in her pocket.

I'm reminded of Chelsea Clinton's idiotic remark when visiting Africa that "we have poor people too." No, we don't have poor people like this.

[RedMDer]

FReepers who believe in and support our pro-life, pro-family, pro-limited government conservative causes, enjoy reading and participating on FR, think it’s a worthwhile endeavor and would like to help us keep it going. Please click the link. The Republic you save may be your own.

FReepers who believe in and support our pro-life, pro-family, pro-limited government conservative causes, enjoy reading and participating on FR, think it’s a worthwhile endeavor and would like to help us keep it going. Please click the link. The Republic you save may be your own.

---

FReepers who believe in and support our pro-life, pro-family, pro-limited government conservative causes, enjoy reading and participating on FR, think it’s a worthwhile endeavor and would like to help us keep it going.
Please click the link.
The Republic you save may be your own.

[majormaturity]

We don’t do anything. Enable the people to overthrow the regime, then let SK give them aid and assistance to rebuild.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

At any time NK can shell Seoul into oblivion. There’s no obvious solution.

[Elsie]

There’s no obvious solution.

Godzilla has one!