The North Korean government denies the existence of concentration camps in the country, but they are well known to the North Korean people as ?reas of complete dictatorship control? These areas are given numbers such as Rehabilitation Center no. 14 or no. 15, and controlled by the Ministry of National Security.

In general, concentration camps are regarded as prisons, but the ?reas of complete dictatorship control? as suggested by their name, are quite different from ordinary prisons. North Korean concentration camps take the form of villages located deep in the mountains. These villages and the mountains surrounding them are designated ?reas of complete dictatorship control? and are contained by heavily guarded fences. From the outside, it is impossible to tell that these areas are concentration camps. The no. 15 Rehabilitation Center where North Korean defectors Kang Chul-hwan and Ahn Hyuk used to be imprisoned stretches over two-thirds of Yoduk County in South Hamkyong Province. Thus, this camp is generally dubbed the Yoduk camp. The village within a camp is divided into several sections. Because North Korean criminal law involves the system of guilt by association, punishment of a crime usually constitutes placing the entire family of the criminal in these camps. So a camp village is divided into sections housing singles and families. There are also villages made up of repatriated Korean- Japanese.

Concentration camps are located all over North Korea. The locations of the following camps have been confirmed: no. 14 and 18 in Kaechon, South Pyongan Province, no. 26 in Dongshin, Yangpyong-Seungho (moved in Jan. 1990), no. 15 in Yoduk, South Hamkyong Province, no. 27 in Chunma, North Pyongan Province (moved in Dec. 1990), no. 12 in Onsung, North Hamkyong Province (moved in May 1987), no. 13 in Jongsung (moved in Dec. 1990), no. 12 in Hweryong, no. 22 in Chungjin, no. 11 in Kyongsung (moved in Oct. 1990), and no. 16 in Hwasung. It is likely that most of the locations have changed, because when the location of a camp is discovered, the government shuts down the place and moves it elsewhere. It is reported that there are currently over 200 thousand people scattered in 12 concentration camps.

Unlike other prisons, a criminal sent to a concentration camp for political prisoners has no idea when he will be set free. Even though people serving sentences in ordinary prisons are mostly innocent, they can at least count the days until they are set free, but political prisoners are given life sentences. This means that they will live the rest of their lives in enforced slavery and die in the concentration camps.

Concentration camps are divided into areas under permanent control (closed camps) and areas undergoing revolutionary education (re-education camps). The latter is where people who have committed so-called minor political crimes are sent along with their families. Some of them are eventually rehabilitated. In the case of Yoduk camp, most of the inmates are repatriated Korean- Japanese who had failed to adapt to North Korean society or to remain useful to the regime. Most of them are sent to the camp with no formal charges. Some of them are set free according to the amount of money their relatives in Japan remit to the country. Even those Korean- Japanese who used to be part of the ruling class can one day find themselves in Yoduk if Kim Jong Il feels the need to dispose of them. After they receive a certain amount of education, they may be rehabilitated. Kang Chul-hwan and Ahn Hyuk are cases in point. But the rehabilitated ones are among the lucky few; most of the Korean- Japanese sent to concentration camps stay there for the rest of their lives. Sometimes, inmates are sent from re-education camps to closed camps usually for rebelling against a security agent. According to Kang, some of the people who were caught and sent to re-education camps for secretly believing in God were transferred to closed camps for praying in secret.

People who are placed in closed camps will never leave that place. Initially, closed camps were filled with landlords, pro-Japanese persons and religious leaders who were segregated in the process of nation building, as well as security officers during the Korean War. But the closed camps are now filled with former members of the ruling class who were either purged by Kim Il Sung during his rise to power or by Kim Jong Il during his ascension to his father? position. Other inmates in these camps include critics of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il or the regime, and students and employees who had secretly associated with foreigners. Recently, North Korean escapees who are suspected of having contacted South Koreans while hiding in China are beginning to make up the majority of the population in these camps. It is reported that some of the closed camps are located in Dongshin, Kaechun, and Pyongjun-ri and Yongpying-ri in Yoduk County.

A closed camp is considered the land of no return where oppression is even harsher than re-education camps. Knowing this, inmates in re-education camps live in mortal fear of being sent to a closed camp. Some even choose to commit suicide rather than being sent to that hell on earth. The difference between the two categories of concentration camps is obvious in the way inmates are supposed to behave in front of the guards. In re-education camps, prisoners must bow at a 90 angle when they come upon a security agent, whereas in closed camps, they have to kneel. In Center no. 14, where North Korean defector Kim Yong used to be imprisoned, inmates had to turn around and kneel when a guard passed by. The degree of forced labor intensifies in closed camps, and the prisoners are fed very little. It seems that closed camps have different conditions. A high-ranking official in the Ministry of National Security had Kim Yong transferred from camp no. 14 to no. 18, and according to Kim, no. 18 was paradise compared to no. 14. In camp no. 14, Kim worked from 6 in the morning to late at night in a coalmine, where he never got to meet other inmates because he was shut in a pit on his own. At least Kim got to climb out of the pit to sleep at night. According to an instructor who used to belong to the Kim Chek College of Engineering, the inmates in the goldmines of Balwon in Chakang Province worked in shackles and slept in the pits 300m underground. (Kim, Jungyeon. Pyongyang Woman. Koryo Publications, 1995) Inmates there do not get to see sunshine until the day they die.

Most prisoners in concentration camps dream of escaping, but eventually realize that it is impossible and therefore give up. Most of the camps are situated deep in the mountains and surrounded completely by barbed wire and traps. So even if the prisoners manage to escape, they usually die in the mountains. Furthermore, most of the prisoners are so weak that they can barely walk, much less run away. There are cases of survivors such as a young former commando who succeeded in escaping from his camp but was caught in China, and Kim Yong, who also escaped and made it to South Korea. But such cases are extremely rare because the North Korean authorities, fearful of having any of these places discovered, make sure that they are heavily guarded at all times. The only means of escape is committing suicide, a choice that the prisoners often take. But even this is not an easy way out. If a prisoner commits suicide, his family has to serve his sentence, and are subject to even harsher punishment. In spite of this, suicide rates in concentration camps are very high.

The camps are run by security agents of the Ministry of National Security and guarded by guards from the same Ministry. North Korean defector Ahn Myong-chul belonged to the 7th Guard of the Ministry of National Security. A handful of the security agents treat the prisoners humanely, but they never last long. Any agent caught helping the prisoners is sent to the coalmines. So security agents treat political prisoners harshly in order to protect themselves, and they eventually become less and less humane. Professor Haruhisa Ogawa of Tokyo University deplored the situation that made beasts out of both prisoners and security agents.

The history of North Korean concentration camps

Concentration camps in North Korea were initially set up for landlords, pro-Japanese, or religious figures, but have gone through a few stages of transformation.

The first stage is after the Korean War, when the concentration camps are expanded to accommodate the members of the South Korea Labor Party, the Russian group, or the Yanan sect. These people are victims of the extensive purge campaign launched by Kim Il Sung as he climbs to the position of Great Leader. Others sent to the camps in this period are criminals of the Korean War- families of persons who defected to the South, and security officers who worked for South Korea.

The next stage is from the late 1950s to the end of the 1960s, when Kim Il Sung commands the intensive guidance program and the campaign to reregister the North Korean residents. Through this campaign, all the North Korean residents are categorized under core, wavering, and hostile classes, which are again divided into 51 security ratings. Those classified hostile are all sent to concentration camps. And at the end of the 1960s, political dissidents who resist the one-ideology system are also sent to concentration camps.

In 1972, the management of concentration camps passes from the Ministry of Public Safety to the Ministry of National Security. More camps are built, and the control of existing ones tightened. During this period, the explosive growth of political prisoners and the increase in the number of camps lead to several riots and escape attempts by inmates. In Ahn Myong-chul? journal And They Were Crying, Ahn mentions a riot that took place in the early 1970s in camp no. 12 in Onsung. The political prisoners take spades, sickles, and axes and sneak into the village where the families of security agents and guards are staying. They kill all the wives and children of the security agents, but in the end, all 5,000 of them are killed by guards armed with rifles and machine guns. After several such riots, the guards and security agents become more and more cruel in their treatment of political prisoners, and tighten surveillance and control. It is during this period after the Ministry of National Security takes over that the Ministry establishes the method of maintaining and managing the camps, which continues to this day.

Then in the 1980s, the period when Kim Jong Il succeeds his father, those who oppose the inheritance of power are sent with their families to the concentration camps. The number reached some 15 thousand. As the regime? control over society intensifies after the collapse of the Soviet Union, large numbers of students and diplomats who are abroad are placed in the camps. And from the later half of the 1970s, many of the repatriated Korean Japanese meet the same fate.

In conclusion, the concentration camps for political prisoners in North Korea were constructed during the process of nation building to accommodate those who got low security ratings, the so-called bad apples. But they were expanded in the process of Kim Il Sung? rise to power, and served the purposes of the regime through the process of Kim Jong Ils inheritance of power, the collapse of the eastern bloc, the food crisis, and the consequent struggle to maintain the system.

Who are the people in the concentration camps?

There is no such thing as a perfect society. So it is only natural that there are always people who want to change society, be it through good or bad methods. Most of the democratic societies in the world including South Korea have had their share of trials and errors, and experiments, through which people tried to change the society they live in. The attempts that they have made and the thoughts they have been put through open the way for discussion and inspection. But there are still many countries that have yet to undergo such a process, and these countries naturally have plenty of so-called political criminals. The international community has always used the existence of political criminals and their treatment as the yardstick in measuring a countrys human rights standards.

Currently, the country with the biggest number of political criminals is none other than North Korea. But according to the North Korean authorities, there are no political criminals in North Korea. The regime calls its republic paradise on earth, and so political criminals would be unthinkable in such a place. Who in his right mind would oppose heaven on earth? In the places called rehabilitation centers in this paradise, countless people meet their deaths, but the places always maintain a steady number of 200 thousand inmates. What is happening? What have they done to be labeled criminals in a paradise on earth? Are they really political criminals?

Political prisoners in concentration camps in North Korea all have their own stories to tell, but generally, they can be divided into the following categories:

Persons with bad security ratings (hostile class) and their families

The hostile class is divided into 21 subcategories: people who were downgraded to the working class after the liberation, rich farmers, landlords, pro-Japanese and pro-American persons, anti-peasant bureaucrats, practitioners of the religion Chondogyo, repatriated Koreans, Christians, people who were expelled from the workers party, people punished by the party, members of enemy organizations, families of convicts, people related to spies, people guilty of anti-party or counterrevolutionary crimes, families of executed convicts, people with criminal records, political criminals, member of the democratic party, and capitalists. During the period from 1966 to 1970, the campaign to reregister all residents and the project to divide the entire population into 3 classes and 51 subcategories resulted in the execution of 6,000 people and the imprisonment of 70,000 people or 15,000 families in concentration camps. It was during this period that concentration camps were expanded. Then in 1980, during the inspection of resident IDs that followed the 6th Workers Party Convention, most of the people who had been lucky enough to escape imprisonment in the late 60s were caught and sent to concentration camps. Like Kim Yong, a North Korean defector who escaped from camp no. 14, people are caught and sent to the concentration camps in the process of resident re-registration and resident ID inspection, all carried out on a regular basis.

The only reason why these people are in concentration camps is that they have bad security ratings. But time has passed, and the first generation of the hostile class has died, leaving behind their children and grandchildren to live in concentration camps for crimes they do not know anything about. Can such people be called political criminals?

Counterrevolutionaries and their families

From December 1958, political criminals were accused of counterrevolutionary crimes and imprisoned, executed, or deported to remote mountainous areas. And then from 1973, when Kim Jong Il began to condition the system in preparation to inherit his father's power, until 1980, when Kim Jong Il was officially named Kim Il Sung's successor at the 6th Worker's Party Convention, thousands of critics and political enemies were arrested. Entire families were sent to concentration camps. If truth be told, genuine counterrevolutionaries existed only around the period of national liberation and the Korean War. After that, so-called counterrevolutionaries were people regarded by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il as political enemies in their respective efforts to gain power. Most of these counterrevolutionaries are sent to closed camps and spend the rest of their lives there.

Counterrevolutionary or anti-state crimes consist of the crime against national sovereignty, the crime of opposing the national liberation struggle, and the crime of concealing or failing to report anti-state crimes, as stipulated in articles 44 to 55 of North Korea? penal code. But the definitions of such crimes are so ambiguous that Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il could easily manipulate the law to send an innocent politician to a concentration camp, no matter how high his rank was. And if Kim Jong Il thinks that some high-ranking party member is behaving insolently, all he has to do is sign a command that will send that member straight to a concentration camp, even if he or she is not a political enemy. Well-known high-ranking officials such as Kim Chang-bong, Kim Bong-hak, Park Kum-chul (former vice-premier and member of the Political Bureau), Heo Bong-hak (former chief of the agency for communizing the South) and Kim Kwang-hyup (former chief of the party? secretariat) were sent to concentration camps. It is doubtful that these people were guilty of counterrevolutionary crimes defined in North Korea? penal code.

Actually, what is more fearsome than North Korea's penal code is the 'Ten-point principle for the establishment of the one-ideology system' Ordinary North Koreans know little about the penal code and other laws. They are not taught what constitutes a crime and what does not. For example, Ahn Hyuk, a North Korean defector, went to China out of curiosity, and not knowing whether that was a crime or not, decided to give himself up to the authorities. He ended up in a concentration camp. North Koreans do not need to know the difference between a crime and a non-crime; they simply do as they are told. But things have changed with the introduction of the ten-point principle, which begins with a statement urging the people to give their all in the struggle to color the entire society with the revolutionary ideology of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung. It would be unthinkable for anyone in North Korea to be ignorant of the ten-point principle, much less go against it. The ten-point principle has become the law above all laws.

When Kim Jong Il gained unchallenged authority, he implemented an ideological program that became the basic mandate of the Workers Party. The program is aimed at establishing the one-ideology system and the one-leadership system. This program takes precedence over all other laws including the Constitution and the penal code. This means that even without using the penal code? definition of counterrevolutionary crimes, any action deemed as a diversion from the Great Leader? ideology can be condemned as the worst crime of all.

Establishing the one-ideology system means unifying the entire society under the Great Leader? ideology and denouncing all other ideologies. In other words, the one-ideology system is a system that idolizes the Great Leader, turns his ideology into a faith that borders on religion, totally legitimizes the ideology, and makes it the people? duty to show unconditional loyalty to the leader.

Establishing the one-leadership system means uniting the party, army, country and people in mind and body under the command of the Great Leader. The entire nation moves as one to follow the dictates of one leader.

Under the pretext of establishing this one-leadership system, the North Korean regime has accused countless innocent people of counterrevolutionary crimes and sent them to concentration camps for political prisoners. Most of these people are punished for absolutely ridiculous charges such as slandering Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il, failing to memorize Kim Jong Il? New Year Address, disfiguring Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il? portrait or badge, disfiguring the names of the two leaders printed in the newspaper, or being rowdy or insolent in front of the statue of Kim Il Sung.

High-ranking officials in the Ministry of National Security and the Workers Party have the authority to interpret the law as they see fit. But there is one exception, and that is the 'Ten-point principle for the establishment of the one-ideology system' Anyone who violates this is immediately and unconditionally sent to concentration camps for political criminals. Naturally, these people cannot be considered political criminals by normal standards.

Repatriated Korean- Japanese and their families

A considerable number of people with Japanese citizenship offered up all their worldly possessions to Kim Il Sung and took the ferry bound for North Korea in order to serve their motherland. But most of them end up in concentration camps, where they spend the rest of their lives regretting their choice. In particular, first generation repatriates who brought their families to North Korea carry the added burden of guilt for causing their children and grandchildren to suffer in the camps because of them.

The repatriated Korean- Japanese are sent to the concentration camps with no formal charges because of the following: First, the authorities assume that people who have lived for so long in a democratic society would naturally be dissatisfied with the one-ideology system. Second, the repatriates have a hard time adjusting to a society that is so different from the one they left. The food crisis of recent years has weakened the regime? control of information, but until the early 1990s, government propaganda had been quite successful in convincing the people that North Korea was the most advanced country in the world. Naturally, Korean- Japanese who knew the fallacy of the regime? claims would have been a threat to the regime. Kim Bo-kuk, a taxi driver, was sent to a concentration camp for commenting to his passenger, a repatriate, that Japan must be quite a developed country. So one can imagine how suspicious the regime must have been of repatriates who had spent most of their lives in Japan.

Yoduk camp, which received its first Korean- Japanese prisoners in 1974 (600 prisoners, or about a 100 families), has maintained a steady population of 100 to 200 families until 1979. In 1986, it was reported that Yoduk camp was holding a total of 5,300 prisoners comprised of about 5,000 repatriates and 300 other criminals. Since the 1980s, the number of repatriates has decreased, with almost no further influx of such people. Among the repatriates, Korean women who had married Japanese men have had the most difficulty in adjusting to life in concentration camps. Most of them survive less than 2 or 3 years. From 1977 to 1979, 14 Japanese wives were detained in camps. Most of them died within 3 years and only 2 were released. But with North Korea? move to establish diplomatic ties with Japan, there are recent reports that the Japanese wives are separated from other criminals and accorded slightly better treatment. Like Kang Chul-hwan, some of the Korean - Japanese are set free because of the cash that relatives in Japan send to North Korea. But in most cases repatriated Korean- Japanese meet their deaths in concentration camps.

North Korea? version of liberalists and their families

The North Korean regime prohibits any contact with foreigners and tightly controls the influence of so-called liberalism in order to maintain its reclusive dictatorship. However, a person? curiosity is not something that can be controlled by others. North Koreans working or studying abroad, and workers in the service industry who come into contact with foreigners regularly undergo intense ideological education and screening. In spite of this, many of them become too curious for their own good and make blunders that land them in concentration camps.

Park Seungjin, a member of the North Korean soccer team that took the world by storm during the 1968 World Cup by beating the Italian team, is a case in point. Because of his curiosity, he had to give up the comfortable life of a national hero and spent the rest of his days in a concentration camp. With the World Cup final game with England just around the corner, Park and his teammates sneaked out of their rooms and partied all night with English women. They had been curious about how people in liberal countries lived. When their night of partying was discovered, the whole team was sent to concentration camps. Park was slightly luckier than his teammates because he was sent to Yoduk re-education camp, while the rest were sent to closed camps where conditions are much harsher.

Many diplomats working abroad who made unnecessary contact with foreigners were charged with espionage, tortured, and finally sent along with their families to concentration camps. In particular, the collapse of the Eastern bloc in 1989 and incidents like the escape of North Korean students studying in Russia prompted the North Korean authorities to step up their crackdown on diplomats and students studying abroad. These people were summoned home, interrogated and spied on, and a considerable number of them were sent to concentration camps.

Some of the North Koreans were in constant contact with foreigners while living in North Korea. They were people serving or entertaining foreign visitors to North Korea. Anyone who talked to the foreigners outside their line of duty or visited their rooms went straight to concentration camps. Kim Myong-jun, a guide working at Koryo Hotel, was shipped to Yoduk camp for visiting a foreigner in his room during the April 15 Kim Il Sung Birthday celebrations. It was another case of 'curiosity killed the cat'

In North Korea, people are accused of liberalism if they listen to or sing South Korean songs, dance the disco, or travel without permission (something that is obviously out of control these days). Even the ruling elite is not exempt from punishment for ideological diversion. Kim Jong Il? brother-in-law Chang Sung-taek suffered because of his liberalist actions. He had imitated Kim Jong Il's parties and organized his own group of women entertainers. When word of this reached Kim Jong Il's ears, Chang was shipped to the coalmines, where he went through a long period of unbearable hardship before he was called back to his post.

Recently, with the explosive increase in the number of North Korean escapees, those caught and dragged back home are questioned on whether they were in contact with South Koreans or other foreigners. Some of them make false confessions, either because they cannot stand the torture or because they are tricked by the agents who promise to let them go if they tell the truth. Anyone who admits to meeting foreigners is executed or sent to a concentration camp.

Abductees and others who entered North Korea

So far, more than 480 South Koreans have been kidnapped and held captive in North Korea. Most of them are fishermen who were kidnapped while at sea, and there are also people who were abducted while they were overseas in China or Germany. Most of them are used for propaganda or espionage, but when their usefulness is over, they are sent to concentration camps. North Korean authorities are reluctant to send them back despite the fact that the South Korean government has finally brought up the issue, because they are afraid that the world would discover how badly the abductees had been treated.

Most of the people who went to North Korea either because they were fooled by North Korea's propaganda, or because they were on the run from South Korean authorities ended up in concentration camps. They were sent to the camps because, like the repatriated Korean-Japanese, their ideological purity came under suspicion or they had problems adjusting to North Korean society. Some of them are simply disposed of in camps because they were no longer useful to the regime. Sometimes, people are sent to the camps immediately after they hold press conferences announcing they had entered North Korea for righteous reasons. These people are nurses or students who had been staying in East Germany, stowaways headed for Japan who had taken the ferry bound for North Korea, former soldiers, or businessmen. After they end up in concentration camps, their homesickness intensifies, which only makes it harder for them to survive the miserable conditions in the camps.

There are not that many abductees or other Koreans who had willingly entered North Korea. But because of their behavior and accents, they easily stand out from ordinary North Korean residents.

Families left behind by North Koreans defectors

Before the severe food shortage in North Korea, there were occasional incidents where North Korean officials or diplomats defected to South Korea. But since the food crisis, a considerable number of North Korean have made their way to South Korea via Russia or China. As of the year 2000, their number has exceeded 1,000. With the exception of those who are already well known, most of them wish to hide the fact that they have defected to South Korea, because if they are discovered, their families and relatives in North Korea are sent to concentration camps.

In the much-publicized case of former secretary of the Workers Party Hwang Jang-yop, casual acquaintances and distant relatives who did not even know him were rounded up and sent to remote mountain villages, coalmines, concentration camps, or even before the firing squad. Their number actually exceeded 10 thousand. If spies who had been sent to South Korea choose to turn themselves in and change their citizenship, the families they left behind in North Korea are all sent to concentration camps for political prisoners. Ahn Hyuk, who was in a concentration camp around the time North Korean secret agent Kim Hyun-hee was arrested for blowing up a Korean airliner, said that Kim? family was shipped to Yongpyong camp.

More and more genuine political criminals

Anyone in North Korea who is thinking of opposing Kim Jong Il has to be prepared to put the lives of his or her family and relatives on the line. That is why it is so rare to see even ordinary demonstrations in North Korea, not to mention any open criticism of the regime or public discussions. But even in that suppressive atmosphere, people are struggling to gain the freedom to live like humans. There are rumors of activities by dissidents, and although most of them remain unconfirmed, the beginnings of an organized movement seem to be in gear. Lee Young-hwa, a professor of Kansai University and the first Korean -Japanese to do a self-funded academic research in North Korea testifies to the existence of a secret anti- Kim Jong Il organization. The members are currently biding their time, waiting for their abilities to grow and for the right time to strike. Extensive surveillance usually leads to the discovery of such organizations before they attempt anything. The members are shot to death and their families sent to concentration camps for political prisoners. Criminals falsely accused of political crimes or counterrevolutionary activities are executed in public to teach the people a lesson, but genuine political dissidents are executed in secret, which frustrates fact-finding activities. But these days, with relatively easier access to information than before, rumors of anti-state activists are spreading like wildfire.

Actually, North Korean authorities are right when they claim that there are no political criminals in North Korea. The people who are suffering and dying in concentration camps for political prisoners are not political criminals in the real sense; they are scapegoats in Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il? struggle to maintain power. They were obedient citizens who cooperated fully with the regime but ended up in concentration camps simply because they were only too human in making a small mistake or letting their curiosity get the better of them. Countless people lived and died like beasts in concentration camps for truly ridiculous reasons. They were suspected of ?deological impurity just because they were Korean- Japanese. They supposedly had the potential to undermine Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il? authority despite their dedication to establishing the one-ideology system. They were the descendents of wealthy people, they had a religion, or they were South Korean soldiers, and the list goes on. They are not political criminals, just victims of a fanatical regime.

Today, it has become clear that the abject suffering of the North Korean people is the direct result of the incompetence, blunders and tyranny of the Kim Jong Il regime. The dissatisfaction of the North Korean people against their incapable leader is nearing its peak. Through the cracks that the food crisis put in Kim's dictatorship, news of the outside world is seeping in to slowly crumble the absolutism of Kim Il Sung's ideology. However, concentration camps will not disappear so easily. Rather, the camps may have to be expanded to accommodate the increasing number of genuine political dissidents who fight for freedom and life. Or the entire society may very well turn into one huge concentration camp. (to be continued...)