Refugees from North Korea

Barb and I last night attended a lecture by a group working with Third Culture Kids, and specifically with North Korean refugee children. The featured speakers were two young women who (separately) crossed the river from North Korea into China then made their way arduously to Seoul. Their personal stories were touching, and their personalities were winning. I wish we had more time to talk with them about life in that mysteriously isolated place. They gave every evidence of being quite apolitical throughout, and neither had suffered from famine -- they simply wanted to escape from the incessant monitoring and fear of their government.

The several autobiographies and memoirs of refugees from North Korea are incredibly frightening, all the more so because of their proximity -- in both time and, here, geography. And we wonder, what can we do? We can support refugee organizations and political efforts to pressure the Chinese government to accept the refugees -- or at least not forcibly return them to North Korea. The women noted that North Korea policy is to imprison returnees for a period equal to their unofficial departure from the country. If the departure was in any way political -- i.e. against the glorious leader(s) Kim -- then the returnees are disappeared into concentration camps.

A recent op-ed piece in Korea Times noted the overwhelming difference in mindset between North Korea and western (and South Korean) approaches to negotiation -- to even say the word "trust" is to misunderstand that North Korea is totally focused on perpetuating the Kim regime, and every action is seen through that lens alone. As one of the lecturers at last night's meeting put it "in most of the world, a baby's first words are Mama or Dada; in North Korea, baby's first words are Long Live Generalissimo Kim"

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