Defectors condemn North Korea

Little progress was made at the recent six-nation talks concerning North Korea's nuclear program, but an event at IU tried to bring about change to a different issue -- North Korea's human rights violations.\nAuthor Soon Ok Lee and her son Daniel Choi -- both survivors of North Korea's prison camp system -- were among guest speakers at a conference looking at the North's human rights crisis. The event was held in the Whittenberger Auditorium of the Indiana Memorial Union.\n"(North Korea) is a totalitarian regime under Kim Jong Il," Soon said with the help of a translator. "Because of that, there are no human rights ... to the extent that people in North Korea don't know what human rights means."\nSoon spent more than 50 years in North Korea before being wrongfully charged and sentenced in 1986 to 13 years in prison. \nAfter being imprisoned for seven years, Soon escaped and fled to South Korea in 1995.\nChoi was chosen to be a prison guard when he was 17 years old and served for three years.\n"When I arrived in South Korea, they showed a movie called 'Schindler's List,' and I was surprised at the similarities between the (German) concentration camps and the North Korean prisons," he said.\n"Hitler could kill people because no one outside the country was talking about it." \nChoi added that people need to start discussing the North's human rights issue and urged audience members to contact their Representatives. \nJack Rendler, vice chair for the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, which co-sponsored the event, said the only positive aspect of the situation has become the recent increase in information coming out of North Korea.\n"There's always a signature violation by a regime ... for me, forced abortion and infanticide are North Korea's signature violations."\nRendler gave the example of prison camps set up for the sole purpose of forced abortions. He added that women in their third trimester would be allowed to give birth, but prisoners would then be forced to kill the baby.\n"North Korea is the violator of our time, of your generation," Rendler said. "You guys aren't 'bought and sold' yet ... you're the ones they (North Korean government) are worried about."\nRendler urged the audience to protest human rights abuses in North Korea. Soon agreed.\n"Just like (Saddam) Hussein, I hope that Kim Jong Il is rooted out of North Korea," Soon said, "and I hope you remember North Korea."\n-- Contact nation and world editor Obaid Khawaja at okhawaja@indiana.edu.