在4月15日他祖父金日成的誕辰典禮上，看著台下110萬的強大軍隊為他的每一句話而歡呼，金正恩愉悅地呵呵笑著，跟他12月過世的不苟言笑的父親金正日形成了鮮明對比。
與他的父親不同，頭髮蓬亂的金正恩直接向全國發出了洪亮的聲音，這掩蓋了其表意的乏善可陳。金正恩的政權邀請了國際電視媒體隊伍去拍攝慶典，意料之外的是，媒體們見證了紀念他的爺爺的衛星沒能進入軌道的挫敗。這一切都是爲了好畫面，而一些評論者宣稱它們顯示了這位年輕統治者在政治上的開放信號。
然而近幾周新鮮出爐的關於朝鮮的鎮壓受難者的報告則提醒著人們，這個獨裁仍是何等地肆無忌憚。朝鮮堅持“政治犯”一詞并不在它的字典里，然而迫害流亡者的數字則節節攀升。據朝鮮人權協會的David Hawk指出，共有約23000名脫北者現居韓國，其中包括數百名前政治犯及其他犯人，他們都身負曾遭暴行的恐怖故事。
他們的故事使Hawk得以更新那“被掩蓋的集中營”的情況，它在2003年首次曝光了在朝鮮奴隸般的勞動條件。新的版本中提供了自1970年起關於不同類型的強制勞動營的證詞：有進無回的關政治犯的“管理所”；多為普通犯罪服刑人員的“教化所”；以及自中國被強制遣返者的拘留中心，這些地方都涉嫌存在時常是致死的虐待。在臨近中國的拘留中心里，被懷疑受孕于漢族中國人的朝鮮婦女常被強制墮胎。（朝鮮鼓吹極端的種族純潔信條。）
甚至獄警也想要逃離這個國家，根據他們和那些前囚犯們的證詞，Hawk估計有15萬到20萬政治犯被關進了一系列的營地里，這些營地可以在谷歌地圖上被精確定位（“送到山上去了”是老百姓對那些失蹤者的隱語）。那些讓人不堪重負的勞動導致許多囚犯營養不良甚至畸形，他們每天工作十二小時，每週工作七天。供應的食物之匱乏迫使他們以蛇鼠為食，或者在牛糞里挑穀粒吃。衣物都破舊不堪。
根據金日成在1972年頒佈的一條法律——一堂三代都要被懲罰以徹底消滅階級敵人的“種子”——整個家族，包括孩子，都要因“連坐”被監禁。政治集中營里的犯人是不會被審理的，但就像Hawk所描述的，他們會因涉嫌有錯誤行為、錯誤思想、錯誤知識、錯誤盟黨或錯誤背景而被預設為異類。罪行包括沒把金氏大家長的畫像搽乾淨、曾是1980年代的東歐外交官或留學生因而目睹了社會主義的倒臺、（往往是在中國）跟韓國有聯繫，或者是一個基督徒。在強制失蹤這條上，朝鮮在世界上無處可比，受害者被單獨禁閉，在朝鮮的集中營里上演的非人道程度甚至比在蘇聯的還要糟糕。
一名最近的逃脫者的證詞格外引人注目，申東赫（改后名）因父母難能可貴地被允許擁有孩子而出生于集中營，他第一次看見外面的世界是在2005年，那年他22歲。他的故事被寫入一本卓著的新書《逃出14營》，此書的作者是Blaine Harden，他偶爾為《經濟學人》撰稿。六歲那年，年幼的申東赫目睹了一位監獄里的老師將一名與他同齡的女孩活活打死，因為她在自己的口袋里藏了穀粒。由於被持續的酷刑泯滅了人性，他告訴獄警他的媽媽和弟弟計劃逃跑。因涉嫌同謀被虐打了數周以後，他和他的爸爸被強制觀看媽媽和弟弟的處決。多年以後，他爬過朋友的屍體而得以逃脫，他的朋友死在監獄外圍通電的金屬線上。
申東赫的爸爸申慶燮（音）成了新的關注點，他于1965年被關押，而一些人認為他在兒子的逃亡後已遭殺害。儘管這似乎是毫無意義的，聯合國任意拘禁工作組在4月3日遞交了一封請願書，以尋求申慶燮的緊急釋放。申東赫在集中營時因爸爸把他降生到如此的暴虐之中而鄙夷他的父親，但他最近發佈了一盤表達了對父親的敬意的錄影帶。錄影帶是這樣結束的：“我想要為我的冷漠和刻毒下跪道歉，我希望你能在集中營里用盡一切的辦法活下來。我真的很感謝你給了我生命。”
他們故事是令人心碎的，然而外國人處理這些問題的方式也難以讓他們為之鼓舞。他們中的一些人說，是因為朝鮮憤而離開談判桌，關於鎮壓的話題才被提起。
本周聯合國安理會決定對平壤加緊制裁，理由是稱其拙劣的火箭發射違反了針對彈道導彈的禁令。朝鮮則憤怒地回應，聯合國核觀察員在近期將不得入境考察，而無視它在二月曾同意讓他們進入。就像許多人所想的那樣，如果朝鮮接下來實施第三次核試驗，制裁或將跟進。然而在人權問題上就沒有這樣的壓力了，就像朝鮮人權協會的主席Roberta Cohen所說的：“要拆掉的不僅僅是朝鮮的核武器，而是其整個專制政治體制。”
North Korea’s prison camps
The gulag behind the goose-steps
A ghastly secret that the North Koreans have tried to hide for too long
Apr 21st 2012 | TOKYO | from the print edition
LOOKING down on members of a 1.1m-strong army that applauded his every remark, Kim Jong Un giggled with delight during the centenary on April 15th of the birth of his late grandfather, Kim Il Sung. The contrast with his unsmiling father, Kim Jong Il, who died in December, could not have been clearer.
Unlike his father, the mop-haired Mr Kim spoke directly to the nation, in a resonant voice that masked the monotony of his message. His regime invited international television crews to film the festivities. Unexpectedly, it admitted that a mission to put a satellite into orbit in honour of his grandfather had failed. It all made for good television, and some commentators claimed to detect signals from the young ruler of a new openness in the regime.
In this section
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- Spectacular
- Addicted
- The road up from Mandalay
- Hope in the hops
- Mischief Minister
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Yet fresh reports in recent weeks about the victims of repression in North Korea are a reminder of how ruthless the dictatorship still is. It insists that “political prisoner” is not in its vocabulary. Yet growing numbers flee persecution. According to David Hawk of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, some 23,000 recently escaped North Koreans now live in South Korea. They include hundreds of former political and other prisoners. They bring with them harrowing tales of the brutality they have suffered.
Their stories have enabled Mr Hawk to update “The Hidden Gulag”, which first shed light on the slave-labour conditions in North Korea in 2003. The new edition provides testimony starting in 1970 about different types of forced-labour camps: the kwan-li-so for political prisoners, from which there is usually no release; the kyo-hwa-so penitentiaries mostly for those serving out sentences as common criminals; and detention centres for those forcibly repatriated from China. All appear to involve mistreatment that frequently ends in death. In the detention centres near China, North Korean women suspected of being made pregnant by Han Chinese are subject to forced abortions, the report says. (The state preaches an extreme gospel of racial purity.)
Even prison guards attempt to escape the country. Based on their testimonies and those of former inmates, Mr Hawk estimates that there are 150,000-200,000 political prisoners, penned into a string of camps that can be pinpointed on Google Earth (being “sent up to the mountains” is a euphemism among ordinary folk for those who disappear). Many prisoners are stunted and deformed from back-breaking work, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, with so little food that they eat rats and snakes, and pick through cow dung for grains of corn. Clothing is threadbare.
Whole families, including children, are incarcerated for “guilt by association”. Under an edict from Kim Il Sung in 1972, up to three generations must be punished in order to wipe out the “seed” of class enemies. There are no trials for those in the political camps, but presumed deviants are suspected of, as Mr Hawk puts it, wrongdoing, wrong thinking, wrong knowledge, wrong association or wrong background. Crimes include a failure to wipe the dust off a portrait of Kim the patriarch; having been a diplomat or student in eastern Europe in the late 1980s and therefore having witnessed the collapse of socialism; having contact (usually in China) with South Koreans; or being a Christian. Nowhere in the world matches North Korea for forced disappearances. Victims are held incommunicado, rendering the level of inhumanity even worse in the North Korean gulag than in that of the former Soviet Union.
The testimony of one recent escapee, Shin Dong-hyuk (a new name), stands out. He was born in one of the camps to a mother and father given rare permission to have children. He first saw the outside world when he escaped in 2005, aged 22. His life is chronicled in a remarkable new book, “Escape from Camp 14”, by Blaine Harden, an occasional contributor to The Economist. At six, the young Shin witnessed a prison teacher beating a girl his age to death for hiding grains of corn in her pocket. Dehumanised by the constant cruelty, he told a guard that his mother and brother planned to escape. After weeks of torture on suspicion that he was complicit, he and his father were forced to witness their executions. Years later, he escaped by clambering over the body of his friend, who had died on the electrified perimeter wire.
Mr Shin’s father, Shin Kyung Seop, is a new focus of attention. He was imprisoned in 1965, and some believe he may well have been killed after his son’s escape. On April 3rd a petition was filed with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, seeking his urgent release—however futile that may sound. The young Shin, who scorned his father while in the camp for breeding him into such cruelty, has since released a video in his honour. It ends: “I want to get to my knees and apologise for being cold and mean. I hope you survive in the camp any way you can. I really appreciate that you gave me life.”
The stories are heartbreaking, but foreigners who deal with the regime rarely bring them up. Some say that is because the North Koreans storm out of meetings when the subject of repression is raised.
This week the UN Security Council tightened sanctions on Pyongyang for its botched rocket launch, which it says is a violation of a ban on ballistic missiles. The North’s angry reaction suggests UN nuclear inspectors will not be visiting shortly, despite a February agreement to let them in. More sanctions may follow if, as many think likely, North Korea conducts a third atomic test soon. But there is no such pressure on human rights. As Roberta Cohen, chairman of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, puts it: “It is not just nuclear weapons that have to be dismantled in North Korea, but an entire system of political repression.”
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