Future Relations Between North and South Korea

Fr Malachy with Kang Chol_Hwan

Fr Malachy Smyth is pictured here with Kang Chol-Hwan.

Despite the enthusiasm of some South Korean commentators on the Inter-Korean meetings held recently, Kang Chol-Hwan, the Author of the "Aquariums of Pyongyang", interviewed here by Fr Malachy Smyth SSC, is less upbeat.

MS: You have some reservations about the recent Inter-Korean meetings?

KC-H: It seems to be for political advantage for either side, rather than for the benefit of the people of the North, to ease their hunger and oppression. I wouldn't see that meeting yielding much comfort to the people of the North. It was more of a show for President Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Chong-Il than anything else. When they didn't deal with the atrocious Human Rights abuses going on in the North, in the concentration camps around the country, or discuss the nuclear weapons threat hanging over the South, it all seemed so much window dressing. So things go on as before with no prospects of any change or willingness to change. As far as I could see the meeting seemed to be about political gain, more than anything else.

Kim Jong-Il and Roh Moo-Hyun shake hands last October.

MS: What immediate changes would you like to see?

KC-H: What I would like to see is the concentration camps shut down and the innocent people set free as in any civilised society. Also there is no rice in Pyonyang; there is hunger all around and malnourished children after years of mismanagement, and people are still brutalised and hungry. The state-enforced communal agriculture programme is a failure and the people will only break free of their hunger when they are allowed to farm their own land and harvest their own crops. But what I see as a forerunner to all of that is freedom in all its forms: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of movement, freedom to decide how one should live one's life, to be able to make decisions about home and family as a free human being. Things that are taken for granted in so many countries around the world are kept from the people just 40 miles to the north of Seoul here by a brutal regime.

MS: Do you think the Churches are doing enough?

KC-H: I feel more should be done for the people trying to escape the persecution in the North, the genuine asylum seeking crossing over into China and trying to make their way to freedom in South Korea. At times there seems to be only token interest in their plight, and not much effort to try and resettle them or help them deal with their trauma and pain. The people of the North must also do something for themselves to challenge the oppressive regime. Like the situation in Burma where the dictatorship of the generals is oppressing the people, the people have responded with 'People Power' and are demanding change and democracy and human rights. It is the only way they will have their dignity respected and their rights upheld.

MS: In your book you write of life in the Yodok concentration camp.

KC-H: Yes. At the age of nine, I and my family were snatched in the middle of the night and dumped in the concentration camp for what was to be a ten-year nightmare of survival. Our entire family was rounded up because of the unspecified crimes of our capitalist-leaning grandfather. Those who tried to escape from the camp were hanged in public, and all the other prisoners were forced to throw stones at their lifeless bodies. Later, as a punishment, I was given the task of burying the dead. I was horrified to see graves being bulldozed and body parts scattered to make way for a vegetable patch or other tillage to support the guards and their families. We were always hungry so the search for any kind of food was relentless. I caught anything I could, including rats and crawling things to beat the hunger and malnourishment. Rats were the most valuable as the fur could be used to patch up the bits of rags our family had as we tried to survive the biting cold of Winter. Once when a group of children working in a mine were buried in a sudden collapse, the rest of us were forced to continue working. I was extremely lucky to escape eventually and make my way to freedom.

MS: In your ten years in the gulag of Yodok, did you ever think of God?

KC-H: I didn't know anything about belief in God, or faith, or religion. Since I came out of the North I began to attend Church. In the North today the only God is Kim Il-Sung, or Kim Chung-Il. It is interesting that Kim Il-Sung's mother was a Protestant believer. Her name was Kang Pan-Sok and there is a primary school in her name. The Communist system took the protestant method of education and applied it to the cells of operation. The Protestant Wednesday and weekend gatherings for worship was reshaped to suit the Wednesday and Saturday forced gatherings of the local chapters which was really a worship of the Great Leader Kim Il-Sung. It's amusing but going out to church at times brings back memories of the forced gatherings of my youth.

But when I started reading the Bible many things changed in my life, the sacredness of life the dignity of the person, the freedom a person has as a child of God, all these things denied by the Communist system to its people. My favourite passage in the Bible is the Pauline teaching in Cor 13 on the importance of love. Without love there is nothing, and sadly there is no love in Pyongyang, only Kim Il-Sung was to be shown love. That is only show, it is the absence of love.

MS: Have you a message for the younger generation?

KC-H: To the younger generation whether in the east or the west, especially the young in developed countries, I would plead with them to value the freedom you enjoy and to respect it. Remember that in the past many people suffered so that you could experience the freedom you now enjoy. Young people should think more about their contemporaries in other less fortunate places who are denied basic freedoms, and they should actively show their concerns about that. There are so many ways that pressure can be brought on regimes like we have in the North to gain freedom for the people. I think young people in Western countries should think more about those still in bondage around the world and lead in finding solutions in so far as they can. Sadly many Western countries think it is not their business.

MS: How about your family?

MC-H: It is very painful to be separated from my family members and to know they are still suffering in the North. Happiness for me will be when all are free to live and love as human beings.

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