Kim Jong Il, mass murderer, do not R.I.P.
The obits for North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il are filled with details about his weird personal habits and his country's nukes, but the history books will reveal him as one of the great mass murderers of our times.
Kim Jong Il, mass murderer, do not R.I.P.
Trudy Rubin, Inquirer Opinion Columnist
The obits for North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il are filled with details about his weird personal habits and his country’s nukes, but the history books will reveal him as one of the great mass murderers of our times.
One of my most chilling journalistic experiences – in 2004 in South Korea - was interviewing a handful of North Koreans who had managed to escape to Seoul, and listening to the horrors they’d endured in their home country. Only a few thousand North Koreans have made it out, and they bear witness to the terrible suffering that Kim, and his father Kim Il Sung, inflicted on the North Korean population. Their crimes are on a par with the autogenocide conducted by Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge.
Much of the world knows that more than one million North Koreans perished of starvation in the last decade due to the regime’s bizarre economic policies. But, because the North Korean regime seals its own people off from the outside world, and permits only a few carefully controlled visitors in, Americans are less aware of North Korea’s death camps. They still reputedly hold 200,000 political prisoners, including many Christians.
The “lucky” prisoners are sentenced to reeducation, which means they may someday be released if they survive years of hard labor and torture. But many political prisoners are sentenced to life at hard labor. Their whole families are deported to the camps, including children and grandparents. Food rations are minimal, and death by starvation is common.
On my trip to Seoul, I met one North Korean woman, whose entire family was suddenly rounded up because her military officer brother had said something that was interpreted as critical of the regime. She survived by jumping off the train that was taking the family to the camp, and making it across the river that divides North Korea from China.
But China will send refugees back if it catches them, which means imprisonment or death. Female escapees are often sexually abused inside China. And those North Koreans who make it to Beijing still face immense hurdles in reaching South Korea; relatively few eventually make it to Seoul.
On that trip to Seoul, I attended a church service where North Korean refugees gathered, even those who were not Christian. Curch emissaries often travel to the North Korean border with China to help the refugees, and churches provide one of the few welcoming places where North Koreans can meet. But in talking to these exiles, I felt I was conversing with dead people walking, with men and women who had endured so much they were barely alive.
Having lived entirely regimented lives, North Koreans are often unable to fit into South Korean life. They are haunted by the certainty that their entire families back home will be punished for their escape to freedom. And, until recently, the South Korean government – fearing a huge flood of refugees – was less than welcoming to those who made it out.
What’s so galling about this mass murder is that there are no levers to stop it. The only country with real influence on Pyongyang is China, which is indifferent to human rights crimes. And the world is more concerned with preventing North Korea from selling its nuclear material to terrorists or rogue regimes than it is with closing death camps. Of course, the regime baldly denies the camps exist, despite the testimony of escapees and the evidence of satellite photos.
But, as Pyongyang “celebrates” Kim’s supposed achievements, the only North Korean deaths the world should be mourning are those of his victims. Kim Jong Il’s obituary should read “Murderer of millions of innocents”. Full stop.
To actually see N Koreans crying over his death.... How clueless are they????— elfman
This is all true. In fact, the author has, most likely for the sake of those unable to hear such gruesome stories, skipped some of the more egregious horrors that N. Korea inflicts on its own people. Almost sixty years have passed when this "Hermit Kingdom" further isolated itself, and the minds of these poor people have been so twisted, that most have no idea what is moral and right, having been fed the propaganda day after day on their radios and television sets that get just one channel......the one provided by the government. North Korea's horrors are many. There is NO liberty, for under their Stalinist communism, individualism is to be stamped out. This is also why liberty and freedom must be guarded in the US, and we should always be wary of a government that seeks to expand, and deprive us of our liberties. A government that tries to be all things to all people is exactly the kind of government that can take away everything your have. This is why Obama's vision is so wrong for America. All we need do is look at North Korea, where the gvt makes all your decisions for you....including whether you shall eat or starve.....live or die.— Alfred-King of Wessex
Comment removed.- Who? That one's easy. China. Remember that when you're doing your Christmas shopping. Without China's support, North Korea would be a very different place today. — Don_M
- He must really be evil - there aren't many leftist dictators that this "useful idiot" doesn't make excuses for. I guess that starving millions and threatening to blow up the world is even too much for Trudy. Poor guy, if he would have just accepted Obama's apologies she may of forgiven him.— Beethoven987
- There really isn't much difference between Bush and Kim Jong Il. Each is responsible for the death of countless numbers of people in order to try and advance a corrupt ideology. If they had their way, the Republican Party would starve as many women, children, minorities, and gays as possible in order to remake the country in their own racist and sexist image. Over the next year, all they will do is blame the President because he is black and tell you he is black every chance they get. You watch.— eldiablodelsol2009
- Wow, as an Independent, this insanity from the Left really scares me.
Hopefully you posted that comment from a locked ward in a mental hospital where you are court committed for the rest of your life. You are severely disturbed.... - He's right on target dopey. Remember when the Reagan Administration gave Saddam Hussein chemical weapons and he turned around and used them on his own people? Of course, folks like you choose to ignore history, facts, and reality because it just doesn't suit your pathetic, diseased ideologies. — bushmciworlcomenron
- He ran a very efficient police state. Our home grown "policymakers" were taking copious notes, you can assured.— Wilhelm Von Humboldt
- El Diablo, you are truly an idiot...
- Comment removed.
- eldiablodelsol2009, you're one of those sick, conspiracy theorists. Comparing him to Bush is insane.
— scars73 - North Korea is proof the Orwell wasn't making stuff up in "1984".— Lancer248
- North Korea is proof the Orwell wasn't making stuff up in "1984".— Lancer248
- Most times, the death of the dictator means a glimmer of hope for the masses; in North Korea, expect more of the same. The free world may never really know the depths of this murderous regime. We cannot begin to comprehend the murderous ways of the likes of the Japanese Imperial Government, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the Kim Jong Il dictatorship as we are still a relatively free people. Terms like "millions murdered" cannot truely be comtemplated by the average normal person and as such, don't give it the proper respect it really deserves. Good riddance.....— DelawareRiverRat
