The Hidden Gulag - US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

The Hidden Gulag Second Editiongaps remain, only some of which can be bridgedby additional research interviews. For example,much of the recent information about oneof the most well known kwan-li-so labor campscomes from relatively short-term prisoners froma recently constructed section for single men andsingle women in the “revolutionizing processzone” at Camp 15 (Yodok) for prisoners whoare eligible for release. Even though the formerNorth Korean prisoners now residing in SouthKorea try to track information very closelythrough their extensive information networksback in North Korea, there have been no knownreleases from Yodok since 2009. Thus, as ofthe publication of this report in 2012, we donot know if releases from the “revolutionizingprocess zones” continue or if the policy andpractice has changed.Similarly, a number of prisoners in the kwan-li-solabor camps interviewed for this report were sentto the family sections of the camps under the“three generation collective guilt and responsibilitysystem” for the real, perceived or imaginedpolitical stances, actions or associations of theirparent or grandparent. Yet, as much as ourrecent information comes from former prisonersfrom “singles” sections of the camps, we cannotknow with certainty the extent to which thefamilywide “guilt-by-association system” operatescurrently for new prisoners deported to thecamps. All we can know with certainty is thatthere are persons remaining incarcerated whowere imprisoned for the perceived political associationsor perceived misdeeds of their parents orgrandparents.Lastly, new construction can be seen in morerecent satellite photographs of the camps. Butwithout first person or eye-witness testimony, wedo not know if the new construction means theprisoner population is expanding or if the newconstruction is for the prison guards and officials,who are also housed within the sprawlingencampments.SourcesMany of the former North Koreans interviewedfor this report, believing their relatives to beeither dead or now living in South Korea, agreedto have their names and, in some cases, theirphotographs published. Many others, fearingthat the North Korean government practicescollective punishment, would agree to beinterviewed and provide testimony only undercondition of anonymity, lest relatives remainingin North Korea be punished for the interviewees’crime of escaping to the Republic of Korea.Such individuals are identified in this report witha number rather than a pseudonym.For some prison camps and detention facilitiesdescribed in this report, more than one source ofinformation was available, allowing a comparisonof accounts. In other cases, the descriptionof a particular camp or facility rested on thetestimony of a single former prisoner. In thoseinstances, the coherence and internal consistencyof the testimony and my professional experience20 had to be relied upon. In more than sixtyinterviews, only three struck me as too inconsistentto be reliable—one, from a very recent arrival20 In the course of several decades of human rights work, I haveinterviewed large numbers of victims of repression from a varietyof political systems and country situations: perhaps, most notably,hundreds of survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodiabetween 1975 and 1979 and scores of survivors of the genocide inRwanda in 1994.15