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

The Hidden Gulag Second EditionFurther, some accounts mention that within theBo-wi-bu political police force, there are “prosecutors”and that “sentences”—the decision to sendsomeone or a whole family to the camps—aremade by a “judge” deciding on behalf or inthe the name of, and/or reporting to the NorthKorean Central Court. It is possible that one ormore Bo-wi-bu police officials are termed “prosecutor”or that the person who makes the judgmentto send a person or family to the campsis called a “judge.” It is also possible that theDPRK court system is informed of the names ofpersons deported from society to life-long servitudein the labor camps.However, fundamentally, the use of the languageof law in such instances is misleading. Internationalconventions, which the DPRK hasofficially adhered to, particularly Article 14 ofthe International Covenant on Civil and PoliticalRights, spell out the minimum requirementsfor fair trial and due process of law. This setsthe standards of a judicial process that enablesa government to lawfully deprive a citizen of hisor her liberty. Clearly, the practice of abductingand deporting North Koreans, not to mentionforeign nationals, to the kwan-li-so labor campsviolates international norms. With one or twoexceptions discussed below, nothing in the testimonyof the former prisoners about their interrogationor deportations indicates any reference byNorth Korean political police authorities to theDPRK Criminal Code, the Criminal ProceduresCode, or the DPRK court system. The system ofsevere deprivation of physical liberty describedbelow, to which hundreds of thousands of NorthKoreans have been, and continue to be, subjectedis essentially, and certainly by internationalstandards, extra-judicial.Such a massive and enduring system of arbitraryand extra-judicial detention would likely itself bedeemed a crime against humanity under contemporyinternational human rights law.Successive Waves of Political Imprisonment:A Historical OverviewThere is a sequence to political incarceration inNorth Korea—a dynamic that will be familiar tostudents of communist party rule: first, suppressionof the opposition to the revolution; then,the elimination of enemies from within the revolution;and finally, the elimination of successivevictims of, and scapegoats for, the failure of therevolution. The pattern of deporting purportedopponents to the North Korean gulag followsKim Il-sung’s successful struggle to achieve powerand gain complete control over the North Koreanpeople, society, economy and state. More recentdeportations include those who complainedabout or sought to escape from the economic,social and political failures of the regime.After Japan’s defeat in WWII and the end ofJapanese colonial rule in Korea, Kim Il-sung,under Soviet tutelage, instituted what is usuallytermed a “national democratic revolution” inKorea north of the 38th parallel. This includedgenuinely popular reforms, such as the officialestablishment of an eight-hour workday, positingformal equality of the sexes and prohibitingprostitution, concubinage and female infanticide.It included a sweeping and popular landreform that expropriated the landholdings ofabsentee Japanese landlords and the nativeKorean land-owning aristocracy. It also included37