And Throw Away the Key

A dozen may be a good thing when you're talking doughnuts or roses, but 12 is a big number when referring to years. And according to the latest reports out of North Korea, that is the number of years that U.S. journalists Laura Ling (bottom picture) and Euna Lee (top picture) will be spending doing backbreaking work in a North Korean labor camp.

The two women were sentenced today, after they were arrested by North Korean authorities for allegedly crossing the Chinese border into Korean territory approximately three months ago. At the time of their arrest, the journalists were based in China and were reporting on the trafficking of North Korean women for a California-based TV station owned by Al Gore. Family members have said that the reporters did not intend to cross the border into North Korea.
Word of the women's sentencing has sparked speculation that the reporters are being used as bargaining chips by the North Korean government, which has recently faced global ire as the reclusive country allegedly continues its testing of nuclear weapons.
NPR has done an excellent wrap-up of the situation; click here to read their story about the journalists' dilemma.
The Los Angeles Times offers a chilling perspective on what life inside those camps would be like for the two women. Here is an excerpt from their article:

"The first thing that passed through my mind when I heard about the verdict was that, from an American perspective, this is tantamount to a death sentence," said Scott Snyder, director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy for the Asia Foundation, a Washington-based think tank.
"There aren't a lot of guarantees in that type of environment. It's different from any prison that exists in the modern-day United States. This is a very sobering challenge for a new administration."

North Korean defector Kim Hyuck, who spent a total of seven months between 1998 and 2000 in a "kyo-hwa-so," said that the percentage of prisoners who die from the harsh conditions would be unimaginable in the west.

"It is not an easy place," he said of the camps. "Centers for men and women are separate. But even [the] women's place is not comfortable at all. . . . When I was in the center, roughly 600-700 out of a total 1,500 died."

Hawk said many of the re-education camps are affiliated with mines or textile factories where inmates labor for long hours, shifts that are often followed by work criticism sessions and the forced memorization of dry North Korean policy doctrine.

The literal meaning of a "kyo-hwa-so" in Korean is "a place to make a good person through education," said Hawk, who interviewed a dozen gulag survivors for his study for a group known as the U.S. Committee for Humans Rights in North Korea.

Kim, 28, who now studies math at a South Korean university, said that escape from the camps is nearly impossible.

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As I keep up to date on this situation, my heart is saddened for the women at the center of this political maelstrom. But they, at least, have the benefit of an entire nation that is up in arms over their imprisonment, and officials remain hopeful that their situation will be resovled diplomatically. Because news from within North Korea is sporadic at best, it is all too easy to forget the worries of the 28 million who call the nation home.

A 2006 report from Amnesty International details the woes Koreans face, including starvation (an estimated 12 percent of the population suffers from "severe hunger," and 37 percent of children and one-third of North Korean mothers are malnourished). Freedom of expression is non-existent; Reporters Sans Frontiers has reported that dozens of North Korean journalists have been "re-educated" for mistakes as simple as misspelling the name of an official. Tens of thousands of North Koreans have fled across the Amnok River to China seeking a better life.
It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. This 2003 photo (which you may have seen before) aptly proves the point: while the lights of South Korea gleam brightly on the southern part of the peninsula, North Korea is dark, stark evidence of the country's isolation from the rest of the world.

Click here to read a MSNBC story on what life is like inside the secretive nation.

Fair trade is not an option for the people of North Korea, at least not for the foreseeable future. But my hope is that one day they will be free, like their brothers in the south, to support themselves and craft a life of their own choosing. And until that day, our hearts and our prayers are with Ling, Lee, and their waiting families.