Kwon Hyok, a former North Korean intelligence agent, was persuaded to defect to South Korea. Now he's been interviewed about the shocking reality of North Korea's deadly concentration camps.
I listened to his cold and logical testimony remembering the phrase "the banality of evil". His words lacked emotion. He appeared to feel no remorse. He seemed proud that he had earned promotion in the army on the strength of his cold-blooded ruthlessness.Posted by Alan at February 1, 2004 08:41 AMThere have been many rumours of human experimentation on political prisoners in North Korea, but never has anyone offered documentary proof. Until now. In Seoul I met Kim Sang Hun, a distinguished human rights activist. He showed me four documents that he told me had recently been snatched illicitly from Camp 22.
They were headed Letter of Transfer, marked Top Secret and dated February 2002. They each bore the name of a male victim; his date and place of birth. The text read: "The above person is transferred from Camp 22 for the purpose of human experimentation with liquid gas for chemical weapons."
The location was named: Vinalon Plant 2.8. There was a North Korean stamp saying Prison Camp 22.
Kim Hang Sun was convinced that this was not a forgery. The paper, the handwriting, the bureaucratic format, the official stamps and the document's provenance all convinced him that it was authentic.
I took one of the documents to a Korean specialist in London who examined it and confirmed that there was nothing to suggest that it was a forgery. I wanted to run a check of my own with Kwon Hyok. Without showing him the Letter of Transfer, I asked him, without prompting him in any way: "How were the victims selected when they went for human experimentation? Was there some bureaucracy, some paperwork?"
"When we escorted them to the site we would receive a Letter of Transfer," he said.
Kim Hang Sun had two explanations for why Kwon Hyok seemed so lacking in emotion. First, they are damaged people, he said, brought up in a perverted value system. But second, he said that many defectors bring stories of chemical weapons experiments in North Korea and they are always surprised at the shocked reaction. In North Korea, they claim, it's common knowledge. They are surprised that we're surprised.
Via The Telegraph (UK)