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UNCLAS SEOUL 002109 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR PREF PREL KS KN
SUBJECT: RARE ACCOUNT OF DPRK "TOTALLY CONTROLLED" PRISON 
CAMP 
 
SUMMARY 
------- 
¶1.  (SBU) A North Korean defector recounted his experience as 
a second-generation prisoner in a DPRK political prison camp. 
 He described the public execution of his mother and brother; 
starvation; torture with hot coals; and an education system 
bereft of politics, history, or any reality outside of the 
camp boundaries.  If his account is true, this defector would 
be the only person known to have been born in such a prison 
and escaped to describe it.  END SUMMARY. 
 
OVERVIEW OF DPRK PRISON SYSTEM 
------------------------------ 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Shin Dong-hyuk said he was born on November 19, 
1982, in Political Prison Camp No. 14, located in Kaechon, 
South Pyeongan province, North Korea.  Camp No. 14 is one of 
six or seven sprawling political prison camps in the DPRK 
where prisoners -- along with up to three generations of 
their families -- are imprisoned and forced to work in 
slave-like conditions, usually for life.  Some small sections 
of these camps, notably Camp No. 15 (Yodok) and Camp No. 18 
(Bukchang), are designated as "revolutionizing" zones for 
prisoners with fixed terms of incarceration.  Analysts 
estimate that up to 200,000 political prisoners are currently 
interned in the DPRK prison system. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Until now, nearly all defector testimonies on the 
North Korean prison camp system have been from former 
prisoners who had been detained in the "revolutionizing" zone 
at Yodok, while accounts on the "totally controlled" areas 
were either hearsay or from the published testimonies of just 
two defectors, Ahn Myeong-cheol (a former guard at Camp Nos. 
11, 13, 26 and 22) and Kim Yong (a former prisoner at Camp 
Nos. 14 and 18).  Shin is the only witness claiming to have 
been born in a camp.  We spoke to him on July 9. 
 
 
BORN INTO A PRISON VILLAGE 
-------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Shin's earliest memories are of living with his 
mother in a two-room cement house in a village with similar 
residences.  The family used one room for cooking and the 
other for sleeping.  Shin said that residents could circulate 
freely within their village, but needed special permission 
from security guards to visit other villages or areas of the 
camp.  (Note: Shin could not describe how many houses were on 
his street, how many people lived in his village, nor how 
many villages were within the camp. End note.).  Armed guards 
circulated in the camp, especially at night.  The guards wore 
Kim Jong-il or Kim Il-sung badges, but at the time, Shin did 
not know who those people were.  Shin's father lived with his 
work unit in a separate village. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Shin did not know why his family was in the camp or 
what "sins" his parents had committed.  While he now 
speculates that he had uncles who went to South Korea during 
the Korean War, he never thought it was necessary to ask his 
mother and his mother never explained.  In fact, it was not 
until he was much older that he had any reason to believe 
that anyone outside the camp lived any differently. 
 
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION 
-------------------- 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Shin began to attend elementary school ("people's 
school," in North Korean vernacular) at the age of six.  He 
was in a class of about 35 students in a school of five 
grades.  The curriculum consisted of reading, writing, basic 
arithmetic, and the memorization of camp regulations, such as 
prohibitions against stealing, unauthorized movements and 
meeting in groups of three or four.  There was no discussion 
of politics, history or current events.  Shin never learned 
about South Korea, China, the United States, or even North 
Korea.  Class discussion centered entirely on everyday life 
of the camp.  For example, children would have to write 
descriptive information about their mothers bringing cabbages 
home. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) The children studied from 08:00 until 12:00, broke 
for a one-hour lunch, and then continued class until 15:00. 
They then went to work, with typical tasks including road 
construction, fixing potholes, collecting coal dust, or 
 
carrying water to the fields. 
 
WORKING FOR RATIONS AT AGE 11 
----------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU) At age 11, camp authorities transferred Shin from 
his mother's home to a dormitory where he lived with his 
classmates.  His formal education then ended and his class 
became a full-time work team. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) The security guards distributed clothing, food and 
other necessities to camp inhabitants.  They distributed new 
sets of clothes, winter and summer, to each resident every 
two years, and provided shoes twice a year.  For food, Shin's 
mother received a daily family ration of 900 grams of corn, 
cut to the consistency of rice; salt soup and coal.  Shin 
never ate white rice or meat, except for the occasional mouse 
that he was able to catch in the fields. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Rations were directly linked to one's ability to 
meet work quotas.  Food allotments were small -- his share as 
a work unit member was usually about 6 spoons of corn per 
meal -- but sufficient to stay alive.  Shin said people only 
died of starvation when they could not meet their work quotas 
and, accordingly, were not given their rations.  Without 
food, they would be too weak to meet their quota the next day 
and would again be deprived of rations.  Eventually, these 
people would die. 
 
¶11.  (SBU) Shin did not recall any instances of teachers, 
supervisors, guards or even fellow inmates showing any 
compassion or offering to help anyone trapped in this cycle 
of missed quotas and starvation.  Inhabitants were too 
concerned about their own survival.  Moreover, it was assumed 
that death by starvation was the natural and proper fate for 
someone who could not do their work. 
 
SWIFT PUNISHMENT, NO HEALTH CARE, ACCIDENTS COMMON 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶12.  (SBU) There was usually one security guard per work 
team.  Thus, in a leather factory where Shin worked for a 
time, there was one guard for the roughly 2,000 workers.  The 
guards casually punished inmates for various infractions.  In 
one instance, Shin dropped and broke a sewing machine table. 
The security guard in charge administered immediate 
punishment:  he cut off the end of Shin's right forefinger. 
Shin considers himself lucky to have received such light 
punishment. 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Inhabitants did not generally seek health care 
because they would try to work regardless of their health. 
If they were too sick to work they could not meet their work 
quota, be unable to receive their rations, then die. 
Although there was a hospital in the camp, it was mainly for 
victims of industrial accidents.  Camp inhabitants, he said, 
were often hurt in the coal mine, where tunnels regularly 
collapsed, and in the forests, where huge carts of wood 
injured or crushed the workers. 
 
TORTURE AND CONFINEMENT 
----------------------- 
 
¶14.  (SBU) One morning when he was fourteen, guards 
blindfolded Shin and brought him to an interrogation center. 
They told him that his mother and brother had been caught 
trying to escape and asked Shin to confess his complicity 
with their plans.  He denied any knowledge of the escape 
attempt. 
 
¶15.  (SBU) Guards bound Shin's feet and hung him upside down 
"for about a day," he said.  The guards then took Shin down, 
chained his hands and feet together, and burnt his back with 
hot coals.  The guards held his torso in place with a metal 
hook. 
 
¶16.  (SBU) The guards then put him in a windowless room, 
perhaps underground, for seven months.  He had a roommate who 
claimed to have been there for ten years.  Shin's food 
rations were cut from the normal six spoons of shaved corn 
per meal to only two or three. 
 
PUBLIC EXECUTION OF MOTHER AND SIBLING 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶17.  (SBU) On November 29, 1996, guards brought Shin and his 
father, who had also been imprisoned for seven months, to the 
camp's execution yard.  The yard was used two or three times 
a year to execute people for attempting to escape, stealing, 
or violating other camp regulations.  Typically, the village 
residents, including children, would be forced to gather to 
watch.  Song remembers being about five-years-old when he 
witnessed his first execution.  He said he ran to the 
execution yard filled with curiosity. 
 
¶18.  (SBU) Shin thought that he and his father were about to 
die.  Instead, the guards announced the imminent execution of 
Shin's mother and brother for attempting to escape the camp. 
Shin said that all public executions were preceded by long 
exhortations by prison authorities about the various sins 
committed by the condemned.  With the villagers gathered, 
executioners hung Shin's mother, bound and gagged, from a 
tree.  They kicked a stool out from under her feet and she 
died, Shin said coolly.  Three soldiers then shot and killed 
Shin's brother, who was also bound and gagged.  Asked how he 
felt about his mother, Shin said that he was angry that his 
mother had tried to escape.  He would never forgive her for 
causing so much trouble for him and his father. 
 
¶19.  (SBU) Security guards then allowed Shin to rejoin his 
work unit.  However, his team avoided him and treated him 
like a criminal.  He said that he volunteered to work longer 
and harder in order to win back their trust.  He felt guilty 
for the crimes of his mother and brother, he added. 
 
ESCAPING THE GULAG 
------------------ 
 
¶20.  (SBU) In 2004, Kim met a fellow inmate who had lived 
outside the camp and had even been to China.  Based on his 
discussions with this inmate, Shin resolved to look for an 
opportunity to escape.  On January 2, 2005, Shin and his 
coworker were working in the woods gathering wood near the 
electrified barbed-wire perimeter of the camp.  Not seeing 
any guards in the area, they decided to run through the 
fence.  Shin wedged himself through the wires, suffering 
burns on his legs.  He said that he did not know what 
happened to his coworker, who appeared to have been caught in 
the fence. 
 
¶21.  (SBU) Shin broke into vacant houses to steal food.  He 
exchanged his light-blue prison clothes with regular clothing 
he found in abandoned buildings.  As he traveled north to the 
Chinese border, Shin was able to blend in with crowds and 
avoid authorities along the way. "It's not like you have a 
sign on your forehead that says you grew up in a prison 
camp."  Shin crossed the Tumen River after traveling about 25 
days in North Korea. 
 
¶22.  (SBU) Shin spent about a year in China, farming and 
working at the house of a Chinese man in Yanbian for about 
nine months.  He later traveled to Shanghai.  In February 
2006, a "Chosun Ilbo" newspaper reporter then working in 
China helped him enter the ROK Consulate in Shanghai.  He 
arrived in South Korea six months later. 
 
RESETTLEMENT IN THE ROK 
----------------------- 
 
¶23. (SBU) Shin's resettlement has not been easy.  Shin told 
poloff that he was hospitalized after one month at the 
Hanawon Resettlement Center because he was having nightmares. 
 For the time being, Shin has given up living alone in his 
ROKG-funded apartment and is staying at the Database Center 
for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB), a local NGO.  Dr. Yoon 
Yeo-sang, President of NKDB, told poloff on a separate 
occasion that Shin still showed symptoms of mental 
instability and had difficulty in talking with other people. 
Indeed, during this interview Shin often seemed distant and 
disassociated from the events he was describing. 
 
¶24.  (SBU) Despite the difficulties of overcoming the trauma, 
Shin still wants his story to be known.  He is currently 
working, with the assistance of an NGO, on a book for 
publication at the end of July.  He is also trying to get a 
driver's license. 
 
COMMENT 
 
------- 
 
¶25.  (SBU) Shin's testimony is almost impossible to verify. 
However, many experts within Seoul's DPRK human rights 
community seem convinced by his story, and we, too, note the 
general consistency between his account and what little we 
already know about the totally controlled areas of North 
Korea's prison system.  END COMMENT. 
VERSHBOW