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UNCLAS SEOUL 002306 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF PHUM PGOV PROP KTIP KS KN
SUBJECT: NEW NGO REVEALS ABUSE AT PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN DPRK 
PRISON CAMPS 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY:  At the November 18 inaugural gathering of 
Campaign for North Korean Freedom (NK Freedom), Yonsei 
University Associate Professor of Law Hong Seong-phil 
explained that the group's founding was based on the notion 
that defectors needed to take ownership of the North Korean 
human rights cause.  Defectors who had escaped from "complete 
control" prisons provided harrowing accounts of how people 
and babies were treated.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Yonsei Professor Hong Seong-phil explained at the 
November 18 initial gathering of the Campaign for North 
Korean Freedom that among North Korean defectors in South 
Korea, there were 30-40 who had been political prisoners in 
the North.  Of these, only four had been imprisoned at 
"complete control" facilities in the DPRK, and all were 
members of the NK Freedom NGO.  Of the two types of prison 
camps in the North, relatively few ever survived conditions 
at "complete control zone" facilities, as indicated by the 
very small number of defectors in South Korea who had escaped 
from them.  Other speakers underscored that "not even corpses 
can escape the complete control zone."  These "complete 
control zone" prison camps have been in existence for four 
generations and held some Japanese-Koreans in the 1970s, they 
said. 
 
------------------------------------------ 
Camp 18 and 25: Now Made Known To Public, After Witness' Last 
Family Member Arrives in South Korea 
------------------------------------------ 
 
¶3. (SBU) Performing as interpreter during a PowerPoint 
presentation featuring satellite photos of several prison 
camps, Professor Hong stated that two of these camps, Numbers 
18 and 25, had hitherto been unknown to the outside world. 
Lim Jong-soo, a 43-year-old "living witness" to conditions in 
the former, described being held first at Camp 11, and then 
at near by Camp 18 in Pyungnam-Kyecheon for a combined total 
of 22 years.  Camp 18 held 100,000 prisoners, seven train 
stations and eight schools with 5,000 students each.  The 
schools provided only very rudimentary education, that which 
might be useful when performing work in the camp.  There were 
three groups of detainees, two of them being so-called 
"settlers" and "golamin" -- the latter those who had killed a 
party official or had come from Japan.  The camp was situated 
near a river in which there was an island that had been used 
for public and private executions -- usually about 20 each 
autumn.  There were trees on the opposite side of the rivers. 
 Sometimes children would drown crossing to gather nuts. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Lim had lived in the prison camps with his family 
from 1967 to 1989.  His father had been a prisoner of war 
captured by the North.  His mother and three siblings were 
also in the camps.  Lim was placed in the re-education area 
of the camp and was unable to see or interact with the 
"settlers" and "golamin."  For food, his family received 
rationed corn powder mixed with cabbage.  Prison officers 
took food from the fields, but others had to pay for this. 
Officers may have had pork, too, as pigs were nearby.  Lim's 
family suffered from constant hunger and often ate a certain 
poisonous plant as a result.  This ended up killing Lim's 
brothers and blinding Lim.  Lim's mother did forced labor. 
She was killed in an accident by a train moving in reverse. 
 
¶5. (SBU) At the camp school, Lim was taught that his 
suffering was the fault of his parents and consequently grew 
to hate them.  Another prisoner similarly educated buried his 
father alive.  No one recorded such deaths in "complete 
control" areas; people just vanished.  Lim had a vague 
recollection of other children having marks on their bellies. 
 His parents told him this was a brand, and he now thinks it 
was to mark the children as slaves. 
 
------------------ 
Camp 14, 22 and 25 
------------------ 
 
¶6. (SBU) A second escapee pointed out features on a satellite 
photo of Camp 14: a coal mine, pig farm (meat reserved for 
party officials and guards), adjacent houses holding three 
families each, a village surrounded by electric fencing, and 
a public execution space.  As in Camp 18, executions were 
usually held in the fall.  Camp 14 schools likewise provided 
only the most basic education. 
 
¶7. (SBU) NK Freedom Representative An Myeong-cheol, formerly 
a guard at "complete control" described Camp 22 in 
Hambuk-Hweryong as "medium-sized" among prison camps.  He 
indicated the locations of a checkpoint, coal mine, and 
electric fence at that facility.  Unlike other prisons, Camp 
22 had a "Kim Il-sung" auditorium and guard headquarters. 
There were locations for both secret and public executions, 
he said.  There was a dam nearby, which could flood the 
entire village if destroyed.  There were plans to breach it 
and drown the prisoners if necessary, An said.  Camp 25, made 
known for the first time at the North Korea Freedom 
inauguration gathering, was located in Chungjin-Soosung and 
inmates there produced bicycles. 
 
------------------ 
Camp 11, 15 and 16 
------------------ 
 
¶8.  (SBU) According to a former resident of Camp 11 Lim 
Jong-soo, Camp 11 held about 5,000 detainees, with electric 
fences, a mine, and a logging area.  Camp 11 was adjacent to 
Camp 16 in Hambook-Hwasung, newly discovered through the 
nearby 2006 North Korean nuclear test site.  Camp 15 in Yoduk 
became more widely known to the outside world through a 
musical called "Yoduk Story," which opened in fall of 2006 in 
Seoul. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
Failed Escape To China: Interrogation of Female Prisoners 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
 
¶9. (SBU) Asking that attendees refrain from photographing 
her, 42-year-old Lee Jun-shim (protect) shared her prison 
experiences and those of other female defectors she has 
counseled.  Born in Pyongyang in 1967 and a 10-year veteran 
of the North Korean military, Lee left the military as a 
second lieutenant in 1992, got married, and moved to Kaesong, 
but then fell on hard times.  Having no food, Lee and her two 
children wandered the countryside with no destination as 
"hunger orphans", eventually making it to Hyesan and crossing 
into China.  Hunted by Chinese security, Lee and her children 
hid on a rooftop once for seven hours until they were 
discovered.  Turned over to North Korean authorities, Lee was 
subjected to one and a half months of interrogation by the 
DPRK National Security Agency. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Upon entry into prison, Lee said, prison officials 
separated the women by age, herding those under ten into one 
room and separating out those under 16 from those remaining 
and lining them up.  Women in their 20's were told to remove 
their clothing in full view of the male guards and subjected 
to various humiliations, including being forced to exercise 
in that state.  Many of the women who had been in China had 
hidden money in body cavities.  Some confessed to this. 
Those who did not were searched, sometimes with sticks or 
soap.  Some were given laxatives. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Prison officials subjected the women to other forms 
of torture as well, Lee said.  They hit their fingers with a 
glass ruler, causing the joints to disconnect.  They would 
interrogate women near stoves so that they could pour boiling 
water on them or burn them with the hot stove pipe.  Lee's 
own body still bore the scars of such treatment, she said. 
 
----------------------------------- 
Interrogation of Pregnant Prisoners 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶12. (SBU) Pregnant women were also separated from the others. 
 Caressing their bellies, guards would ask how many months 
pregnant the women were, but the women were fearful of a 
sudden kick to the stomach.  Security personnel would inject 
the women with rivanol, inducing labor and delivery within 24 
hours.  Some babies were born dead, others still moving, but 
all would be wrapped in paper and discarded.  Prison 
authorities extended no assistance to the women after their 
deliveries.  They were left swollen and bleeding in very 
unhygienic surroundings.  A defector now living in Incheon, 
Lee said, had been imprisoned when she was nine-months 
pregnant and given an injection.  Guards put her stillborn 
baby in the women's bathroom so that she would see it again 
and again. 
 
¶13. (SBU) As Lee had previously been in the military, she was 
 
assigned to care for camp orphans.  She was still constantly 
hungry, though, and conditions were as unsanitary as ever. 
On one occasion, one of the orphans fell ill.  She was 
allowed to take the child to a hospital and managed to 
escape, fleeing again to China.  Once there she was captured 
again with her children and sold, she for 5,000 yuan and her 
children for 3,000 yuan each (five and three years old).  As 
with much of what she has gone through, Lee said she has 
learned through her work with other female defectors that 
many have experienced similar exploitation and abuse.  Lee 
arrived in the ROK in March 2007.  She lives and works in the 
Jeolla province, assisting other North Korean defectors in 
her region. 
 
¶14. (U) Media representatives from AP, Economist, two 
Japanese television stations, and other NGO groups attended. 
STEPHENS