As
it is the tenth anniversary of Shin Dong Hyuk’s escape from Camp 14, I will
post information about the Concentration Camp, Kaechon Internment Camp, AKA
Camp 14 from Wikipedia.
Kaechon
internment camp
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Chosŏn'gŭl
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개천
제14호 관리소
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Hancha
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Revised Romanization
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Gaecheon Je14ho Gwalliso
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McCune–Reischauer
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Kaechŏn Che14ho Kwalliso
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Chosŏn'gŭl
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개천
정치범수용소
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Hancha
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Revised Romanization
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Gaecheon Jeongchibeom Suyongso
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McCune–Reischauer
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Kaechŏn Chŏngch'ibŏm Suyongso
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Kaechon internment camp (Hangeul: 개천 제14호 관리소, also spelled Kae'chŏn or Gaecheon) is a
forced labor camp in North Korea for political prisoners. The official name is Kwan-li-so
(Penal-labor colony) No. 14. It is not to be confused with Kaechon concentration camp (Kyo-hwa-so
No. 1), which is located 20 km (12 mi) to the northwest. This place
is commonly known as Camp 14.
Location
The
camp was established around 1959, in central North Korea near Kae'chŏn county, South
Pyongan Province. It is situated along the middle reaches of Taedong river,
which forms the southern boundary of the camp, and includes the mountains north
of the river, including Purok-san. Bukchang, a concentration camp (Kwan-li-so
No. 18) adjoins the southern banks of the Taedong River. The camp is about
155 km2 (60 sq mi) in area, with farms, mines and
factories threaded through steep mountain valleys.
Kaechon internment camp (Kwan-li-so No. 14)
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Description
Imprisonment
at Kaechon internment camp is for life with no chance of release. Prisoners are
forced to do hard labour and have to work until they die. So called
"politically unreliable" people and their families are deported,
without any trial, to the camp, where prisoners live completely isolated from
the outside.
The
camp is approximately 155 km2 (60 sq mi) in area. The
camp includes overcrowded barracks that house males, females, and older
children separately, and a headquarters with administration and guards housing.
Altogether around 15,000 prisoners live in Kaechon internment camp.
According
to Blaine Harden, Shin Dong-hyuk went to primary and secondary school inside the
camp. The secondary school was "little more than slave quarters from which
he was sent out as a rock picker, weed puller and dam labourer." This
education did not include even basic information about North Korea since all
outside information was cut off to inmates of the camp. The personality cult around Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il was also absent; for example
there were no portraits of the Kim leaders on display. The camp was
self-contained and self-sufficient. The camp was near a hydro-electric dam and
mines in which the prisoners were forced to labour. In one of Shin's prison
cells, where he was held during an interrogation, he said he had electricity
and running water. Shin's mother lived in a house with multiple rooms in a
"model village" within the camp, given to women who had children.
Purpose
The
main purpose of the Kaechon internment camp is to keep politically unreliable
persons classed "unredeemable" isolated from society, and exploit
them with hard labour. The term "unredeemable" is applied to people
who want to escape North Korea's deeply repressive government, or people who
have spoken harshly about the government or other non-criminal elements. Actual
criminals may also be sent to the camp. The labor at the camp is performed in
mines and farms with primitive means.
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.chroness.com/project/inside-the-worlds-worst-prison/]
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Human
rights situation
Many
prisoners of the camp were born there under North Korea's "three
generations of punishment". This means anyone found guilty of committing a
crime, which could be as simple as trying to escape North Korea, would be sent
to the camp along with that person's entire family. The subsequent two
generations of family members would be born in the camp and must also live
their entire lives and die there. As reported by witnesses, the prisoners have
to do very hard and dangerous work in mines and other workplaces from 5:30 in
the morning until midnight. Even 11-year-old children have to work after school
and may see their parents rarely. People are forced to work like slaves and are
tortured in case of minor offences. The punishment for violating camp rules
ranges from such punishments of having the tip of one's finger cut off, to
being tortured for months, to death.
Food
rations are very small, consisting of salted cabbage and corn, so that the
prisoners are very skinny and weak. Many die of undernourishment, illness, work
accidents, and the aftereffects of torture. Many prisoners resort to eating
frogs, insects, rats, and snakes to try to survive. Eating rat flesh helps to
prevent pellagra, a common disease in the camp which results from the absence
of protein and niacin in the diet. In order to eat anything outside of the
prison-sanctioned meal, including these animals, prisoners must first get
permission from the guards.
Imprisoned
witnesses
Shin
Dong-hyuk
Shin Dong-hyuk (born in Kaechon in 1982 as Shin In
Geun; escaped 2005) was born in the camp. His father was imprisoned because two
of the father's brothers defected to South Korea during the Korean War.
Shin gave testimony of human rights abuses inflicted on him and witnessed by
him as prisoner in Kaechon camp:
- When he told the guards his mother and brother attempted to escape (in hopes of acquiring an extra ration of food). Shin was thrown into a small underground cell, where it is impossible to either stand or lie down, and was kept there and tortured for eight months at only 13 years of age.
- Later Shin was forced to watch the execution of his mother Chang Hye-kyong by hanging and his brother Shin Ha-kun by firing squad. Shin had reported his mother and brother's planned defection to the guards. He was tortured for eight months before he and his father were forced to witness the two would-be escapees' executions.
- When Shin worked in a garment factory at the gulag and accidentally dropped a sewing machine, the foreman hacked off his right middle finger just above the first knuckle, as punishment.
- Shin witnessed dozens of public executions each year.
- Shin saw a six-year-old girl in his school being beaten to death for hoarding 5 kernels of corn.
- When Shin was 12 years old, he was separated from his mother and was rarely allowed to see her. Instead of attending school, the children had to do all kinds of physical work including weeding, harvesting, and carrying dung.
- Between the ages of 13 and 16, Shin was forced to do dangerous construction work and saw many children killed at work; sometimes, four to five children were killed in a day. On one occasion, he saw eight people killed by an accident.
- Shin described how, at the age of 14, he was arrested, completely stripped, his legs cuffed and hands tied, and was suspended from the ceiling of his cell. His torturers then lit up a charcoal fire under his back and forced a hook into his skin so that he could not struggle. He still has a number of large scars from the burned flesh and from many other abuses.
- Shin's cousin was raped by prison guards and died later; when his cousin’s mother wailed, she disappeared and was never seen again.
- Shin saw how 12 fellow prisoners given toxic water for washing by the guards got seriously ill within a week; then they disappeared.
- When Shin escaped through the high-voltage electric fence surrounding the camp, his friend Park Yong-chul reached the fence first, and was fatally electrocuted. He escaped by climbing over his friend's body.
Kim
Yong
Kim
Yong (1995–1996 in Kaechon, then in Bukchang) was imprisoned when his
relationship (which he covered up) to his father and brother, who both were
executed as alleged US spies, was identified. He witnessed approximately 25
executions in his section of the camp within less than two years.
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