Page 105 - Trilateral Korea Japan U.S. Cooperation

the other hand, the Japanese government would do well to
recognize and resolve any outstanding issues, such as the
comfort women matters. Revisionist history in Japan that
denies the colonial and wartime abuses does not help.

Given that North Korea is the most unjust, poorest, most
corrupt and oppressive government on the planet, it should
come as no surprise that many of its people seek to leave.
The historic propaganda that North Korea is a Communist
paradise is pure fiction, not to mention a contradiction in
terms. Additionally, the Songbun system distributes scant
food, clothing, housing, educational and work opportunities
on the basis of a caste system predicated on perceived political
loyalty of people and their families to the Kim dynasty.

When considering why a North Korean would seek to escape
the country at great risk, consider the following testimony
that is representative of the frequent torture inside the North
Korean concentration camps:

“One day in early March 1997, I was taken into a
torture chamber I had never been in before. I saw a big kettle
on a small table and a low wooden table with straps, about
20 centimeters high. By surprise, one of the two interrogators
tripped me with his leg. They strapped me on to the table and
forced the kettle spout into my mouth. The spout was made
so that it forced my throat wide open and I could not control
the water running into my body. Close to suffocation, I had
to breathe through my nose. My mouth was full of water and
it overflowed from my nose. As I began to faint from the
pain and suffocation, I could not see anything but felt sort of

104 Section II : Human Rights, Abductees, Forced Repatriation of Refugees and the Regional Implications