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Chonbuk
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Vancouver
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 Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 3:45 am Post subject: North Korean refugees |
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Hello,
I just finished watching a documentary on North Korean refugees and the underground railway in China.
I feel that this is an issue that needs addressing.
The doc umentary said that China sends back 200 people a day to North Korea. These are people that are at best likely to be executed, and at worst to spend the rest of their days at a camp for political prisoners.
There is a website that can be accessed for more details,
http://www.seoultrain.com/
The Chinese embassy is practically across the street from my house. I want to run out and protest immediately.
I imagine that would be futile, and what needs to be done is to support the organizers of the underground railway so that they can continue to see people safely into Mongolia and other safe spaces.
Seeing the images of the North Koreans is heartbreaking, but more than that, they are images that stir our hearts and make us want to stand up for justice for these people. So that they can be given an opportunity to live like human beings.
That is not asking for too much.
I hope that you all will take a look at the site, and see what you can do from your unique positions inside of South Korea.
Help them if you can.
Chonbuk |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 3:49 am Post subject: |
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| I agree. I think a lot has to be done. Whats sick is that the current government in Korea has take a stance that it does not want to accept any more refugeees from the North for fear of upsetting that killer regime. Unfortunately on this site you will find that a lot of communists who are pro North Korea post a lot of garbage. I doubt they feel much for these people and their plight. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 4:04 am Post subject: |
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Chonbuk,
You are right. The issue is about compassion and doing the right thing.....not geopolitics and all that jazz. Ordinary folk (like myself and many here....) can do lots, even if it is only being informed of the human rights abuses, China and N. Korea.
Thanks for helping me keep informed.
DD |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 4:07 am Post subject: |
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| You will find that the people at LiNK hold screenings of SeoulTrain every so often (along with other videos and documentaries). |
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RACETRAITOR
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 5:22 am Post subject: |
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| Those people are communists and must be opposed at all costs. That's what I should be saying, right? |
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patchy
Joined: 26 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 6:23 am Post subject: |
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How do you know those people aren't running from something they did in North Korea? How can you believe everything they say about their past?
I suspect the truth is more like the situation with those Falun Gong people who are spreading rumors about China.
You can't rule out that they might belong to the criminal class in NK, they might be the social rejects, people sick and tired of being sent to the re-education camps for committing adultery (I read a story of one of these refugees and he left his daughter behind to be looked after his sister and took flight because he had gotten in trouble for committing adultery in successive relationships), or the like. As I said they're running away from something with nothing to lose because they're not the sort of people who care about leaving their family behind as the majority of them do.
It's the same situation with so-called refugees to Australia. After talking to many of them, mainly from the ME, from countries like Iran and Iraq (pre-Iraq War days), you will become very disillusioned about the whole process.
Many people will openly admit that they came not because of political persecution but because they were running from the law, they were habitual criminals, caught drug dealing and so on and on being tipped that they were to be caught, decided to flee. They all know through the grapevine how to pass themselves off as refugees at the UNHCR in the country they flee to. When they come to Australia they just resume their leeching lifestyle, made all the easier because of the welfare system there.
They want to come to countries like Australia and Canada (NZ is too small and boring) because they know they will have an easy life (they all know which countries have a generous cradle-to-grave welfare system), and they become quite picky and choosy about this in the transit country before they move on to the country that the UNHCR will settle them in. Just the fact that they even made it out pokes a big hole in their stories of persecution: only the middle class and up can pay the middlemen, the refugee brokers, and pay for their transitory lifestyle (with big cash transfusions from their well-off parents via Western Union) and the like ...
Some of them are pure economic refugees and I suspect most of the North Korean refugees fall in that category. Real 'political refugees' would be holed up in labor camps. Much like most of the SE Asian refugees of the "boat people" era were economic refugees.
Also the Cuban refugees. Many of the Cuban refugees at one time were criminals, the 'Marielitos'. Castro admitted he deliberately let them out of prison so that they could make their way to the US.
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In 1980, the Cuban government allowed 125,266 Cubans, including a number of criminals as well as persons with mental illness, to leave Cuba in the "Mariel boat lift." While most "Marielitos" were healthy and guilty only of wanting to leave a repressive system, this extraordinary event is often seen only as a means of Cuba ridding itself of the mentally ill and criminals. In the 20 years since the Mariel boat lift, 1,425 of the Marielitos have been sent back to Cuba and 1,750 remain in the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) (Ojito, 2000). Most Marielitos have enjoyed success in the U.S., while others have had greater difficulty than earlier Cubans in establishing themselves.
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And after these refugees from Iran and Iraq etc have gotten their citizenship in the western country they buy a plane ticket back to the country that was supposed to have persecuted them, to visit their families and friends and to show off how westernized they are - and also to pick up a bride. (Except for the criminal ones. They stay away.) The same with the political (actually economic) refugees from SE communist countries. They're constantly going back and forth to their home countries.
I'm sure most of these refugees from NK are well aware that they get 30 million won in SK to start them off on a new life plus job training and other freebies - not bad for somebody who was about to face labor camp for the third time for being a recalcitrant criminal or for someone who kept getting banished there for leading an 'immoral lifestyle'.
The South Korean and the western countries' middle class have to be the ones who have to whip out their checkbooks to fund their governments' little propaganda exercise and other political stunts and grandstanding, as usual.
The young male 'refugees' from the ME that I've know will openly tell you, if you befriend them, that they decided to emigrate 'as refugees' because they want to experience the 'decadent' western lifestyle, where they can drink in public places and go to nightclubs and pick up women in freedom. They admit the political repression thing is just BS and they know how to fake this and who outside these countries can verify their stories?
I suspect a lot of the refugees are like this. People who have very weak ties to NK society possibly because they are the outcasts and have alienated everybody, even their families, with their problematic behavior. Criminals would have a great incentive to leave, I would imagine they would be rather desperate to leave. Even if they have children which some of these people readily admit that they do, just leave them behind and get somebody else to take care of them.
And lie about what would happen to them if they're sent back - they'll be executed and so on ... funny how so many of the ones who make it to SK say that this is their second or third or even fourth attempt - it beats me how they made it out alive from NK to keep making these escapes if the NK had this policy of executing runaways.
I have a feeling that some of these NK refugees are not that dissimilar to the Falun Gong refugees, the Christian ones I mean. We have enough problems with cults including mainstream ones like Christianity in Korea, we really don't need any more of these people.
And it's funny how all the sympathy is for the 'refugeees' from the communist countries. We never hear the same people express the same sort of sympathy for the people of fascist dictatorship countries, those countries that are America's allies. No, those common people under those dictators are scum and deserve all they get, is the sentiment expressed by some people here. Either that or there's dead hypocritical embarrassed silence.
Some people either do not look at the root causes of these problems which go way back in most cases, to imperialism and colonialism, and just blame the people whom it is convenient to blame: 'it's communism to blame!'. Not even bothering to find out if socialist countries that have not had to fight a cold war (or a hot war) are the wealthiest in the world or not. Not even caring if their governments have been in collusion with each other to isolate these countries and carry on trade embargoes against these countries in an effort to starve them to death. Not even caring to think whether their governments have been carrying on an arms race with these countries, an arms race that means annhiliation to these countries if they fall behind.
Other people know full well the root causes and support these ideologies: fascism, imperialism etc , and cynically egg on these other people in their superficial indulgent displays of pity, while they blissfully and unconcernedly turn a blind eye to their own government causing the same misery to foreign peoples, or turning a blind eye to their government colluding or supporting these governments, even as we speak.
http://www.radioislam.org/islam/english/toread/collect.htm
You can tell who these posters by the selectiveness for whom they choose to express pity or outrage at their treatment.
Often they evoke the Holocaust or bring up Jewish suffering at the same time to try and associate it with this other instance of 'victimization'. After a while, after seeing this so many times, people automatically make the association of Jews as victims.
http://www.rense.com/Datapages/auch.htm
'There's no business like SHOAH business," as they say. :wink :wink
Spare us the drama, pull your troops out of Asia and stop threatening and waging a propaganda war on countries that refuse to be your lapdogs (propaganda which this refugee thing, calculated to pull the heartstrings, is all a part of - "let's put these refugees up on the cross - such 'Heroes'", and forget about the millions starving and dying and being blown up across the planet by the US and the Zionists everyday).
Somebody's conning somebody.
Do you like being conned?
Last edited by patchy on Tue May 23, 2006 7:39 am; edited 6 times in total |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 6:27 am Post subject: |
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I asked you in a another thread Patchy_Troll, and I'll ask you again, have you ever met a North Korean defector? Have you ever been to the DPRK? Have you been to northern China?
Well I have, and as always, you are talking out of your a$$. You talk baout things you know little about. Go cut and paste somewhere else troll.
Pi$$ off wanker.
Last edited by Captain Corea on Tue May 23, 2006 6:32 am; edited 1 time in total |
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ajgeddes
Joined: 28 Apr 2004
Location: Yongsan
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| Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 6:31 am Post subject: |
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| patchy wrote: |
How do you know those people aren't running from something they did in North Korea? How can you believe everything they say about their past?
I suspect the truth is more like the situation with those Falun Gong people who are spreading rumors about China.
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*beep* you're an idiot! I stopped reading at this point. I'm not even going to argue this because you are such a fucking idiot, there is no point. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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Cigar_Guy
Joined: 05 Dec 2005
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| Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 8:28 am Post subject: |
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Patchy's response reminds me of something George Will said some years ago: "Europe continues to be anti-semitic despite the fact that they got rid of their Jewish neighbors 60 years ago--how do they do it?"
Captain and the rest, don't bother--from my glance, this guy started off saying that the refugees are maybe criminals and ended up blaming the Jews for it. That's a whole other world of dumb going on there. |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 3:05 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, I know. Sometimes I just like saying his name though. 
Here's a couple of news items this week on the subject.
http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20060524/410100000020060524070302E8.html
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N.K. refugees testify to nightmarish life before escape to safety
LOS ANGELES, May 23 (Yonhap) -- North Korean refugees testified Tuesday to hunger, sexual exploitation and beatings they suffered in years of trying to escape from their country.
Wearing dark sunglasses and baseball caps, the refugees took turns talking to the press for nearly two hours in their first news conference after arriving in the United States. |
http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20060524/610000000020060524025043E5.html
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Other Asian nations also repatriating N.K. refugee: Amnesty Int'l
WASHINGTON, May 23 (Yonhap) -- Not only China but Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are also repatriating North Korean refugees trying to reach South Korea, Amnesty International said Tuesday in its 2006 report.
South Korea, the report said, has yet to take into account threats faced by asylum seekers in the country and has failed to ease discrimination against migrant workers.
The report once again concluded that fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, association and movement, are denied in North Korea.
Accounts of public executions and degrading prison conditions also continued, it said.
The human rights group estimated more than 100 North Korean refugees are awaiting decisions in foreign diplomatic missions on whether they will be allowed to resettle in a third country.
But some countries were forcibly returning them to North Korea, it said.
"The authorities in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia reportedly increased forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees who were attempting to reach South Korea," said the report.
Granting asylum and rights of migrant workers are issues lacking appropriate government attention in South Korea, according to Amnesty International.
"Refugee recognition procedures lacked transparency and failed to take into account threats faced by asylum-seekers," it said.
"Applicants (for asylum) were not informed of the grounds for decisions on their cases. They did not receive sufficient protection or support, including from qualified interpreters, and were not allowed to work," the report cited.
Basic rights of migrant workers were strengthened under a law effectuated in 2004, it noted.
"However, migrant workers continued to face widespread discrimination in wages and in access to justice...In December, there were over 200,000 undocumented migrant workers liable to immediate detention pending deportation," it said. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 4:07 pm Post subject: |
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Patchy,
Seems like the only audience you are going to get (and rightly so) , is your statue of good old comrade Stalin. ................
I concur with all the harsh comments regarding your patchy "arguement". No reply to it necessary.
DD |
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periwinkle
Joined: 08 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't understand why Laos, Cambodia, etc. is sending NK refugees back. You'd think they'd just look the other way if the refugees face execution. It seems like a lot of countries are trying to appease the NK gov't by co-operating and sending refugees back. I just can't imagine Laos, Cambodia, etc. having strong ties to NK. Or do they? |
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Hosub
Joined: 17 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 4:48 pm Post subject: |
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| jinju wrote: |
| I agree. I think a lot has to be done. Whats sick is that the current government in Korea has take a stance that it does not want to accept any more refugeees from the North for fear of upsetting that killer regime. Unfortunately on this site you will find that a lot of communists who are pro North Korea post a lot of garbage. I doubt they feel much for these people and their plight. |
You associate Communists with North Korea? Where does your ignorance lie? I don't understand how they're tied together unless you're taking North Korea very literally. |
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jaganath69
Joined: 17 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 5:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Are patchy and soviet man one and the same? Me thinks so. |
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