Nightmares from the North

Daniel Choi does not look like a defector. He is a tall, lean man with a serious demeanor. He speaks quietly but clearly in halting English, and he is not afraid to look you straight in the eye when he speaks. His height is striking; he is taller than his mother and fellow defector, Lee Soon Ok.

This is unusual for North Korea, where famine is so severe that a whole generation of children has grown up shorter and weaker than their aging parents.

Mr. Choi’s account of his homeland is also strikingly different. Unlike most North Korean prisoners, he was born into a position of relative comfort and prestige. His departure from North Korea was not so much a result of torture and poverty as of political infighting and bitter disillusionment.

Mr. Choi was born Choi Dongchul in the northern province of Hamgyong. He remembers a comfortable childhood in a small mountain town as an only child of two Korean Workers Party members. His family was fortunate enough to be ranked in the “loyal” caste, a designation ensuring economic and political perks for the family, and requiring that one’s family records be politically spotless.

Mr. Choi estimates that 20 percent of the nation’s 20 million citizens rank as “loyal.” Many rank as “middle” or “wavering,” and the bottom 40 percent are designated as “hostile” or “enemy” citizens.

In a nation with a long tradition of family ties, the political sins or virtues of one’s ancestors often decided one’s ranking.

Mr. Choi’s father was the principal of a middle school. His mother oversaw government office requisitions, keeping the workplace supplied with cookies and candy. In their small town, few people owned bicycles, and most people walked to school or work. Cars, available only to the highest officials, were rare.

Life was comfortable for Mr. Choi. The main workplaces were factories, fields and mines. Food was available and affordable: One kilogram of corn cost about 8 won, and his parents’ combined monthly salary was about 200 won. His diet was filling: mostly corn and a little rice, with kimchi, vegetables and soup.

He does not recall ever going hungry as a child. When asked whether he was happy, however, his answer was less certain. “I think I was, but I didn’t understand the outside world at all — I had nothing to compare it against,” he said. “I thought it was heaven on earth, just like I’d been taught.”

Political education began at age 10, and party affiliation was expected of each citizen until death.

Like most children, Mr. Choi joined the “Son Yun Dan,” or Young People’s Group, pledging loyalty to “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung and “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il. Teachers taught children to memorize speeches and central party tenets. Students also had to polish and dust portraits of the two leaders. Everybody wore a badge declaring their support for the Workers Party.

Not all activities were overtly political. Civic duties included collecting trash and recycling glass.

The “Sa Ro Chung,” or Young People’s Organization, for those 14 and older, arranged for students to help with planting and harvesting on farms, growing rice and corn. Children were encouraged to raise rabbits at home and give the skins to the party supervisors to show their self-reliance.

Classrooms, however, could be harsh. Teachers would beat the children, sometimes severely enough to hospitalize them — a practice also found in South Korea today. Mr. Choi escaped such treatment, largely because of his father’s position as principal.

School was in session six days a week, leaving the seventh day free for Mr. Choi to watch television or play soccer with friends.

Schooled in communist ideology, most children remained unaware of the rigid caste system until the end of high school. Then, the careers assigned to each student would indicate his or her family’s political standing.

Favored students could go directly to a university or college. Less-favored students often went into the army, to begin their compulsory 20-year military service. Children of the enemy caste usually went straight to work, in mines and factories.

Mr. Choi went to the army after graduation, but said he was not disappointed with his post. He had been placed in a favorable position: the National Security Department.

After three years, he was awarded the honor of enrolling in the elite Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang, the capital, a privilege available only to the loyal caste. There, he studied mathematics, chemistry, physics and English. Two other courses were required: Korean culture, which included art, language, poetry and revolutionary drama; and physical education.

Mr. Choi received special attention because of his security connections. Every month, he would meet with a party official who discussed his studies and political thinking. He seemed set for promotion to a high rank in the National Security Department after graduating.

In his last year at the university, however, his fortunes changed.

One morning, Mr. Choi was called from classes to see his party administrator. He was asked whether he knew where his mother was, and then was told that she had been interrogated and had signed a confession of crimes against the party.

Under state law, which held three generations liable for one person’s crime, Mr. Choi was to suspend his studies indefinitely and report for immediate sentencing.

“I was told that it was the decision of the university party board,” said Mr. Choi. “I had no choice but to go to jail.”

His mother, Lee Soon Ok, had undergone 14 months of torture and interrogation, and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Because of the family’s former high standing, they were not assigned to the death camps. Rather, they were placed in the “kyo hwa so,” labor re-education camps.

Mrs. Lee was put to work making clothing and military supplies, later rising to an administrative position. Her son was sent to work on a penal farm, growing tobacco, corn and beans. He was 23.

The work was hard and the rations meager, but it was far better than most North Korean prisons.

“The Hidden Gulag,” the 2003 report of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, lists violence, rape, starvation and disease as common elements of most refugees’ testimony. The harshest violations of human rights include forced abortions for pregnant inmates and public executions for crimes such as stealing food.

The report cited testimony that prison guards instructed inmates to beat each other, to avoid accusations of warden cruelty. Similarly, seriously ill inmates were sent home to die, in order to reduce the statistics of prison deaths.

Some of the most feared forms of torture cited in the report were surprisingly mundane: Guards would force inmates to stand perfectly still for hours at a time, or make them perform exhausting repetitive exercises such as standing up and sitting down until they collapsed from fatigue.

Mr. Choi described his labor farm’s conditions as poor, with malnutrition as a major problem. But he said he was treated relatively well for a prisoner. He served seven years of his sentence, and was released early in 1994.

He was 30, and the illustrious career that once awaited him was tarnished forever by his stay in prison.

“For the first time, I realized what was going on,” he said.

“I understood that the North Korean government had lied to me my entire life. I couldn’t accept that knowledge every day.”

The nature of his mother’s reported crimes never was made clear, but Mr. Choi believes it was most likely an accusation brought about by political infighting. Fearing further harm from unknown political enemies, he fled with his mother across the border into China, becoming just one of the innumerable unregistered North Korean refugees there.

His journey southward would take him two years, across thousands of miles, risking capture and repatriation by the Chinese police. In December 1995, he reached Hong Kong and made good his escape to South Korea.

After his arrival in Seoul, he met with other defectors and began to take an interest in political activism. This involvement has come with a cost: Mr. Choi said that North Korean agents have tried to kill him on more than one occasion.

His work eventually brought him to the United States, where he now coordinates with human rights groups and makers of foreign policy. He was responsible for arranging to bring more than a dozen North Korean defectors to Washington for North Korea Freedom Day, which took place Wednesday.

One of the groups involved is the North Korea Freedom Coalition, a bipartisan group that has lobbied for congressional attention to the human rights situation in North Korea. The coalition supports House and Senate bills to provide funding for humanitarian work in China and Russia to help North Koreans who have defected. The legislation also would allow the U.S. government to offer asylum for defectors, granting them official refugee status. Another aim is to encourage greater transparency for deliveries of humanitarian aid.

Korean-born lawyer Sei Park said the bills in the Senate and House have the support of Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican. Mr. Park hopes that legislation will help provide security for fleeing North Koreans, and thus weaken the Kim government enough to bring it to discuss giving up nuclear arms, and to allow greater transparency of the distribution of humanitarian aid.

Mr. Park is critical of the South Korean government’s “sunshine” policy of rapprochement, saying it is not effective in softening the North’s stance. He said Mr. Kim would more likely respond to pressure in the interest of self-preservation, especially because he lacks the widespread political support of his late father.

“Most defectors and refugees still cherish Kim Il-sung,” Mr. Park said. “They feel that he gave the country enough food, and he fought off the Japanese occupation. Kim Jong-il does not have that same image. Even his own teacher, Hwang Chang Yop, defected to the South.”

He acknowledged that the nuclear issue had overshadowed U.S. dealings with North Korea, but stressed the importance of pressing on with relief work.

“Human rights is not a real issue in global politics — it has historically mostly been used for leverage,” he said. “But it needs to be solved now, or the country will not survive.”