'Bad apples' sour relief in North
Korea By Sunny Lee
DANDONG, China - The people in Dandong in
China's northeast Liaoning province know more
about North Korea than any other people on the
planet. They see it every day - literally. Dandong
neighbors North Korea just across the Amnok River
(Yalu River in Chinese). Even on a foggy day, one
is able to see North Korean fishermen at work.
This city of 2.4 million people is, once
in a while, highlighted in the international media
because it is the major land route where
China's aid to North Korea -
both food and fuel - is shipped. It also becomes a
major destination for foreign journalists when a
rumor of an imminent visit by the secretive North
Korean leader Kim Jong-il to China smokes up.
Dandong is a place where Kim's train has to pass
through when he visits China.
Given its
special geographical proximity to North Korea,
naturally this is also a key outpost to which many
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in
North Korean refugees are paying keen attention.
In Dandong, the name "NGO" is almost a
synonym for "groups working on North Korean
refugees". Unfortunately, it often carries a
negative overtone. This may sound odd, but that's
how things are here. "If you really know what NGOs
actually do, you will feel quite turned off," said
a local resident.
He said many of these
NGOs are commercial brokers in disguise. That is,
they help North Korean refugees to flee from
China. But they do it, really, for money. They
charge money and even take advantage of the
refugees' vulnerability. He indignantly said he
knows an NGO representative who slept with North
Korean female refugees in his care.
That's
just one of the examples that he shared. In fact,
he said he had seen so many depraved NGOs that it
now gives him goose-bumps when he hears the word
"NGO".
Stories about bad NGOs are also
coming out from those who are in the know -
journalists. But they seldom write about it
because doing so makes them unpopular among some
interest groups or even backfire. For example, a
writer could be accused of maligning the good work
that most NGOs do, and worse, being a "pro-North
Korea" figure who closes his eyes to the
human-rights tragedy of North Korean refugees.
That is a very powerful argument.
With
increasing international attention on North Korean
human-rights conditions and widely circulated
harrowing stories of North Korean refugees in the
news media, NGOs working on this field usually
receive strong moral support from the mainstream
media that provide them with legitimacy, which in
turn helps NGOs receive financial support from
sympathetic supporters.
Critics, however
say that as NGOs rely on donations, when they are
cash-strapped they sometimes resort to publicity
stunts to raise their profile, and more
importantly, to raise money.
Some NGOs
even go as far as to deliberately put the refugees
in danger to draw international attention, critics
argue. One of the most controversial cases was a
January 2003 incident in which a group of as many
as 78 North Korean defectors was caught by Chinese
police while they were attempting to escape on
boats from China's east coast shores to South
Korea and Japan respectively.
A South
Korean reporter later trailed the same route and
deplored: "It's a place you don't want to choose.
The Chinese North Sea Navy Fleet of the People's
Liberation Army base is just around the corner.
How would anyone in his sane mind choose this
place as an escape route unless you wanted to get
caught?" he fumed.
The Durihana Mission,
probably the most well-known group in Seoul that
helps North Korean refugees to come to South
Korea, is also alluded to in that criticism. The
group's founder, Cheon Gi-won, is dubbed as the
"Godfather of Refugees". He has reportedly brought
more than 500 North Korean refugees to the South.
Cheon himself was once arrested by Chinese
police and served a 220-day prison term. His
incarceration, however, also helped him to become
known internationally. After this year's recipient
for Nobel Peace Prize was announced, for example,
the Asian Wall Street Journal ran an article
mentioning Cheon as someone who deserved the prize
for his work on North Korean refugees.
Cheon pioneered the so-called "Mongolian
route". That is, his team takes North Korean
refugees in China to the Sino-Mongolian border and
helps them to escape to Mongolia, from where they
go to another country, usually South Korea.
"There was a case where his team took a
group of North Korean refugees to near the
Mongolian border from China. But instead of taking
them safely to the border and making sure they
crossed it, they simply dropped the North Korean
refugees in the middle of nowhere near the border
on a dark night and just drove away," said a
person who has knowledge of the incident. They
reportedly didn't even give them a flashlight or
anything that could help them orient their
direction in the dark.
Confused and
fearful, the North Koreans tried to find their own
way to freedom. But their panic drew attention
from Chinese border patrols. Some got shot, the
rest were arrested.
"They then made an
all-out media stunt, letting the world know the
atrocity and how China mistreats North Korean
refugees. We also used to run articles on it. But
after we got an idea of how the thing had played
out, we stopped writing about it," a South Korean
journalist said.
With the dropping of
media coverage in South Korea, he said Cheon has
recently turned to the Western media and is now
actively working in the US, where he set up a
branch office last year.
Cheon was not
available for comment. But Lee Chung-hee of
Durihana, who answers inquires during Cheon's
absence, said: "That doesn't even make the
slightest sense."
"It's very difficult to
engage in a constructive dialogue with such
critics. Think about it from a common sense point
of view The consequence of a failed escape would
mean death for North Koreans. If there was any
deliberate intention, it would be beneath human
dignity to do so," Lee said. Those who follow this
logic believe that NGOs simply didn't plan the
escape well enough.
In Dandong, Cheon is a
well-established name. People who know Cheon said
that even though the allegations might be true,
Cheon himself is not likely to be involved. One
pointed out that as Cheon has become
internationally known, there are people who become
jealous and want to undermine him.
A
former official with a major South Korean NGO said
that he strongly doubts whether Cheon himself was
part of any alleged incidents. But he pointed out
that some NGOs act without considering how their
irresponsible acts harm others who are sincerely
helping North Korean refugees.
Critics
point out that NGOs' media stunts and big-scale,
organized escapes also draw the Chinese
authorities' attention to the many North Korean
refugees who are hiding in China.
Some
view that it's unfair to blur the big picture of
the good work that most NGOs do. They also point
out that most NGOs are victims of some "bad
apples" or commercial brokers who pose as NGOs or
even as missionaries.
A good number of
commercial brokers are former North Korean
refugees. As many NGOs were arrested or deported
from China in recent years, North Korean refugees
who have settled in South Korea began to take the
job. The reason they take up this risky business
for themselves, and even are willing to walk again
the same route that they themselves had escaped
from, is because of the economic difficulties and
job discrimination they face in South Korea.
Some of these commercial "pay-for-escape"
brokers demand as much as one third of the
"settlement money" that North Korean refugees
expect to receive once they arrive in South Korea.
Unfortunately, things have started to have a chain
effect. Looking at some "NGOs" making money, now
even those NGOs which otherwise do the same work
non-profit, have started to charge a minimum of
US$2,000 to $3,000 as a "logistical fee".
Sunny Lee is a writer/journalist
based in Beijing, where he has lived for five
years. A native of South Korea, Lee is a graduate
of Harvard University and Beijing Foreign Studies
University.
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