N. Korea's Hard-Labor Camps: On the Diplomatic Back Burner
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North Korea's government says political prison camps don't exist, but high-resolution satellite images show otherwise.
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By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 20, 2009
SEOUL -- Images and accounts of the North Korean gulag become sharper, more harrowing and more accessible with each passing year.
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N. Korea's Hard-Labor Camps: On the Diplomatic Back Burner
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A distillation of testimony from survivors and former guards, newly published by the Korean Bar Association, details the daily lives of 200,000 political prisoners estimated to be in the camps: Eating a diet of mostly corn and salt, they lose their teeth, their gums turn black, their bones weaken and, as they age, they hunch over at the waist. Most work 12- to 15-hour days until they die of malnutrition-related illnesses, usually around the age of 50. Allowed just one set of clothes, they live and die in rags, without soap, socks, underclothes or sanitary napkins.
The camps have never been visited by outsiders, so these accounts cannot be independently verified. But high-resolution satellite photographs, now accessible to anyone with an Internet connection, reveal vast labor camps in the mountains of North Korea. The photographs corroborate survivors' stories, showing entrances to mines where former prisoners said they worked as slaves, in-camp detention centers where former guards said uncooperative prisoners were tortured to death and parade grounds where former prisoners said they were forced to watch executions. Guard towers and electrified fences surround the camps, photographs show.
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