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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| We starved, he called it paradise |
| 2006-10-15 |
| Growing up in North Korea, Hyok Kang was surrounded by desperate people who ate grass and bark before they died. Yet pervasive propaganda made them feel lucky to be there The first time I ate chocolate was when I was five years old. My grandfather had relatives in Japan who were given exceptional permission to visit us. They came like extraterrestrials with their arms full of presents and food. I remember waving tins of condensed milk and chocolate bars under my friends’ noses. I was a horrid little boy. It was 1990 and I didn’t yet know what famine was. I wouldn’t taste chocolate again until we escaped to China when I was 13. In 1994, shortly before the death of Kim Il-sung, the Great Leader, the state food distribution system began to break down. Eventually, there was no more rice, no more potatoes. We moved on to vile food substitutes. Weeds, of whatever kind, were boiled up and swallowed in the form of soup. We picked these inedible leaves on the edges of the fields or the banks of the river. The soup was so bitter that we could barely keep it down. Our neighbours collected grass and tree bark — usually pine, or various shrubs. They grated the bark and boiled it up before eating it. And much good it did them: their faces swelled from day to day until they finally perished. Not only food was scarce. Our teachers gave each of us collection quotas: maize leaves (for paper mills), copper and other metals — and, during the winter, dung for fertiliser. We had to take six whole carts of faecal matter to the school, and not any old excrement: it had to be human. As it was frozen — the temperature fell to -20C or -30C — we used a pick or a hatchet to hack it from the back of the rudimentary outdoor toilets by each dwelling. In extremis, dog poo was tolerated as well. |
| Posted by:.com |
| #25 Indeed, the beginning of the Grey Bitch's modern tradition and slide into infamy and history. |
| Posted by: .com 2006-10-15 21:11 |
| #24 "You can't tell me that over the last 10 years that the starvation of over 25 million people was never newsworthy. This story was just as interesting 10 weeks ago as it was 10 years ago as it is today. What was that about a chap named Duranty of the New York Slimes getting a Pulitzer Prize for denying the Stalinist imposed famine in Ukraine in the early 1930's? |
| Posted by: Leonidas 2006-10-15 21:09 |
| #23 Why are we just now hearing about it in the MSM? Think about the events of thelast couple of weeks and the rhetoric flying and now the UN sanctions. All this is the build up for the liberals and MSM (but i repeat myself) to bash Bush and any other right winger. This will spin from something has been ongoing to a direct result of the UN sanctions, demanded by the US. Bet on it. |
| Posted by: USN,Ret 2006-10-15 21:04 |
| #22 if it's any comfort, your loss cost me this week's football pool at work. Small comfort to me, believe me |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-10-15 19:47 |
| #21 sounds pretty good. Enjoy. |
| Posted by: anon 2006-10-15 19:38 |
| #20 I stand corrected #17. The 'Skins lost to TN this afternoon (rightfully so) and I'm in my cups. No more nonsense; I'm shutting down to finish the latest Lee Child novel and go nighty-night. |
| Posted by: Asymmetrical Triangulation 2006-10-15 19:31 |
| #19 ahhh.. now that's got some potential! I had it backwards. I was thinking that negative stories would encourage action against NK, not the other way around. I feel the order being restored in my world :-) |
| Posted by: anon 2006-10-15 19:24 |
| #18 *IF* there was a conscious or unconscious decision to hold back stories which are coming out now, then I suppose you could attribute it to an attempt to prevent a military strike or sanctions on NORK -- i.e. these people have suffered so badly, how could you be willing to see them suffer even more in a war or with sanctions imposed? I know, the logic is full of holes, but you asked for some scenario and that one occurs to me .... |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-10-15 19:12 |
| #17 haha. Very funny. But shouldn't that be a "left wing" conspiracy? Call me crazy. But I think it odd that the only time the media focuses on horrific genocides like Darfur or Korea that it serves some sort of political purpose. We get non-stop Paleo plight - how is that entertainment? |
| Posted by: anon 2006-10-15 19:09 |
| #16 Despite the harsh Neo-con rants detailing NK hoi-polloi "suffering", my basketball token gift to Kim, signed by some NBA clown, helped me cop a superb, jewel-encrusted broach for my collection. It is BREATHTAKING! Amb. Mad maddie albright, klinton toad and eternal apologist psst...(Kimmie is cute. But I.M. still HOT for that sax-blowin' Bubbah Boy) |
| Posted by: Asymmetrical Triangulation 2006-10-15 19:04 |
| #15 I suspect a vast "Right-Wing Conspiracy" here. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2006-10-15 19:01 |
| #14 Sorry, I don't agree. I guess I no longer believe that our major news outlets are anything more than owned subsidiaries of the Dem party. I don't think that everyone in the News industry is in on some sort of conspiracy, I just think that the newpapers are owned by power players who control to a degree what is printed in them. You can't tell me that over the last 10 years that the starvation of over 25 million people was never newsworthy. This story was just as interesting 10 weeks ago as it was 10 years ago as it is today. The MSM is suddenly all over the horrors of Kim Jong. There is significance to that - I'm just not sure exactly what it is. |
| Posted by: anon 2006-10-15 18:51 |
| #13 They haven't been held back, there hasn't been a demand. The news is just like entertainment. It gives the consumer what they want to see and rents their eyeballs to advertisers in between. If it didn't it would go out of business as is the NYT. It's just that it takes a long time to run an institution into the ground. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-10-15 17:45 |
| #12 I'm actually kind of serious about this. The MSM has never allowed talk of suffering in North Korea. It would be interesting to know why the MSM content managers suddenly are ok with all of these stories that have been held back for years and years. |
| Posted by: anon 2006-10-15 17:41 |
| #11 All of a sudden we are hearing about all of the horrors that have been going on for years. Why? Orders from Rove. I saw the memo. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-10-15 17:36 |
| #10 soooo... my question is this: The starvation and brutalization of the people of N Korea is nothing new. The media never covers any of it. Ever. I've never heard boo about it except for an occasional pundit who throws it into a debate. So why is the MSM suddenly allowing this information to reach the general public. All of a sudden we are hearing about all of the horrors that have been going on for years. Why? |
| Posted by: anon 2006-10-15 17:34 |
| #9 Although Blairistans "state health distribution system" (NHS) has nothing on the NoKo "state food distribution system" it's run on the same lines and with similar results. socialism kills |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan 2006-10-15 15:53 |
| #8 this sort of first hand account leaves you speechless If all you feel is speechlessness, you obviously know nothing about the real situation in North Korea. When harvest time nears, "rice police" are stationed around the fields so that farming families will not appropriate any of the grain. Of course, this still happens because they only need to offer the soldiers some of the take. Government theft of food aid is the least of the tragedies afflicting the North Korean people. If you have just eaten or have a weak stomach, you may not want to click on the links I have provided. Once a person truly comprehends the depths of Kim Jong-il's depravity, the only honorable response can be to advocate having him tried for crimes against humanity. sickening. China is the one that makes this all possible, and the blame should clearly be laid at their feet Regardless of their own domestic misdeeds, China's communist Mandarins must eventually be held accountable for the human catastrophe in North Korea. They alone have enabled Kim to continue with his depraved indifference to human suffering. One word: Cannibalism "If a funeral takes place during the day and the burial is performed that evening, the grave may be dug open and the body stolen before morning," said one refugee. Describing horrific conditions that led to cannibalism, two former prisoners presented a picture of communist North Korea's notorious prison camps at a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the Assist News Service reported. "In order to survive, I ate rats, cockroaches and snakes," said Kang Chul Hwan, who was imprisoned at age 9 along with several family members because of the alleged political crimes of his grandfather. A prisoner for 10 years, Hwan said he was among many children detained for their parents' alleged crimes. He estimated that one-third died of malnourishment. "Children simply disappeared from the camp," he said. "A woman who had just given birth was so hungry that she ate her own newborn baby," he said. "Brothers ate their own brothers in order to survive." A true understanding of Kim Jong-il's criminal abuse should provoke nothing less than a sense of complete and total outrage. A special spot in everlasting hell awaits this ravening demon. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-10-15 15:42 |
| #7 The Not-So-Secret Life Of Kim Jong-Il * Sixty-five years old, Kim Jong-il wears platform shoes and sports a bouffant hairstyle to appear taller than his 5 feet 3 inches. Known as Dear Leader. * Has been married three times. His last wife Ko Young-hee died in 2004. He has been living since then with Kim Ok, who had served as his personal secretary since the '80s. Has three children from his marriage, another 13 outside of it. * Has a string of mistresses. Persistent rumours of young women being kidnapped in Japan to be his companions in luxury villas around the capital. * Has a passion for cognac, particularly Hennessy VSOP. Drained 10 glasses of wine during his 2000 summit with South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. * Loves food. Live lobsters were airlifted daily to his train that he took to visit Russia. Eats with silver chopsticks. * Has a library of 20,000 Hollywood films. Had a South Korean director kidnapped in 1978 to build a North Korean film industry. * Loves Mercedes Benz, and avid fan of cycling and basketball. * Suspected to have organised the 1983 bombing attacks in Rangoon that killed 17 visiting South Korean officials, including four cabinet ministers. Allegedly behind the bombing of a South Korean airline in 1987 which killed all 115 people on board. |
| Posted by: john 2006-10-15 14:45 |
| #6 From the book This is Paradise! |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2006-10-15 10:52 |
| #5 These were young men, with the stature of 12 years old south koreans. NoKO has lowered the height and weight requirements for the army because of childhood malnourishment |
| Posted by: john 2006-10-15 10:50 |
| #4 damn |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-10-15 10:40 |
| #3 sickening. China is the one that makes this all possible, and the blame should clearly be laid at their feet |
| Posted by: John Blutarsky 2006-10-15 10:40 |
| #2 This reminds me of a tv reportage from a few years ago (in a leftist show, by the way)... with nork refugees being interviewed right at the border, after they've made it to China, and, when asked if they wanted to go to the USA, responded : "why would we want to go there? People are poorer there than in north Korea". These were young men, with the stature of 12 years old south koreans. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-10-15 10:33 |
| #1 this sort of first hand account leaves you speechless |
| Posted by: john 2006-10-15 10:24 |