North Korea has changed its attitudes: What do North Korean escapees think of this?

In a dramatic move, just hours before it was scheduled to take place, North Korea cancelled its meeting with South Korea on 16 May. Many people were perplexed as discussions seemed to be friendlier – what caused this unexpected move? Was it simply another old style unilateral action of the North Korean regime or is there more to it?

North Korean escapee offers his insight into what the North Korean regime may be thinking.

North Korea was extremely unhappy over the start of US-South Korea joint military training, which finishes on 25th May. These Max Thunder manoeuvres involve some 100 warplanes, including an unspecified number of B-52 bombers and F-15K jets as well as stealth bombers. The North Korean regime claimed it was a direct threat. However, North Korea was briefed about this annual joint military training of South Korea and the US well in advance.

North Korea Central News said, on 16th May, “The military training in South Korea is directly aimed at us, and challenges the Panmunjom Declaration. It’s deliberate military provocation against us and on the peace process of the Korean peninsula.” “Despite our peace-loving effort and goodwill, the South Korean authorities and the United States have responded by conducting large-scale joint military training, even before the ink of the historic 27th April Declaration has dried. This is a disappointment.”

Alongside this, the regime heavily criticised North Korean escapees campaigning for democracy and liberation for their brothers and sisters. A statement said: “North Korean escapee activists are human scum. These puppets are being used by the international community, and criticise the Panmunjom Declaration and our supreme dignity and system of North Korea.”

Both the military training of US-South Korea and North Korean escapee activists became North Korea’s reasons to cancel the meeting and change their attitude.

North Korea Planned For This?

To analyse this, the attitude of the North Korean regime shows another tactical strategy. Firstly, North Korea does not want the US to demand its unilateral denuclearisation. The recent remarks of the US National Security Advisor, John Bolton, preferring the ‘Libya model of verifiable denuclearisation’ which reminded Kim Jong-un of the collapse of the Muammar Gaddafi regime.

Many analysts pointed out that North Korea’s years of effort to build nuclear weapons, and announcing a nuclear power state by itself, was great cost to its people who have faced terrible economic conditions and food shortages. Secondly, the North Korean regime demands the US does not address human rights issues during the talks. For example, on 15th May, a North Korean Labour Newspaper warned the US, “You may throw the last chance away if you keep insisting on the human rights issues.”

North Korea’s changed attitude, in fact, is a direct protest to the US and the international community. The North Korean stance is that they do not wish to discuss human rights issues and a full denuclearisation during the summit with the US. North Korea is send in a clear message to the US along the lines of “if you maintain this attitude we’re going to cancel the summit in Singapore, on 12th June”. In other words, raising the position on North Korea’s full denuclearisation or, human rights issues of the gulags, prisoners, imprisonment, execution, forced rape, oppression, coercion and starvation, will be seen as a direct threat to the survival of the North Korean regime.

North Korea is claiming it is partly denuclearising and aims to demonstrate this by inviting international inspection. The regime will demonstrate shutting several sites down and so keep to their word of no more Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) tests. However, North Korea will insist strongly on retaining the current level of nuclear weapons. This is what the recent rhetoric points to and it is likely that it will be addressed in the talks with President Trump, if the summit in June goes ahead.

Nonetheless, as for future nuclear, biological, and chemical weapon tests, concerns remain and analysts predict they will remain as long as North Korea has these weapons because they will still be able to exercise their capability.

Why Human Rights Issues?

Human rights issues are seen by Kim Jong-un as another threat to the North Korean regime. This is why North Korea reacts severely when the international community refers the human rights abuses in North Korea. North Korea recently announced through official media channels that it’s supreme court has handed the maximum death penalty sentence to North Korean escapee activists who are campaigning for human rights and democracy outside North Korea. It was reported that Mr C, a North Korean escapee and human rights activist, working for a human rights organisation campaigning on human rights in North Korea, had heard of his death penalty from his mother who still lives in North Korea. His death penalty was announced to her by the North Korean National Security Agency.

If the international community requests an unexpected inspection of the nuclear test sites and facilities alongside the human rights issues of the prison camp and gulags, the regime will react very aggressively, and perhaps even request to draw back from the promised peace conditions.

Moreover, even if the North Korean regime accepts a denuclearisation inspection from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it is more likely to insist on showing the facilities which have already been closed down. If international agencies ask to be allowed to make surprise unannounced inspections of the North Korea's nuclear test sites, it is possible that North Korea may refuse this request. North Korea could request to show sites that are already prepared. North Korea has many options to explain this, for example, under the international sovereign law, you cannot force us to show you our land without our permission. The first part of this concern is that North Korea is equipped with heavy military armaments, most of which are placed under the mountains where many of the nuclear sites are thought to be. The second concern will be that inspectors may stumble across the gulags and prisoners that are thought to be near the nuclear sites. Once the details of these and their atrocious human rights abuses are published in the international media the North Korean regime would be seen for what it is. North Korea is worried that international pressure to end its regime would increase.

To be clear, the regime’s believes it needs nuclear weapons in order to survive. The human rights issues are also a great threat because North Korea has continuously denied any human rights abuses. Instead, the regime states that the current socialist society of North Korea is the best in the world.

Kim Jong-Un is unlikely to choose full denuclearisation, and the international inspection of every single nuclear test site and facility and of the gulags and prisoners, because it is implies a loss of power and would result in him giving up his dictatorial leadership position.

Persecution and Oppression

For many years, North Koreans have lived in one of the most restrictive nations in the world, forced to worship their leader as a God, with no freedom of belief or speech and no religious freedom. North Korean people are checked up on at every opportunity. Teachers even get children to inform on their parents. North Korean escapees fully understand this because we’ve lived through it – we know what life inside the country is really like. This is the reason although we followed Panmunjom Declaration, we predicted there would be limited sign of religious freedom, freedom of expression and freedom of speech and opportunity.

The current situation demands us to make a rational and intellectual judgement, not to let ourselves be swept up by softened speech and pictures of a smiling Kim Jong-un, designed to make us forget the blood of many lives he has on his hands. If I close my eyes for a minute and think of Hitler's prison camps as the man pressed a gas button to kill the Jews, or Stalin and Mao's gulags that killed so many innocent civilians I also think of North Korea today.

Even for a minute, we cannot ignore our true humanity as Jesus taught us. None of us can laugh, in front of public execution, torture, imprisonment and starvation.

Underground North Korean Christians and people want true peace and improvement on the current status quo of starvation, persecution, torture, imprisonment, execution, forced labour, over 200,000 malnourished children on the street, and hundreds of thousands of prisoners in the gulags.

North Korean citizens are not wishing for much. They simply want a society where one can express one’s views and beliefs freely and openly, without fear, just as you can in South Korea, Holland, the US and Great Britain.

God said to us: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11: 28-30).

North Korean people cannot walk to God’s yoke, under a light burden and find rest for their souls because the regime has banned Christianity. The regime uses coercive enforcement, those caught with a bible are thrown into prison, their family members are punished and sent to live in remote villages. Reading the Bible, and praying are illegal, clandestine activities.

Let’s not be naïve when we talk about the true peace and freedom. When North Korean people can walk to church, read the Bible, sing a hymn, and pray freely, this will be true peace and freedom of belief. When freedom of faith or belief, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and freedom of movement occurs, that all prisoners are released, gulags are closed down, and people have the opportunity to be liberated from starvation, alongside the completion of denuclearisation.

How Do We Pray?

Let’s maintain our prayers for our brothers and sisters in North Korea. Pray for the Holy Spirit to lead every process and for the simultaneous preparing of God’s chosen people to declare –God’s peace –His Freedom!

I believe this process on the Korean peninsula could take us further forward or indeed further backwards. Our prayers should remain the same, to trust in God’s plan, controls, and His work. We should call out to Christians in North Korea, as we pray for them and let us unite in praying, with Christians throughout Korea and the world, particularly with the current situation.

Please pray for the generation of God’s chosen people standing in this way. North Korea’s return of freedom of faith or belief, the means of Democracy, will have to be declared upon God’s guidance and preparation. All we know is this, –Pyongyang- was once a strong ‘Christian centre’ so this declaration of Peace is upon God’s manifesto. It is 70 years since the separation of the Korean peninsula, and we have seen how human governance of the true peace process is limited without God’s reconciliation, preparation, and guidance.

When God’s chosen people take this process forward so the declaring of the True Peace and Freedom will come.