Hell in North Korea

A story about one escapee from a North Korean prison camp, who has written a book about the experience:

The book grew out of a diary he kept in the Seoul hospital while he was recovering from the nightmares and screaming bouts that were part of his adjustment.

It begins with the story of his birth in Camp No. 14 to parents whose union was arranged by prison guards. As a reward for excellent work as a mechanic, his father was given the woman who became Shin's mother. Shin lived with her until he was 12, when he was taken away to work with other children.

In the book, Shin describes the "common and almost routine" savagery of the camp: the rape of his cousin by prison guards and the beating to death of a young girl found with five grains of unauthorized wheat in her pocket. He once found three kernels of corn in a pile of cow dung, he writes. He picked them out, cleaned them off on his sleeve and ate them. "As miserable as it may seem, that was my lucky day," he writes.

Nearly as heart-breaking is this:

Shin also struggles to understand why prosperous Koreans in the South seem so uninterested in and unmoved by the suffering of tens of thousands of fellow Koreans living in torment in the North's prisons.

"I don't want to be critical of this country, but I would say that out of the total population of South Korea, only .001 percent has any real understanding of or interest in North Korea," Shin said. "Only a few decades ago, the South Koreans had their own human rights issues. But rapid growth and prosperity has made them forget."

There's an easy solution to that -- just rename North Korea "Guantanamo." Every left-wing group imaginable will shriek in outrage -- until they realize that the U.S. is actually on the other side of the issue, at which time they will all head back to the coffee shop.

Update: Speaking of Gitmo, check out pics of the camp here. Compared to what North Korea offers up -- granted, about the lowest bar you can establish -- I imagine that this place seems like Disneyland. Then again, compared to subsistence life in Afghanistan it might even be an improvement.