As touching as the story may be, it is not that different from billions of other children who are starving right now, all over India, China and African continent. I find it amusing that how we Americans love to bash North Korea and Iran.
Does anyone know, that the Indian Government (under pressure from the World Bank to reduce poverty) just lowered the poverty line? According to the new poverty line, anyone who makes more than about 0.50 USD is not poor. By lowering the poverty line, they brought down the number of poor people in India from 42% to 35%. 66% of people in India live on less than 2 USD per day, in conditions similar to those in which the author lived. And India in not under any sanctions, or trade embargoes.
This story isn't that worse than the story of any other starving child. This story didn't take place in a concentration camp where a six year old girl was beaten repeatedly over the head for stealing five kernels of corn until she hemorrhaged to death. The people in this story didn't talk about how being beaten to death for stealing corn was just punishment. Nobody in this story was knocked unconscious by a hail of rocks thrown from prison guards. Nobody hung any 12 years olds from a ceiling in this story and then winched them down over burning charcoal to get them to "confess" their crimes, or watched their mother hung to death thinking she deserved to die.
But all of those things did happen, in another recent story about North Korea, the worst country on the planet.
India simply does not belong in the same group as North Korea, Iran, or even China. Fundamentally, whether it struggles with poverty or not, it is a democracy, not a totalitarian regime. Indian citizens vote in elections and enjoy the freedom of movement. Unlike North Korea and Iran, it is not a theocracy. Having a huge population and struggling with poverty is not grounds to damn them into the same ignominious group as you have done.
I would beg to differ. During the 65 years of its independence, Federal government in India has remained under the control of one single family (the Gandhi family). Being the "biggest democracy" is just a farce. Similarly, most of the state governments are under the control of a select few families.
> Indian citizens vote in elections and enjoy the freedom of movement
Not really. They are not allowed to protest. The Indian police has the right to use force against peaceful protestors, which it often uses. Google "lathicharge" and you will know what I am talking about. There is a huge lack of education, and in my opinion, giving someone the right to vote without the right to education doesn't mean anything. You can easily buy votes for $10.00 each.
There are reports that trillions of dollars equivalent of Indian money is stashed in offshore banks by Indian politicians. Hardly a week goes by before you hear about a multi-billion dollar scam. Some economists have argued that if all that money is brought back and distributed, every one would get around a 1000 USD, which is a lot in a country where 66% make less than 2 USD a day.
Unlike North Korea, India does have the money to feed its poor. But it never gets to the poor.
Update:
I failed to mention, that the government can "acquire" your land for pennies, anytime they want. This is what's happening in central India, where the govt. is taking away the land of people and giving it away to multinationals for mining.
And there are no human rights, whatsoever in India. The police detains and tortures people all the time. Actually that is the only investigation technique they have: detain a few suspects and beat them until one confesses, regardless whether he/she actually committed the crime.
I wouldn't argue that it is a modern Western democracy, a great place to live or a place of reasonable social equality. However, Indians do have the fundamental right to move about India and to leave India without special permission. It may be a meaningless right for those unable to convey themselves out of India (true for the abject poor in any nation), but it fundamentally separates India from Iran, North Korea, China, etc.
Not every place that has injustice is the same. There are gradations, and drawing equivalencies between places that are not the same only makes legitimate critiques less so. I think you have a lot of good points about India, and my reply was not to say they are invalid. I just don't think it is helpful or correct to compare them to theocracies and dictatorships.
Where are you getting your information from? You're just simply wrong on many counts.
>During the 65 years of its independence, Federal government in India has remained under the control of one single family (the Gandhi family). Being the "biggest democracy" is just a farce. Similarly, most of the state governments are under the control of a select few families.
>Not really. They are not allowed to protest.
There's no good way to say it, that is simply factually wrong and unadulterated bullshit.
You must have been reading propaganda or have an axe to grind if you think the federal government has been under the control of the Gandhis 65 years since independence.
Do entire families get imprisoned for the political "crimes" of a single individual in India, China, and Africa? That's the sort of thing that gets people's attention when it comes to North Korea (that, and acting all crazy while having a relatively huge military), not the sadly mundane poverty.
>As touching as the story may be, it is not that different from billions of other children who are starving right now, all over India, China and African continent. I find it amusing that how we Americans love to bash North Korea and Iran.
Well, North Korea is "communist" and Iran has oil resources and threatens some of our allies in the area.
If it was a starving population, with a regime that's just as oppressive or even more, but are US allies and offer their natural resources for a pittance, then not only would the US would like them, but they would also get guns and support.
Like all those dictatorships in Latin America. Or Saudi Arabia. Etc...
This is exactly the point I am trying to make, that other people here are not understanding.
When we went into Iraq, we had three reasons: 1) It has weapons of mass destruction. 2) It has ties with terrorist organisations (Al Qaeda), and 3) It's a dictatorship. Well, the first 2 turned out to be wrong. But, at the exact same moment in time, all 3 were relevant to Pakistan. 1) It had proven nuclear weapons, 2) It had proven terrorist training camps, and links to Al Qaeda (Where did we find Osama?) and 3) It was under dictatorship.
The point you made was that India et al are bad too, so why are we judgmental Westerners always harping on North Korea.
North Korea is a grotesque among nations, reminding the Western observer more of dystopian, cautionary literature more than a nation-state in the modern era. It has a theocracy founded on a religion invented by its reigning family, it has profound poverty, it is militant and provocative in a way that overshadows even Iran. Especially recently this is the case, with North Korea making nuclear threats against its neighbor and the United States which we know are backed up with at least some know-how. It engages in such bizarro control measures to keep its population as isolated as possible from the rest of the world.
It couldn't be more clear to most why it is a country of focus for the international community.
>it is militant and provocative in a way that overshadows even Iran.
"Overshadows even Iran"?
Sounds like Iran did some very militant and provocative things, to be singled out as the second most offensive country after NK.
What exactly were those?
Iran, with the exception of the Iran-Iraq war (which Iraq started, with Saddam supported by the US at the time), merely made some idle threats to neighbors it has a beef with.
To contrast, the US has been involved directly in around 10 wars where it has no place --thousands of miles away from home-- in the last 30 years. And lots of proxy wars and interventions. Including toppling the legitimate, democratic at the time, government of Iran, to install the dictatorship of the Shah.
Not to mention that "having a dictatorship" is not reason at all to invade a sovereign nation. It's up for the people of the country to solve the problem themselves. (Especially if that dictatorship was your old ally, which you helped back in the Iran-Iraq war era, when the US gave guns to Saddam).
Even worse, since, now, there is a unsolvable chaos of civil war and terrorism, much worse than the Saddam regime situation for the average citizen.
Why not try naming all those dictatorships in Latin America? I'll help you out:
1. Cuba
Does that look like a list that's getting US support?
Also, the Saudi dictatorship is nasty as is much of Sub-Saharan Africa but they're not nearly as nasty as North Korea. At least in other backwards places there is a chance to do better through work and initiative or a central government that cares about alleviating the suffering of the people or -- most often -- both.
>Why not try naming all those dictatorships in Latin America? I'll help you out:
>1. Cuba
>Does that look like a list that's getting US support?*
Cuba not at the moment.
But it sure had full support when it WAS a dictatorship, under Batista.
The Cuban revolution on the other hand had lots of popular support, and it overthrew Batista, a dictator with the support of the US state, US business interests and the US mafia. Yet, the US didn't support the popular revolt and toppling of the dictatorship in Cuba, forcing them to ally with the USSR at the time. Until now, most of the plights of Cuba with poverty and all are not due to their government, but due to the US embargo. On the other hand, you don't have much trouble doing business with China.
As for other Latin dictatorships with US support, here's a nice list:
El Salvador (General Maximilio Hernández- 1932)
"A failed uprising organized by EI Salvador's Communist Party founder, Farabundo Marti, six weeks after Hernandez Martinez had seized power in a 1931 coup, sparked the General's crackdown on "communists." "Roadways and drainage ditches were littered with bodies," writes Raymond Bonner. "Hotels were raided; individuals with blond hair were dragged out and killed as suspected Russians. Men were tied thumb to thumb, then executed, tumbling into mass graves they had first been forced to dig." U.S. warships were stationed off-shore, ready to send in Marines to aid the General in case he ran into serious opposition.Hernandez Martinez was run out of the country in 1944, but his memory was celebrated as recently as 1980, when the Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez Brigade carried out a series of death-squad assassinations of prominent Salvadoran leftists. Farabundo Marti, killed during the purge, has also left a legacy: the rebels currently fighting the U.S. backed government of El Salvador call themselves the FMLN, the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front"
Nicaragua (The Somozas)
"The Marines invaded Nicaragua in 1912 and stayed until 1933, fighting but never defeating the revolutionary Augusto Sandino. They created the Nicaraguan National Guard and installed Anastasio Somoza Garcia in power. Then Sandino, who had signed a truce and put down his arms, was assassinated by Somoza. In 1935, General Smedley Butler, who led the Marines into Nicaragua, said: "[I was] a high class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and for the banks. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism - I helped purify Nicaragua for [an] international banking house." President Franklin Delano Roosevelt put it another way. "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch."
Guatemala
"A Christian has to walk around with his Bible and his machine gun," said born-again General Efrain Rios Mont, military ruler of Guatemala from March 1982 to August 1983. Rios Mont was one in a long series of dictators who ran Guatemala after the Dulles brothers and United Fruit, backed by the CIA, decided that elected President Jacob Arbenz held the country "in the grip of a Russian-controlled dictatorship" and overthrew the country's constitutional democracy in 1954. The succession of corrupt military dictators ruled Guatemala for over 30 years, one anti-communist tyrant after another receiving U.S. support, aid, and training"
Honduras (Roberto Suazo Cordova)
Honduras was the original "Banana Republic," its history inextricably intertwined with that of the U.S.-based United Fruit Company, but in 1979, when Anastasio Somoza was overthrown in Nicaragua (see card 7), Honduras got a new nickname: "The Pentagon Republic." In 1978 Honduras received $16.2 million in U.S. aid; by 1985 it was getting $231.1 million, primarily because President Suazo Cordova, working with U.S. Ambassador John Dmitri Negroponte and Honduran General Gustava Alvarez, allowed Honduras to become a training center for U.S. funded Nicaraguan contras. General Alvarez, who according to Newsweek, "doesn't care if officers are thieves, as long as they are virulent anti-communists," assisted in training programs and founded a special "hit squad," the Cobras. Victims of the Cobras were stripped, bound, thrown into pits and tortured. The Reagan Administration claimed ignorance of these human rights violations, but U.S. advisors have admitted knowledge"
Panama (General Manuel Noriega)
"The U.S. command post for covert Latin American operations is located in the Canal Zone where a series of figurehead presidents, some backed by General Manual Noriega, have involved Panama in U.S. intelligence operations. Noriega first met with then CIA Director George Bush in 1976 while Noriega was collecting $100 thousand a year as a CIA asset.Their friendly relationship persisted even after Noriegas' drug dealing was revealed by a 1975 DEA investigation. During the Reagan era, Noriega collaborated with Oliver North on covert actions against Nicaragua, training contras and providing a trans-shipment point for CIA supported operations that flew weapons to the contras and cocaine into the U.S."
Not to mention Pinochet, Mexican puppet scambags killing their own people, etc.
The part that makes this story different from the other stories about starving children is that the girl in this story was the daughter of a doctor. Where else do you find a doctor's children starving but in North Korea?
We Americans don't speak nearly enough about the suffering of North Korean people. As someone who grew up in the second worst communist dictatorship in the world I can say that the worst part about living in such a country is not lack of food or shoes or clothes and not even lack of freedom. The worst part is lack of future. Their system is totally frozen. Nothing moves. Most of the work that is done is just for the sake of appearing like people are working. Every intelligent person looks around and sees that something needs to be done to change the situation but nobody knows what to do, let alone find the courage to actually do something. It has been 23 years since I lived in a similar situation and I still feel out of breath thinking about it.
If the North Korean regime falls today we are likely to witness one of the worst humanitarian crisis we have ever seen. We can just hope that the current North Korean leaders find both the desire and the ability to do a transformation like China did in the 70's. U.S. played a large part in that transformation and it could play a large part in helping North Korea too.
I don't understand either of the prior two comments. The article clearly wasn't written to garner sympathy, rather, to retell a personal experience that is likely foreign to most people, given the cloistered nature of North Korean society.
As though only the most tragic stories possible are worth telling? Please.
I read an article on HN a while ago, about a guy who escaped from a North Korean prison camp. That shed light on something that we don't know much about. Now that was some escape. He is the only person to have ever escaped a North Korean prison camp.
Again, as I said, the author did go through a lot of difficulties in her childhood. But in my opinion, this article is on the front page of HN, only because its about North Korea. Thousands of other people "escape" poverty and inhumane living conditions to reach US/Western countries from all over the world every year.
So the story is not good enough because it doesn't involve prison and violence? So she should just keep her story to herself because it isn't as action-packed?
I can't say how much I disagree with this. People should share their stories, even if they are totally mundane. I also feel like you totally disregarded the content of her Q&A which gave many people the opportunity to get insight on the conditions inside of North Korea's closed society.
>I read an article on HN a while ago, about a guy who escaped from a North Korean prison camp. That shed light on something that we don't know much about.
Without any corroboration I wouldn't believe that story 100%.
Especially in an era when said country is in the spotlight as an enemy.
As war correspondent and write Philip Knightley wrote: "The first casualty of any war is the truth". The same holds true for any coverage of a place where diplomatic animosity and/or state interests come into play.
By now there are tens of thousands of North Korean defectors living in South Korea and elsewhere. That includes others ex-prisoners (not necessarily escapees, some people are released after all). There's also satellite imagery that corroborates some of the defectors' descriptions. There's also testimony from ex-party officials and even from people who knew the Kim family, confirming that people were imprisoned or executed for thoughtcrimes.
Not to mention all the evidence from "regular" North Koreans who lived outside Pyongyang.
>By now there are tens of thousands of North Korean defectors living in South Korea and elsewhere. That includes others ex-prisoners (not necessarily escapees, some people are released after all). There's also satellite imagery that corroborates some of the defectors' descriptions. There's also testimony from ex-party officials and even from people who knew the Kim family, confirming that people were imprisoned or executed for thoughtcrimes.
The parts that I dispute cannot be corroborated by "satellite" (which can also show the presence of a camp).
And I'm sure that "people were imprisoned or executed for thoughtcrimes". That happens in any country, and all much more in a regime like NK.
It's the other details of life in prison, situations, etc, I'm not so hot about.
Which specific aspects of the popular account of the North Korean regime do you dispute, so we can be sure to give you full credit when you're proven correct?
>I don't understand either of the prior two comments. The article clearly wasn't written to garner sympathy, rather, to retell a personal experience that is likely foreign to most people, given the cloistered nature of North Korean society.
It's not about the article. It's about the curation.
That is, the way whole clusters of articles on similar topics (for a few select countries etc) are selected, printed, submitted, promoted by the media, etc, as opposed to tons of others about different countries.
Were you allowed to move freely and choose what places to visit without restrictions? I've not heard of anyone being able to do that, and without that, you can't trust what you saw to be in any way representative.
And if you go to some parts of India, its even worse than Africa. People don't have access to clean water, sanitation and food. Some people walk 25 miles a day, to fetch clean water to drink.
Having been in a couple of countries in Africa and India, I agree.
However the plight of starvation should continue to be raised (not saying you are minimizing the story) and stories like this add a human element to it beyond the statistics. It helps me to take a step back from the tech lifestyle during my day.
Two Indian students tried to test the new poverty line set up by the Indian Government. They tried to live on 0.65 USD a day. Here is the story. Its an interesting read.
I find it amusing that how we Americans love to bash North Korea and Iran.
So what are you saying? That everybody else isn't privy to your insight about India, China, and Africa? So you don't see something unique about the regimes in N. Korea and Iran?
I found your comment pretty amusing in the same way you found "Americans bashing North Korea and Iran" "amusing".
Touching story, but it leaves out the part that most intrigues me: how this person made it to the US. Who would give this person a visa? Illegal resident of China whose background you can't verify. Having been through the US visa application process, I am genuinely baffled that she was given a visa.
FBI Background check is not really accurate. I am from Iran. They can't really check the background of people form Iran and North Korea because those governments do not help FBI for background check. All they can access to is international flight information and anything outside of those countries.
I saw an Iranian man in Ankara who were rejected for Green Card Lottery visa because he had a trip to North Korea (Iranians can go there without a visa). In a private talk he admitted that he was working for army and he was educated for missile stuff in N. Korea. My point is, if he never went to N.Korea, he could have make it to the US. Someone who worked for Iranian Missile Program. FBI background check is not accurate.
From the interview linked at the bottom of the article [0]:
I was sent back to North Korea three times and finally I escaped to South Korea. I was lucky because I got a scholarship from a organization, so I was able to come to the US to study English. The first time I went to China, I thought they were really rich because they ate rice and meat everyday. It was the same as I heard when I was in North Korea.
Edit:
She also mentions an organization called "Liberty in North Korea", which helps refugees to escape via China. China has an agreement with North Korea to send illegal immigrants back to their home country. Apparently, if you know the right people and pay some money, you can circumvent this agreement: [1] lists "rescue fees" as "Costs for fines, fees, and the network of partners and staff in the underground to bring refugees to safety".
Probably by way of South Korea. South Korea accepts North Korean defectors and grants them citizenship and various resettlement benefits (after first determining that they are not spies). South Koreans don't even need to apply for a visa to get into the US anymore, they are granted a tourist visa upon landing.
You're assuming that everyone that enters the states received a visa. This is very far from the current state of affairs. Although I don't know exactly how the author came into the country, there are countless ways to sneak in.
This is a general pet peeve of mine - I hate it when people present "rags to riches" or "prison to freedom" stories without giving a real sense of the "how" part. To me that is where the real story and the real character lies. Too often stories focus on the pain and suffering alone and the stories feel very incomplete to me. That is also why I kike reading biographies or autobiographies, because there finally the focus shifts from "what" to "how".
update: this was a general comment, not specific to this article where the writer might need to protect her family and thus have good reason not to go into details.
Good job on finding your way to a better life. Remember those you left behind and work towards setting them free.
As for the other comments here, there is no doubt there are many other countries all around the world that suffer poverty under the rule of totalitarian regimes.
Many of them are supported or ignored depending on whether they can afford to buy stuff (mostly weapons) from leading powers.
The first-hand report in this article does nothing to deny or highlight that simple fact.
So, take it as the personal account that it truly is, and nothing else.
Does anyone know, that the Indian Government (under pressure from the World Bank to reduce poverty) just lowered the poverty line? According to the new poverty line, anyone who makes more than about 0.50 USD is not poor. By lowering the poverty line, they brought down the number of poor people in India from 42% to 35%. 66% of people in India live on less than 2 USD per day, in conditions similar to those in which the author lived. And India in not under any sanctions, or trade embargoes.