Torture and murder: escaped DPRK reveal shocking truth about Kim Jong-un's regime

It has been 27 years since the previously almost unknown 10-year-old Kim Jong-un took over the reins of power in the DPRK after his father's death. Few of the world's leaders can match him in the number of mentions in the headlines of the world media. But what life was like for his subjects during these years, reports BBC.

Photo: Shutterstock

The streets of Pyongyang were filled with sobs.

Schoolchildren in uniform threw themselves on their knees with an air of inconsolable grief.

Desperate women beat themselves in the chest with their fists.

It was December 19, 2011.

State media has just announced that “dear leader” Kim Jong Il has died at the age of 69.

But analysts around the world rushed to their computers, picking up all the data about a man named Kim Jong-un.

In the DPRK he was officially titled “Great Successor”.

But few believed that he would become truly great at least in something.

How can you manage a society in which the cult of old age and experience reigns at the age of 27?

Some predicted a military putsch, others said that the young ruler would become a puppet in the hands of the elite.

But the world underestimated the young dictator.

He not only consolidated his power, but also announced the beginning of a new era named after him.

The third generation of the Kim dynasty began by cleaning up his entourage, during which hundreds of people were executed.

Then he turned his attention to international affairs.

Here one can recall four nuclear tests, about a hundred ballistic missile launches and sensational negotiations with the President of the United States of America.

The country has paid dearly for its leader's irrepressible craving for weapons of mass destruction.

The DPRK is in crisis, poorer and more isolated than when Kim Jong-un came to power.

How did the North Koreans live and live?

Ten defectors, including a former senior diplomat, spoke about this.

Insight and hope

10 years ago, student Kim Kyum-hyuk committed an act for which he could be shot: on the day of Kim Jong-il's death, he threw a party.

“It was very dangerous. But we were so happy,” he says.

The arrival of a young leader known for his love of skiing and basketball promised new ideas and new times.

“We had high hopes for Kim Jong-un,” says a former student. “Since he studied in Europe, then maybe he thinks like us.”

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Kim Kim-hyuk belonged to a high-ranking family and studied in Beijing, which is available to very few North Koreans.

Life in China showed him that the world can be very different and prosperous.

And he began to search the Internet for news about his country.

“At first I could just believe it. I thought the West was lying. The mind said: “Don’t look!”, but the heart said the opposite,” he says.

The DPRK's 25 million people are under tight control and know little or nothing about world events or what the world thinks about their homeland.

They are taught that their leader is a unique genius and a divine being who demands unconditional loyalty.

The coming to power of a 27-year-old young man gave Kim Kyum-hyuk what he was deprived of.

He gave him hope.

Doubters

Not everyone was so gullible.

In the corridors of Pyongyang, the authorities whispered that Kim Jong-un was a spoiled child and was not capable of ruling.

Liu Hyun Woo, a former North Korean ambassador to Kuwait, said his colleagues were annoyed at how power in the DPRK passed from father to son.

“My first thought was: oh, again by inheritance! People, and especially the elite, are tired of this. “Isn’t it time to try something different?” “That’s what we all thought then,” he says.

The Kim dynasty has led the state since its formation in 1948. The people were taught that her blood was sacred, providing an ideological basis for hereditary power. Kim Jong-un's father was called "dear leader."

“I heard conversations like: “Well, now we will forever serve the “most dear”? What can he, at 27 years old, understand about running a country? This is some kind of absurdity!” - says the ex-diplomat.

Broken Promise

In one of his first speeches in 2012, Kim Jong Un assured that the North Koreans would “never have to tighten their belts again.”

It was a great moment for a nation that went through a famine to death in the 1990s that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

The diplomats were instructed to attract foreign investment.

And inside the country, many have noticed changes.

Driver Yoo Sung Chu, who hails from the country's east coast, says more locally made goods have appeared in supermarkets.

“To our surprise and pride, North Korean products turned out to be better than Chinese products in taste, packaging quality and variety. It really boosted our self-esteem,” he says.

Cleaning

Kim Jong-un's good wishes to fellow citizens did not extend to those in whom he saw a threat to his power.

One of these was the uncle of the young dictator Jang Song Taek, who was considered the No. 2 man and had a lot of adherents.

Then living in the north of the country, near the Chinese border, the trader Choi Na Lai believed that Chan Son Taek would be the new leader.

“We thought that when Jang Song Thaek came to power, he would begin economic reforms and also open the border with China and we would be able to travel there freely. Of course, this could not be said loudly, but such expectations were present,” he says.

These conversations soon came to an end.

Photo: Shutterstock

Jang Song Thaek was declared "a scum of society worse than a dog" and executed by firing squad for "undermining the unity of the party."

The young leader showed that they were not joking with him.

Border is locked tight

Dozens of people fled from the beginning of the purge to China, and from there to South Korea.
Kim Jong Un decided to fight this.

The border was closed as never before.

A barbed wire fence with traps has emerged along its entire length.

Ha Jin Woo had a rare and very dangerous occupation.

As an intermediary and guide, he led about a hundred fugitives from the DPRK.

“The border guards are ordered to simply shoot to kill anyone who tries to cross the border. And they know there will be no consequences for them,” he says.

“When I started doing this it was very scary, but I considered it a moral duty. I have had doubts since childhood. Why was I born here, why on earth should I live worse than an animal, without rights and freedom? And I started taking risks,” he says.

In the end, the authorities attacked Ha Ching Woo's trail, and he had to flee.

His mother was sent to a concentration camp, where she was paralyzed due to abuse.

This greatly torments Ha Jin Woo, who can barely remember his mother's voice.

Despite the brutal crackdown on disaffected and defectors, Kim Jong-un strove to look more approachable and modern than his father.

He married the fashionable girl Lee Seol Joo.

During joint visits to cities, villages and businesses, he hugged people, went skiing, rode horses and smiled for the camera.

Lee Seol Zhu and her husband wore expensive clothes and went to perfume factories.

But ordinary people were not recommended to follow this “more modern” example.

Yoon Mi So wanted to look like the women on the bootleg South Korean DVDs - wearing earrings, necklaces and, horror of horrors, jeans!

“For non-compliance with the rules, I was subjected to a ritual of public criticism: they scolded me in several voices and shouted: “You have become morally corrupt, aren’t you ashamed!?” I ended up crying,” she recalls.

Hyun Yun was a singer, like Kim Jong-un’s wife, but could only perform ideological songs praising the “dear leader.”

Attempts to object were suppressed.

“I was never allowed to create as I wanted. Music in North Korea is squeezed into very tight boundaries, and I suffered greatly from this. The government is afraid of foreign influence. This proves that they themselves are not confident in the strength of the regime,” she said.

Over the past ten years, at least seven people have been executed for distributing and viewing videos of South Korean K-pop, which Kim Jong Un called a “malignant cancer,” according to human rights activists.

Arms and bread

Every ballistic missile test in North Korea becomes a world sensation, but the reaction within the country is not at all what the authorities would like.

“People say they are bleeding us and squeezing our sweat for these missiles,” said one defector.

“We don’t perceive launches as victories, but think about their price. Everything that the people create goes for military purposes,” says another.

Around 2016, other winds were blowing at the Foreign Office, former ambassador Liu Hyun Woo recalls.

“We were instructed that business is not the main thing now. It is necessary to explain why the DPRK needs nuclear weapons and justify their necessity,” he said.

Perhaps the regime hoped that, thanks to diplomats, the world would gradually come to terms with this idea.
The plan didn't work.

Rocket Man's Big Game

The escalation of threats between US President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un ended in an impressive spectacle.

The dictator, who was depicted in Western cartoons as a spoiled fat baby, confidently paced alongside the American president, sharing everyone's attention with him.

North Korean newspapers posted a photo of the handshake during their talks in Singapore on the front pages.

However, the sanctions imposed because of the North Korean nuclear program made themselves felt.

Pictures are snapshots, but reactions in villages outside Pyongyang have not been particularly enthusiastic.

“We couldn't appreciate what it all meant,” says former trader Choi Na Lai. “We just didn’t understand how this meeting could lead to any improvement in the situation.”

As a result, North Korea's deal with the United States fell through, and former ambassador Liu Hyun-woo believes the summit was in fact a show to ease sanctions. “The North will never give up these weapons because they consider them vital for the survival of the regime,” he says.

Pandemic

But the worst for Kim Jong Un and his country was ahead.

When the Covid-2020 outbreak hit neighboring China in January 19, North Korea closed the border. Not only for people, but also for goods.

At the main border point in Dandong, China, mountains of food and medicine have formed.

More than 80% of North Korean foreign trade turnover is with China.

“Everything changed when the pandemic started,” says former driver Yu Sung, who had a quick chat with his mother at the Chinese border. — The economy is falling, prices are rising. Life has become much more difficult. Parents are not starving yet, but everything is very expensive. People are nervous. In general, the situation is bad."

There are also reports of real hunger.

Kim Jong-un himself described the situation as a “huge crisis” and during one of his public speeches he even shed a tear, something that had never happened to any North Korean leader before.

Former physician Kim Sung-hoo says that almost all drugs have to be purchased on the black market.

In operating rooms, electricity goes out, surgeons sometimes work with bare hands due to lack of gloves.

“When I see the difference between the North and the South of the peninsula, I can only hope that the North will see a life in which the basic rights of doctors and patients are ensured,” he says.

The DPRK lacks the resources to deal with the pandemic. The number of victims is classified.

But it is obvious that the international self-isolation in which this state has placed itself cannot but bring significant harm to its residents.

Cult of Kim

Some defectors are so upset by the situation in their homeland that they predict an imminent coup.
However, so far there are no signs that this is possible even in the distant future.

The cult of the Kim dynasty appears to be pervasive and surprisingly resilient.

None of the predictions of regime change made so far have come true.

After more than 70 years of isolation, defectors unanimously said that the main thing was to open the borders and allow North Korean residents to travel.

Those who have relatives in the north dream of seeing them someday.

But now they are free to speak and talk about their lives under the rule of Kim Jong-un.

Those who remained are deprived of such an opportunity.

“I risked my life to sing what I wanted,” says Hyun Yoon. “Living in North Korea, you have to hide what’s in your heart until you die.”

On the 10th anniversary of his tenure in power, Kim Jong-un leads a country in deep crisis.

He may have several dozen nuclear weapons, but his people are not eating their fill.

You may be interested in: top New York news, stories of our immigrants, and helpful tips about life in the Big Apple - read it all on ForumDaily New York.

In 2018, when the President of South Korea paid a visit to Pyongyang, a huge poster appeared in the center of Seoul.

On it, Kim Jong-un showed a “heart,” that is, he joined his palms and thumbs in a gesture that is a symbol of love among K-pop performers.

With one click of those very fingers, he could change the life of his people, giving them freedom. He has enough power for that.

But so far, 25 million North Koreans are cut off from the world more than ever before.

As ForumDaily wrote earlier:

• The regime sells weapons and drugs: fugitive from North Korea told shocking things about the country.
• Former gymnast jumping a 3-meter fence, fled from North Korea to South.
• Korea was demanded pay $ 500 million to the family of the deceased in the country American.

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