A gov’t sitting on its hands over repatriation

Lee Ae-ran
The author, a former head of the North Korean Human Rights Union, is the president of the Center for Liberty & Reunification.

As in the case of most North Korean defectors, I also bought four tiny bags of rat poison to die by suicide — one for me, the rest for my brothers and sisters — in case we got arrested by China’s public security guards. I told my siblings to not hesitate to take the toxic powder if a contingency happens. For North Koreans, defection can cost their life at any time. Being caught by the Chinese police and being repatriated to North Korea is more dreadful and painful than death.

At the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in January 2020, North Korea shut its borders with China to prevent the spread of the virus. In the following month, Pyongyang told Beijing that it would temporarily stop sending North Korean workers to China, and proposed a suspension of the deportation back to the North. Nevertheless, North Korea’s State Political Security Department and China’s Ministry of Public Security continued a coordinated investigation of North Korean defectors illegally staying in China.

At the time, the Chinese government installed a quarantine watch network across the country — and even activated a facial recognition system — to prevent the diffusion of the coronavirus. After the government intensified its checks on resident registration and tightened its control on people’s movement, a number of North Korean defectors unregistered in China were discovered and arrested by the security police.

In the past, most of the female defectors who had barely fled their homeland were sent to rural villages or adult entertainment facilities through human trafficking networks in China. But since such facilities were forced to close after the pandemic, the defectors lost their job. Once their identities were disclosed, they were arrested and detained by the public security agents.

According to Freedom Chosun, a website operated by North Korean defectors living in South Korea, the Chinese security guards have arrested, detained, and sent female North Korean defectors to labor camps to exploit their cheap labor since 2020.

After human exchanges resumed in July thanks to Pyongyang’s eased mitigation measures, China transferred all of them to provisional detention centers in Dandong, Yanji, and Tumen near the border. Beijing demanded Pyongyang pay the cost for the public security guards who investigated and arrested the defectors, as well as the cost of their medical care, food and lodging over the past three years. As North Korea failed to pay the money, the defectors could not be repatriated.

After the North’s security department proposed to its Chinese counterpart to resume the process of extradition, China refused — until it received payment for the cost of the repatriation. China already took gains from the exploitation of North Korean defectors and reaped more profit from additionally managing them. In the end, 250 to 300 North Korean defectors were deported back to the North in August followed by 600 more defectors after the end of the Hangzhou Asian Games earlier this month.

The Kim Jong-un regime is reportedly accommodating the deported defectors at a segregated hospital for patients infected with hepatitis and tuberculosis. The first group of the repatriated defectors was handed over to the State Political Security Department after being transferred to another isolated facility in the northernmost province of the country. The second group of 600 defectors are likely housed at segregated Covid-19 facilities.

North Korea is infamous for human rights violations. What fate will befall the repatriated is obvious. Nevertheless, China forcefully deported them to North Korea. I seriously wonder how a country that hosted many international events such the Olympics and Asian Games can do that.

The dovish Moon Jae-in administration that was engrossed in pleasing the Kim Jong-un regime can hardly avoid responsibility for this tragedy. The liberal government provoked public outrage after forcefully repatriating two young North Korean fishermen against their will by stigmatizing them as “murderers of their own people.” The liberal forces in the South steadfastly criticize Tokyo over the Japanese Imperial Army’s abuse of Korean sex slaves eight decades ago, but keep mum on the horrendous violation of human rights in the North today.

The Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s response to the latest repatriation is no less disappointing. Even though it sensed China’s decision for immediate deportation — and despite North Korean defectors’ plea for help — the conservative government sat on its hands. The Unification Ministry and Foreign Ministry must strongly protest China’s decision and urge it to stop such inhumane behavior.

Our Constitution clearly stipulates North Korean defectors as citizens of the Republic of Korea. If the government cannot stop the deportation, it is a dereliction of duty as the state. We hope the Yoon administration devises effective measures to prevent such a tragedy in the future.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.