Journalist: Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Let’s start off tonight with an exceptional testimony from an opponent of the North Korean regime. Her name is Li Son Hok and she was received at the National Assembly this Tuesday. She described to the deputies how she was victimised during her detention – thirteen years in prison for dissidence. Her aim; draw the international community’s attention to the political situation in North Korea, which remains highly obscure.
Peggy Leroy: Ms. Li managed to maintain her composure almost throughout her address to the National Assembly this morning. At ease among the deputies and journalists, this former dignitary of the North Korean regime began relating her story in a measured tone. She was arrested in 1986 for refusing corruption. Sent to a correction camp, she was subjected to Middle Ages-style torture for seven years. Ordeals that she still struggles to describe:
Li Son Hok: I was forced to drink more and more water. I fainted, I vomited, I had to drink more. Then I had to lie on my back while a plank was placed on my stomach. The police stamped on it, forcing the water out. It's impossible to describe the suffering this water torture causes. You think your intestines are going to burst and your stomach will rip open. The suffering is appalling.
Leroy: At present there are some 200 000 political prisoners, and above all, thousands of North Koreans are starving. These images date from 1998. They were taken by a North Korean dissident who returned to his country to film in secret. This documentary, which is rare, shows among others the many abandoned, haggard children with only fish bones to eat. The Kim Jong-il regime has the nuclear bomb, and a modern army, but deliberately leaves part of its population to die.
François Jean (research director, MSF): If there is a famine in North Korea, it’s a conscious political choice made by the authorities. The choice to leave part of its people to die rather than open the country up to external scrutiny and contact.
Leroy: Since the mid ‘80s, the famine has left between one and three million people dead. To prop up one of the world’s last communist dictators, this is the price to pay. Médecins sans Frontières left North Korea in September ‘98. The organization considers that its aid did not reach the victims, serving merely to strengthen the regime.
Jean: It’s clear that in North Korea there is a complete contradiction between humanitarian work, which aims to assist the most vulnerable, and the regime’s rationale, which is mainly focused on distributions to the army, senior ranking party members and economically useful people.
Leroy: Far removed from the gaze of human rights defenders, North Korea and its atrocities often go unnoticed. After the National Assembly, Ms Li is going to the European Parliament to remind democratic European countries that some walls are still left to bring down”.