Monday, October 19, 2009

The North Korea's Gulag

The Long Road Home. Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor, by Kim Jong is the account of life in a labor camp in North Korea. Although the existence of those camps on the North Korean territory is known, little information is available about their organisation and conduct, since prisoners rarely escape both camps and the country alive. This book shares the story of one such survival, a former lieutenant in the North Korean National Security Agency and a career military officer earning foreign currency. He was suddenly sent to a labor camp in 1993. Accused of treason, he was condemned to gulag no. 14 in Hamkyeong province. As a condemned prisoner - after a life enjoying priviledges, as driving an imported car and free travel across the country, and various contacts with corrupt party officials and business trade partners from overseas, mainly from Japan - he worked in a coal mine 2.400 feet underground and becoming intimately acquainted with political prisoners, subhuman camp guards and the famine that already killed millions. He succeeded to flee the camp and found refuge in China and since 2003 he came to the US.

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