The Commission also finds that a large number of executions are carried out in places of detention in the DPRK. In some cases, the execution is based on a judicial sentence. In other cases, summary execution is imposed without any known trial or judicial order, apparently to uphold discipline and institutional rules. The entire population of the detention facility is usually obliged to attend and watch such executions. This appears to be done to instil fear and to promote the subjugation of the prisoners.
Former political prison camp guard, Mr Ahn Myong-chol testified that the camp authorities carried out executions, when someone tried to escape, destroyed camp property or when things were out of control: “We would kill or would execute … one inmate to set an example for the rest of the inmates.” The decision to execute was always taken by the investigation bureau that the State Security Department maintained in the camp, without any involvement of a court of law. The entire camp population had to watch. The number of executions per camp fluctuated, in some years as many as 20 people were publicly executed.1271
Ms Kim Hye-sook witnessed numerous executions in Political Prison Camp No. 18. Prisoners were executed for disobeying guards orders, tying to escape or venturing into the guards’ living quarters to scavenge for leftover food.1272
In 2007, two men were executed in Political Prison Camp No. 15 at Yodok according to a former inmate. The men had left their living areas, because they were starving and wanted to find food in the mountains. After a large search operation was mounted by the camp authorities, the men were found and summarily executed in front of the other inmates.1273
Mr Kim Hyuk witnessed four public executions during the span of only three months he spent at Kyohwaso No. 12 at Jonggo-ri (North Hamgyong Province). One victim was summarily executed for stealing food from the prison’s storage and another had tried to escape. Two others had been sentenced by a court to execution, because they had committed several serious crimes.1274
Inmates of political and ordinary prison camps are particularly vulnerable to secret executions. They are considered to have lost their basic rights, and, in the case of political prison camp inmates, have no contact with the outside world. The killing of prisoners can also be easily concealed because the bodies of prison camp inmates are never returned to their family. The Commission received credible first-hand information about instances of secret summary executions carried out in prison camps and interrogation detention facilities.
From 1998, a large number of prisoners of Political Prison Camp (kyohwaso)No. 12 at Jonggo-ri were secretly executed. The victims were mostly people who had bad songbun and/or had been imprisoned for politically sensitive crimes. Some victims may also have been targeted because they complained about prison conditions or disobeyed orders. According to eyewitness testimony, the victims were taken out of their cell at night and brought one after the other to a room, where prison camp officials and an MPS officer from Pyongyang presented the victim with false accusations. Immediately thereafter, prison guards strangled the victim to death using a metal wire. Work unit leaders from among the prisoners were assigned to remove the bodies and take them to a furnace located a few kilometres away from the main prison block. Such killings occurred at regular intervals, and every time several prisoners were killed.1275
In 1997, secret executions targeting perpetrators of politically sensitive crimes appear to have been carried out in an ordinary prison camp that was located in Taehun, South Pyongan Province and was closed later that year. Three to five victims per week were shot during the night or early morning at a site located about 1.5 km from the main prison block.1276
Both sets of secret executions could be linked to a directive that was allegedly issued by Kim Jong-il in 1997 and instructed the security apparatus to eliminate all elements who are “diseased in mind”.1277
Between February 1993 and 1998, around 250 military officers who had studied at the Frunze Military Academy in the Soviet Union were reportedly executed. Some among them had apparently hatched plans to carry out a coup d’état. The purge was led by the KPA Military Security Command. The victims were executed without trial, after a determination of their guilt was made by security officials. The families of some victims were sent to political prison camps. Other families were apparently spared from collective punishment, because they represented some of the country’s most influential families.1278
Former guards have presented information indicating that inmates of Political Prison Camp No. 13 have been secretly executed. A former guard in Camp No. 13 described that he had to transport political prisoners to secret executions sites in the mountains. The victims had to shovel their own graves before other security officials killed them by a hammer blow to the back of the skull.1279 Ahn Myong-chol indicated that a mountain near the camp was used for secret executions and that shots from that area could sometimes be heard at night. He also noted that he witnessed corpses being found when construction was conducted in the area.1280
6. Medical experiments
The Commission has investigated allegations brought to its attention, which suggest that political prisoners were deliberately killed in medical experiments conducted by state authorities to test the impact of chemical and biological weapons.1281 Similar allegations have been received regarding medical experiments performed in closed hospitals for persons with disabilities.
The Commission considers that particular care is called for in verifying the accuracy of such serious allegations. On the basis of the information available when this report was finalized, the Commission is not in a position to confirm whether any such medical experiments were conducted. Further proof would be required to meet the rigorous standard of proof applied by the Commission. Nevertheless, the Commission records the allegations for future investigation and consideration.
7. Principal findings of the commission
The Commission finds that the police and security forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea systematically employ violence and punishment that amount to gross human rights violations in order to create a climate of fear that pre-empts any challenges to the current system of government and to the ideology underpinning it. Fear is the keystone that ultimately holds up the edifice of the current state structure in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The institutions and officials involved are not held accountable. Impunity reigns.
Gross human rights violations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in respect of detention, execution and disappearances are characterized by a high degree of centralized coordination between different parts of the extensive security apparatus. The State Security Department, Ministry of People’s Security and the Korean People’s Army Military Security Command regularly subject persons accused of political crimes to arbitrary arrest. This falls short of the legal requirements set out by international law and even under the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s own laws. Subsequently, those so arrested are typically held incommunicado for prolonged periods of time. Their families are not informed about their fate and whereabouts. Persons accused of political crimes therefore become victims of enforced disappearance. Making the suspect disappear is a deliberate feature of the system that serves to instil fear in the population that anyone who does not show absolute obedience can disappear at any time for reasons solely determined by, and known to, the authorities.
The use of torture is an established feature of the interrogation process in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, especially in cases involving political crimes. Starvation and other inhumane conditions of detention are deliberately imposed on suspects to increase the pressure on them to confess and to incriminate other persons.
Persons who are found to have engaged in major political crimes disappear, without trial or judicial order, to political prison camps (kwanliso). There, they will be incarcerated and held incommunicado. Their families will not be informed of their fate even if they die. In the past, it was common that the authorities sent entire families to political prison camps for political crimes committed by close relatives (including forebears to the third generation) on the basis of the principle of guilt by association. Such cases still occur, but appear now to be less frequent than in past decades.
The unspeakable atrocities committed against the inmates of the kwanliso political prison camps of the DPRK resemble the horrors of camps that totalitarian states established during the twentiethh century. In the political prison camps of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the inmate population is gradually eliminated through deliberate starvation, forced labour, executions, torture, sexual violence including rape and a denial of reproductive rights enforced through punishment, forced abortion and infanticide. The Commission estimates that hundreds of thousands of political prisoners have perished in these political prison camps over the course of more than five decades.
Although the authorities in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea claim that the camps have never existed and do not exist and have denied outsiders access to the areas where they are situated, this claim is shown to be false by the testimony of former guards, inmates and neighbours. Satellite imagery proves that the camp system continues to be in operation. While the number of political prison camps and inmates has decreased due to deaths and some releases, an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners are currently detained in four large political prison camps and a residual detention complex that remains from a fifth earlier camp.
Gross violations are also being committed in the ordinary prison system, which consists of ordinary prison camps (kyohwaso) and various types of short-term forced labour detention camps. The vast majority of inmates are victims of arbitrary detention, since they are imprisoned without trial or on the basis of a trial that grossly fails to respect the due process and fair trial guarantees set out in international law. Furthermore, many ordinary prisoners are, in fact, political prisoners, who are detained without a substantive reason compatible with international law. Prisoners in the ordinary prison system are systematically subjected to deliberate starvation and illegal forced labour. Torture, rape and other arbitrary cruelties at the hands of guards and fellow prisoners are widespread and committed with impunity.
As a matter of State policy, the authorities carry out executions – with or without trial; publicly or secretly – to punish political and other crimes that are often not among the most serious crimes. The policy of regularly carrying out public executions serves to instil fear in the general population. Public executions were most common in the 1990s. They became less common after 2000. However, they continue to be carried out today. Shortly before this report was finalized, there was an apparent spike in the number of politically motivated public executions.
F. Enforced disappearance of persons from other countries, including through abduction
Enforced disappearances occur when persons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels of government or by organized groups of private individuals acting on behalf of, or with the support, direct or indirect, consent or acquiescence of the government, followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law.1282
Article 1 the Declaration for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances states that:
1. Any act of enforced disappearance is an offence to human dignity. It is condemned as a denial of the purposes of the Charter of the United Nations and as a grave and flagrant violation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and reaffirmed and developed in international instruments in this field.
2. Any act of enforced disappearance places the persons subjected thereto outside the protection of the law and inflicts severe suffering on them and their families. It constitutes a violation of the rules of international law guaranteeing, inter alia, the right to recognition as a person before the law, the right to liberty and security of the person and the right not to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It also violates or constitutes a grave threat to the right to life.
1. Periods and types of abductions and other enforced and involuntary disappearances
(a) 1950-1953: abduction ofRepublic of Korea civilians during the Korean War
During the Korean War, DPRK forces took thousands of people from their homes or places near their homes in the South of Korea to the North. The kidnapping and relocation to the North of non-military persons residing south of the 38th parallel during the Korean War from 25 June 1950 to the signing of the Armistice on 27 July 1953, constitute abductions of civilians. These victims are often referred to as Korean War abductees.
The number of ROK civilians captured and forcedly removed to the North during the Korean War is not precisely known. However, estimates range between 80,000 and 100,000.1283 After several years of intense study on the matter, the Korean War Abductees’ Family Union (KWAFU), a civil society organization dedicated to ascertaining the whereabouts and current status of ROK citizens abducted during the war, on the basis of investigations conducted by its research institute, the Korean War Abductees Research Institute (KWARI), compiled records of 96,013 Korean War abductees. 1284 These records are based on detailed lists of abducted persons compiled by the Government of the Republic of Korea and a victims’ family association in the immediate aftermath of the abductions. The list was supplemented by other sources and testimony from family members and other witnesses.
The abductions were widespread and organized, indicating that they were planned and conducted in line with State policy. From the list of 96,013 submitted by KWAFU, the statistics point to the abductions being a planned operation to recruit young men, with experience in the cultivation of farmland, construction and other technical tasks beneficial to the building and maintenance of the socialist state infrastructure of the DPRK.1285 The information provided to the Commission reveals the following statistics about the composition of the abducted individuals:1286
The abductions were carried out by soldiers of the Workers’ Party of Korea. Soldiers took citizens from their homes and workplaces, generally on the understanding of detaining them for questioning, but did not allow them to return to their homes.
At the Seoul Public Hearing, Mr Kim Nam-joo told the Commission of the abduction of his father who was an electrician in Chungmu Ro. Two men posing as civilians entered the electrical store of Mr Kim’s father asking for him. When Mr Kim’s father appeared, he was taken by three Korean People’s Army (KPA) officers and was not seen again. DPRK officers later visited Mr Kim’s home in search of Mr Kim’s elder brothers though they were able to evade capture. Mr Kim told the Commission: “So once a happy family, we were broken. … The pain that I experienced in the past still persists after 60 years. We still live in that pain. I still cry from the memories.”1287
In addition to the large numbers of young men targeted for their practical skills and expertise, there were also targeted abductions of skilled professionals, including persons with training in medicine, law and governance. Persons who served in the security and intelligence agencies of the ROK were also targeted. According to KWAFU 2,919 civil servants, 1,613 police, 190 judicial officers and lawyers, 424 medical practitioners were among the abductees.
The son of an abducted police officer, Mr Choi Gwang-seok told the Commission that his father hid his uniforms and anything that identified him as a police officer for fear of being targeted. However, despite his best efforts he was captured and was never seen by his family again.1288
“[M]y father, as you know, was a member of the Security Department, which was like a police. My father asked me to hide his police uniform and relevant documents in the basement. … I was in the basement, hiding the documents and the uniform and I was able to hear the conversation that was going on between my dad and the communists who came looking for him. And they were asking my father to go with them. They took my father away. The last time that I heard my father, my father was saying good-bye to his mother, who was my grandmother. That was the last time I heard my father’s voice.”1289
Ms Park Myung-ja, perhaps the last remaining surviving abductee outside the DPRK, recounted her experience of being taken to the North along with half of the medical staff at the hospital where she had been working during the Korean War. Ms Park told the Commission of the capture of the Seoul National University Hospital by DPRK forces and the abduction of half the staff for the purpose of establishing a hospital in Hamhung, South Hamgyong Province:
“We were passing through a mountainous area. We were very exhausted – doctors, nurses and the administrative staff. Our legs were exhausted and they said anybody who was exhausted should come out. Those who held [up] their hands came out and they were killed. We were so scared that we had no choice but to follow them. Our legs were weak. They kept beating us up so that we would keep walking.”1290
Historical documents provided to the Commission by KWAFU show that the abductions were not spontaneous violations, but followed specific objectives to gain labour and skills set by central-level institutions of the DPRK. Documents from the DPRK contain various demands for persons with particular skills and expertise.1291 For example, in an urgent request issued by the Ministry of National Protection to the Workers’ Party of Korea on 6 June 1950, shortly before the DPRK made incursions into the ROK, categories of personnel such as engineers, pharmacists, and doctors were requested.1292 Additional documents from the ROK government and wartime telegrams of foreign governments that have since been disclosed detail information known to these governments about the abduction of civilians during the war.1293 For example, a declassified Russian document reveals that the Russian Ambassador to the DPRK sent a translation to Russia on 17 August 1950 of a DPRK document dated 17 July 1950, outlining the decision to transfer Seoul citizens to farms in the North.1294
The underlying objectives of the wartime abductions are believed to be the recruitment of labour and expertise, while simultaneously draining the capacity of the South. The need for labour and expertise in the North grew as a result of the depletion of its own population as a result of the war, and from the exodus of nationals persecuted by the government of the DPRK in the early days of independence.1295 After the establishment of the DPRK north of the 38th parallel, after the independence from the Japanese, the newly created socialist state appropriated private property and took harsh action against persons who may have posed a threat to the new state such as landowners, intellectuals and religious people. As a result, large numbers of these people fled to the South causing sudden labour shortages. The abductions also served to cause chaos and confusion in the South, to make post-war rehabilitation more difficult due to the shortages of skilled professionals and youth, and to propagate the socialist dream by portraying the abductions as voluntary defections. A report issued on 5 August 1949 (before the war) shows the DPRK state policy to “divide and destroy the anti-communist group [in the South] by bringing them to the North.”1296
The Armistice Agreement instructed the Commanders of each side to permit and assist civilians who had crossed the demarcation line after 24 June 1950 to return to their home territory if they so desired.1297 International humanitarian law also requires states to repatriate civilians interned during an armed conflict.1298 Despite these obligations, no civilians from south of the demarcation line prior to 24 June 1950 residing in the North at the end of the Korean War were assisted in returning to the South. Since the Korean War, the DPRK has consistently denied any war-time abductions, claiming that a number of people had voluntarily come to the North.1299 For example, on 30 June 2013, Kim Jong-un delivered the following message via the official newspaper of the DPRK, Rodong Sinmun:
“[The Korean War abductees] fuss under the current puppet ruling quarters far surpasses the predecessor’s provocation. … As for the defectors, they were not forced to do, but made a patriotic heroic attempt according to their political belief, desire for reunification and national conscience.”1300
In 1956, through the International Committee of the Red Cross, the DPRK was requested to advise about the fate of the Korean War abductees, who were referred to as “displaced persons”. Of the 7,000 names provided at that time, information was received regarding only 337 persons.1301 Requests for information about larger numbers of abductees have been met with counter-requests to remove any reference to “abduction” or “abductees”. In 2012 KWAFU submitted the list of 96,013 names of Korean War abductees whose fate is currently unknown to the International Committee of the Red Cross, requesting their assistance in uncovering details of the abductees’ fates. To date no response from the DPRK has been received. Given the passage of time since the abductions, it is unlikely that many of the Korean War abductees remain alive. Submissions have also been made to the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID). However due to a lack of cooperation by the DPRK, the Working Group has not been able to confirm any information.
The Korean War abductees faced significant discrimination after arriving in the DPRK and were not treated well. Even those who had been handpicked for their special skills and expertise came to be viewed as antagonists rather than assets. Those who did not wholeheartedly accept the ideology of the state were particularly severely punished and closely monitored. Most were relegated to work in remote mining areas. Many disappeared into labour camps and political prisons.1302 On 5 September 1950, after the forcible removal to the North of approximately 66,000 civilians from the South, the DPRK internal affairs office in Gang Won issued a memorandum to the district and city Internal Affairs stations about how the euphemistically called “liberated Seoul citizens” were to be treated. The memo instructs that they are to be searched, interrogated and monitored. The memorandum instructs each factory, mine and workplace at which the former Seoul citizens were working to make a list of the “recruited labourers” under their jurisdiction, regularly question them and “watch their every movement, lest any undesirable behaviour occur, and in the case of any runaways, efforts should be made for their immediate arrest.”1303
The Commission heard from a witness whose uncle, a trained boxer, had been abducted for his physical skill and trained as a spy. As surveillance on the remaining family in the ROK intensified, the boxer’s sister and two brothers defected to the North. The boxer lived with one of his brothers, while the second brother and sister established their own respective families in the North. The extended family lived relatively well in Pyongyang, until the boxer’s boss in the spy department left the DPRK for the ROK. After this, the boxer was executed along with everyone in the department. The brother who lived with the boxer was also executed. The brother who lived separately with his own family, attempted suicide in an effort to spare his family from being punished under the guilt-by-association policy. It is believed this brother and his entire family were later killed. The boxer’s sister and sister’s daughter (the witness) were sent to a remote mining district.1304
The daughter of an abducted ROK civilian told the Commission of the purge of ROK citizens to mountainous regions in 1977/78. Her family had lived in a city area as her father had been a teacher at a college. However, in 1977, they were exiled with many other families originating from the ROK to a remote mountainous area. She said, “after the exile, we were treated as less than human”.1305
Korean War abductees were denied not only freedom to leave the DPRK and return to the ROK, but also denied the right to communicate with their families in the South or authorities of the Republic of Korea. Most married (or remarried if they had been married in the ROK), and as they were relegated to the lowest rank of songbun, they and their descendants were denied educational and employment opportunities for generations. Several witnesses told the Commission of their songbun categorization into the “hostile” class.1306
The daughter of a Korean War abductee, explained that her husband forced her to divorce him after he discovered that her father was born in the South.1307
The abduction of ROK civilians appears to have been conducted in accordance with a plan. DPRK and foreign documents reveal the need for labour, the plan to relocate ROK nationals to the North – particularly to work on farms – and describe how they were to be treated. Witness testimony presented to the Commission points to the large scale forcible relocation of persons, and the targeting of particular professionals. The fact that these abductions were carried out by the Korean People’s Army (KPA) further reinforces the conclusion that the wartime abductions of civilians were carried out on the instruction of the then Supreme Commander of the KPA Kim Il-sung. The Commission finds that the KPA, taking advantage of the circumstances of war to forcibly take civilians to the North, upon the instruction of Kim Il-sung, and at the cessation of the war, failed to provide those civilians with the opportunity to return to the ROK.
