A Brief History of North Korea

The ancient principality of Korea was a unified sovereign nation since the 7th century. During and following the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, Japanese forces occupied the peninsula.

In 1910, Japan officially annexed the nation. It was not until after WWII that Korea finally regained its independence after being liberated by Soviet and American forces. However, this “independence” meant little in practice since the Communist Russians took possession of the industrial north while the United States (under the auspices of the United Nations) took control of the agricultural south. The reason the US took possession of the South was to prevent the soviets from doing so in the massive land grab which followed the second world war.

Both the U.S. and the USSR approved Korean-led governments in their respective halves, each of which were favorable to the occupying power’s political ideology. The communist North, known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, supported the government of Kim Il Sung, who had been a Guerrilla fighter with the Chinese Communist forces. The US-supported South was known as the Republic of Korea and officially came into existence in 1948. It was agreed that South Korea would govern themselves independently after four years of international oversight.

Almost from the beginning of this division, the south had to contend with the North’s guerrilla movement. By the time the guerrillas were defeated, a massive concentration of troops had been amassed along the border on both sides. On June 25, 1950, a North Korean armoured brigade crashed through the line and marched toward the Souther capital of Seoul, beginning the three-year period of conflict known as the Korean War. Communist China assisted North Korea in this bloody war, while American forces fought with the South.

When the armistice agreement was finally signed on July 27, 1953, the borders simply reverted to what they had been prior to the war. To this day, it remains the most heavily fortified border in the world.
Kim Il Sung remained dictator of North Korea until his death in 1948 when he was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong-Il. Under Kim Jong-Il’s regime, the nation has increasingly adopted a hostile posture towards all religions, which are viewed as subversive to the state.

Persecution of Christians in North Korea

North Korea is universally recognized as leading the world in the persecution of Christians. While opposed to all religions, Kim Jong-il believes Christianity to be a particularly harmful threat to his power. Under his direction, Christians are routinely, beaten, tortured, arrested for life, mutilated and murdered.

Given the obvious secrecy of North Korean Christianity, it is difficult to calculate the size of the church. However, it is estimated that less than 2% of the population are Christian. These Christians hold secret meetings in houses and caves.

If a North Korean is caught carrying a Bible, it is impossible to save your life short of divine intervention. Those who are simply executed are the lucky ones as punishment often also includes the imprisonment of a Christian’s mother, father, sisters, brothers, children and grandchildren.

“There are no preliminary hearings when religious people get caught,” one former agent said. “[We] regard them as anti-revolutionary elements. When such an offender is caught in North Korea, the NSA officers surround the person and kick and beat the person severely before interrogating.”

Communist Police stop at no limit to hunt out and punish Christians, including pretending to be Christians in order to infiltrate their underground prayer meetings. The information they obtain is then used to identify and arrest Christians, who are taken to prison camps.

Sometimes Christians are simply killed on the spot by being publically beheaded as an example to others. At least a quarter of all North Korean Christians have been incarcerated in prison camps, where inmates face everything from starvation to beatings to Nazi-style gas chambers to experimental torture techniques that defy comprehension. Inhuman experiments are also performed on babies that come to the camps.

Many North Korean Christians have found refuge by fleeing to neighboring China. Between 30,000 and 300,000 North Koreans now reside in China. However, if any of these Christians are caught, they are immediately sent home where they face certain execution. Notwithstanding, many North Koreans, including former prison guards who have defected, have successfully remained hidden in China where they have given secret interviews to the Committee For Human Rights in North Korea. From these interviews it has emerged that the following procedures permeate the detention systems:

•    water torture
•    motionless-kneeling for periods of up to 6 days (detainees who move while they are supposed to be kneeling motionless are handcuffed from the upper bars of their cells with their feet off the floor)
•    beating prisoners to death
•    sleep deprivation
•    forcing detainees to beat each other
•    breaking fingers
•    forcing prisoners to live in permanent situations of deliberately contrived semi-starvation
•    placing prisoners in a 1.5-meter-square (16.5-feet-square) punishment cell for a week or more, where they are unable to sit up or lie down
•    forcing prisoners to remain for long periods in the cold
•    forcing prisoners to sit motionless for six day periods
•    routine infanticide and forced abortions at prison camps, including stamping on the necks of babies until they die.

In addition to the above, documents smuggled out by defectors reveal routine chemical experimentation on human beings. One document from 2002, stamped “top secret”, reads: “The above person is transferred from … camp number 22 for the purpose of human experimentation of liquid gas for chemical weapons.”
For obvious reasons, missionary activity to North Korea remains highly secretive.

It is with great sadness that we are not able to report any improvement in this horrific situation. In fact, autumn 2009 saw new challenges for Christians as the nation’s dictator, Kim Jong-Il, called for a ‘100-day battle’ to strengthen the economy. What this meant in practice was that everyone became his slave and had to go to work on state farms. Those found on the street without a valid reason were immediately shipped off to a concentration camp. This has meant that Christian fathers have not been able to provide for their families, and in the Hwangae province it is normal to see children lying dead in the streets. Some parents have been working illegally at night to provide for their children before reporting back to the state jobs in the morning.