Posted on 04/20/2017 9:11:31 PM PDT by pboyington
University of Virginia student, Otto Warmbier, is a prisoner somewhere in the Orwellian hell hole known as North Korea. Otto Warmbier may be suffering a fate tantamount to an inmate of Dachau. At this very moment, Otto Warmbier may be starving, performing slave labor, being beaten or in fact, he may very well be dead.
The tragic fate of Otto Warmbier, is the tragic fate of the millions of North Koreans living in the Gulag Archipelago of Kim Jong-un’s totalitarian nightmare world.
Warmbier, 23, was convicted of conducting “hostile acts against the DPRK”.
Mr. Warmbier was not an intelligence officer working for the CIA and his ‘hostile act’ was not sabotage or espionage.
The so-called hostile act against North Korea committed by college student Warmbier, (who was travelling with a tour group called Young Pioneer Tours), was purloining a propaganda poster off the wall of the Yanggakdo Hotel in Pyongyang with the inscription, “Let’s arm ourselves strongly with Kim Jong-il’s patriotism!”
Stealing or harming a poster or other items with the name or image of one of North Korea’s past or present lunatic asylum leaders is considered a serious crime against the state.
On January 2, Warmbier was arrested while in the process of departing North Korea from the Pyongyang airport. The other guests in his tour group all left the country without incident. On February 29, 2016, he “confessed” to stealing a piece of North Korean propaganda to take back to the United States as a “trophy” for someone from his home-town church who offered to pay him for it with the gift of a car worth $10,000.
On March 16, 2016, Otto Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for committing what Warmbier thought was a harmless college prank that could provide him with a new car.
Warmbier was allowed to speak to the kangaroo court that sentenced him. He stated, obviously under emotional and perhaps physical duress:
“I never, never should have allowed myself to be lured by the United States administration to commit a crime in this country, I wish that the United States administration never manipulate people like myself in the future to commit crimes against foreign countries. I entirely beg you, the people and government of the DPRK, for your forgiveness. Please! I made the worst mistake of my life.”
As tensions with North Korea rise and the war drums beat, the State Department continues to make efforts to one, find out Warmbier’s current location in North Korea, two, meet with him and three, to secure his release with the assistance of the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang.
The State Department released the following statement today:
The welfare and safety of U.S. citizens abroad is one of the highest priorities of the State Department. The Embassy of Sweden continues to request information on the exact location of Mr. Warmbier, and to request access for consular visits with him. However, representatives from the Swedish Embassy have not been granted consular access to Mr. Warmbier since the visit on March 2, 2016. The Department believes Mr. Warmbier’s sentence of 15 years hard labor is unduly harsh for the actions Mr. Warmbier allegedly took. Despite official claims that U.S. citizens arrested in the DPRK are not used for political purposes, it is increasingly clear from its very public treatment of these cases that the DPRK does just that. Mr. Warmbier has gone through the criminal process and has been detained for more than a year. We continue to urge the DPRK to pardon him and grant him special amnesty and immediate release on humanitarian grounds.
The question remains: where is Otto Warmbier? Most distressingly, it is likely Warmbier is being incarcerated in one of North Korea’s penal labor camps for political prisoners known as the Kwalliso.
The internment camps are located in central and northeastern North Korea. They comprise many prison labor colonies in secluded mountain valleys, completely isolated from the outside world. The total number of prisoners is estimated to be 150,000 to 200,000. Yodok camp and Bukchang camp are separated into two sections: One section for political prisoners in lifelong detention, another part similar to re-education camps with prisoners sentenced to long-term imprisonment with the vague hope of eventual release.
The prisoners are forced to perform hard and dangerous slave work with primitive means in mining and agriculture. The food rations are very small, so that the prisoners are constantly on the brink of starvation. In combination with the hard work this leads to huge numbers of prisoners dying. An estimated 40% of prisoners die from malnutrition.
Moreover, many prisoners are crippled from work accidents, frostbite or torture. There is a rigid punishment in the camp. Prisoners who work too slowly or do not obey an order are beaten or tortured. In cases of stealing food or attempting to escape, the prisoners are publicly executed.
As inprisonment in North Korea’s gulag archipelago is life threatening, it is imperative that the State Department continues to lobby for Warmbier’s release, even as tensions continue to rise on the Korean Peninsula.
If you are a religious person, you might want to say a prayer for Otto Warmbier, who at this very moment may be suffering a fate worse than most can imagine.
...”My point: Did any one of them take the opportunity to ask about Mr Warmbier?”..
The fact you would ask that reveals you have a limited grasp of the situation and how N.Korea operates.
Bingo.
Okay, I’ll admit up front that I do not know of this company, but I have to wonder at those who take its tours.
When I was in high school, I wanted to become an exchange student to a foreign country. There were basically two choices of exchange organization: one that was free to the student, but where the student had no choice about the country, and the other which gave students choices but came with a hefty price tag.
My high school held an assembly so that a girl who had been an exchange student with the free organization talked about her experience in Thailand. It sounded dirty and dangerous. Right then, I decided to go with the organization that was pricy, but gave students a choice. And so I went to France, and was safe, rather than some hole where anything could have happened to me.
I wonder if the people drawn to this company’s North Korea tours are those who have been indoctrinated with communist propaganda to the point where they actually believe that communism=utopia. So they want to see its wonders for themselves.
I went to North Korea. If you visit the Joint Security Area within the DMZ, you visit a building that straddles the border. Inside the building, you can step across the border into North Korea. It’s not 100% safe, but it is a lot safer than taking a DPRK tour.
Shame on you!
For showing respect for a foreign nation hostile to the United States.
Not at all. You are way off base.
I visited there in those days as well. I remember going to the police station with my grandfather to report my visit. We were also required to exchange a minimum quantity of hard currency per day and were not permitted to exchange it back or take the Czech currency out of the country. It was difficult for me as a youngster to spend the requisite amount while staying with family. Family wouldn't let me pay for anything, and there wasn't much to shop for. The regime could be brutal, but seldom like the North Koreans. More typically it was just inefficient, bureaucratic, and stacked against independent thinkers. The harshest period was earlier - in the 1950's. By the 70's and 80's pretense, petty theft and limited freedom were institutionalized and they didn't need to brutalize as many citizens and visitors to make their point.
North Korea does not have a legitimate government.
North Korean law is of no significance.
I suppose you also defend stoning adulteresses because adultery is immoral (or whatever, in your twisted view).
I suspect that many of those visiting DPRK are rabid leftists who have been drinking the proverbial koolaid their whole lives. Had this kid returned to the US without incident, he might even today be one of the Antifa thugs, dedicated to intimidating people who do not swallow the socialist agenda.
Military personnel are not allowed to visit North Korea unless they have a very compelling reason. I cannot imagine what reason would be compelling enough for that.
Anyone who contemplates traveling overseas should consult the State Department's list of travel warnings and take it seriously. There are many exotic countries to visit that are a lot safer than any of the countries on the warning list.
So, it is okay to go and steal and commit vandalism? Why stop there, how about rape and murder?
Well, I think I see at least part of the problem here.
Sorry that's theft. The sentence he received was unduly harsh, but if he hadn't stolen the propaganda poster in the first place he wouldn't be in the world of hurt he's undoubtedly in now.
Disgusting.
When I was in the Navy as a young man, they indoctrinated us well in appropriate behavior in countries that were not our own. They made sure we knew full well that we were not entitled to the same protections we have in America, and to think otherwise is naive, stupid, and dangerous.
They used a sailor as an example who had been caught with drugs during a port visit several years before, and every time we went to Italy, they would bring that guy up and say “He’s still there.”
And this was to prepare us to visit countries like Spain and Italy, not North Korea.
The vast majority of us were younger than this guy. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for him beyond that I feel for someone who is blindsided by their own ignorance.
It takes a special kind of moron to visit a totalitarian dictatorship for a vacation travel tour.
If Otto had simply asked the Norks for a copy of the poster, he’d be home free.
Why didn’t he just offer to buy one of the posters?
Exactly. Out of all the places to go especially in the orient. Since it’s UVA I will only assume they were going there to do research on propaganda to tell everyone how much the US sucks and how great N. Korea is. Stupid people generally have difficult lives.
“”I visited Czechoslovakia before the fall of communism, reporting to a police station upon arrival as a condition of my visa. I was careful of my conduct at all times. And that regime was benign compared to the Norks.”
I visited there in those days as well. I remember going to the police station with my grandfather to report my visit. We were also required to exchange a minimum quantity of hard currency per day and were not permitted to exchange it back or take the Czech currency out of the country.”
I visited Czechoslovakia in the later 80’s while it was still Communist. Very interesting experiences there. Our group had all taken a series of history courses at a local junior college, followed by a tour of European countries covered in our classes. All ages of folks took these specialized study followed by trip courses, taught by a wonderful history professor who really knew his stuff, and was fun to boot.
When we hit the border of Czechoslovakia, we were held up for two hours in our mini tour bus, because one of our group was of Czech heritage (an older gent, about 65 years old). He was a U.S. citizen, but Czech originally. They went over his passport/visa with a fine tooth comb, did some kind of a background check on him, consulted with their border control higher ups, and then let us go into Czechoslovakia. It was ridiculous, and our first experience with what life might be like in a then still communist dictatorship.
The next eye opener was when we were in Prague, and our tour guide, who spoke English and had been privately hired for our group, showed us all around to all the Prague sites. One of our group’s younger members, had brought with her a paperback copy of the book “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, the plot being set in the Czechoslovakia of 1968 when the Russian tanks rolled into this country and took it over, creating a Russian satellite state and dictatorship.
The book is actually more a philosophical love story, but because the background was set against the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Russia in 1968, the book was banned from sale there. Our group’s young lady gave her copy of the book to our tour guide, who in the middle of a forest where no one could hear, had told us of his having lost his good job because he didn’t toe the communist mark well enough, and how repressive it was living in his still communist country. He was overjoyed to get the book as a present; you would have thought it was a brick of gold. In the center of Prague, particularly around their gov’t buildings, you would see the armed to the teeth soldiers guarding these areas, and on patrol.
Meanwhile, we had one of the best nights of our whole trip through Europe in a Czech bar in Pilsen (yes, that town, of Pilsner beer fame). As Pilsen is out of the main tourist route, we were the townspeople’s novel objects. A two man band (trumpet and accordian) were entertaining that night in the bar. One was a fireman from the outskirts of town, the other I forget his story. They knew and played all the American jazz and show tunes. Pretty soon the shy Czech folks in the bar stopped just staring at us and started asking many of us to dance. Pretty soon, after much drinking by one and all, it was basically a rowdy party, and everyone had a wonderful time. We all really whooped it up. I’m sure, those that are still alive, will remember that night for the rest of their lives.
A study in contrasts between their repressive gov’t, and the fun loving and friendly people in that small town. Very much like the plot of the book/movie “The Unbearable Lightness of Being. By the way, the American movie version of the book that came out later, starred a young Daniel Day Lewis.
Oh, I almost forgot one creepy episode on the way to one of the spa towns located in the Czech foothills. Our tour bus had broken down, and we were waiting in it for someone to come to repair it. To kill time, some of our group decided to take a walk in the surrounding beautiful wooded area, and we walked up a nearby slope to see what the view would be from the top. Well, the view below the crest was of some kind of military installation, surrounded by fencing with barbed wire, and very ominous looking guards. We scooted right back down that slope mighty fast and remained in the bus until repaired. Still give me the creeps thinking about that hidden in the middle of the woods military compound. End of my Czechoslovakia tale.
There is a simple way to avoid having to live under arrest in No. Korea....Stay the hell out of there.
“”I visited Czechoslovakia before the fall of communism, reporting to a police station upon arrival as a condition of my visa. I was careful of my conduct at all times. And that regime was benign compared to the Norks.”
I visited there in those days as well. I remember going to the police station with my grandfather to report my visit. We were also required to exchange a minimum quantity of hard currency per day and were not permitted to exchange it back or take the Czech currency out of the country.”
I visited Czechoslovakia in the later 80’s while it was still Communist. Very interesting experiences there. Our group had all taken a series of history courses at a local junior college, followed by a tour of European countries covered in our classes. All ages of folks took these specialized study followed by trip courses, taught by a wonderful history professor who really knew his stuff, and was fun to boot.
When we hit the border of Czechoslovakia, we were held up for two hours in our mini tour bus, because one of our group was of Czech heritage (an older gent, about 65 years old). He was a U.S. citizen, but Czech originally. They went over his passport/visa with a fine tooth comb, did some kind of a background check on him, consulted with their border control higher ups, and then let us go into Czechoslovakia. It was ridiculous, and our first experience with what life might be like in a then still communist dictatorship.
The next eye opener was when we were in Prague, and our tour guide, who spoke English and had been privately hired for our group, showed us all around to all the Prague sites. One of our group’s younger members, had brought with her a paperback copy of the book “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, the plot being set in the Czechoslovakia of 1968 when the Russian tanks rolled into this country and took it over, creating a Russian satellite state and dictatorship.
The book is actually more a philosophical love story, but because the background was set against the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Russia in 1968, the book was banned from sale there. Our group’s young lady gave her copy of the book to our tour guide, who in the middle of a forest where no one could hear, had told us of his having lost his good job because he didn’t toe the communist mark well enough, and how repressive it was living in his still communist country. He was overjoyed to get the book as a present; you would have thought it was a brick of gold. In the center of Prague, particularly around their gov’t buildings, you would see the armed to the teeth soldiers guarding these areas, and on patrol.
Meanwhile, we had one of the best nights of our whole trip through Europe in a Czech bar in Pilsen (yes, that town, of Pilsner beer fame). As Pilsen is out of the main tourist route, we were the townspeople’s novel objects. A two man band (trumpet and accordian) were entertaining that night in the bar. One was a fireman from the outskirts of town, the other I forget his story. They knew and played all the American jazz and show tunes. Pretty soon the shy Czech folks in the bar stopped just staring at us and started asking many of us to dance. Pretty soon, after much drinking by one and all, it was basically a rowdy party, and everyone had a wonderful time. We all really whooped it up. I’m sure, those that are still alive, will remember that night for the rest of their lives.
A study in contrasts between their repressive gov’t, and the fun loving and friendly people in that small town. Very much like the plot of the book/movie “The Unbearable Lightness of Being. By the way, the American movie version of the book that came out later, starred a young Daniel Day Lewis.
Oh, I almost forgot one creepy episode on the way to one of the spa towns located in the Czech foothills. Our tour bus had broken down, and we were waiting in it for someone to come to repair it. To kill time, some of our group decided to take a walk in the surrounding beautiful wooded area, and we walked up a nearby slope to see what the view would be from the top. Well, the view below the crest was of some kind of military installation, surrounded by fencing with barbed wire, and very ominous looking guards. We scooted right back down that slope mighty fast and remained in the bus until repaired. Still give me the creeps thinking about that hidden in the middle of the woods military compound. End of my Czechoslovakia tale.
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