Posted on 12/26/2009 2:09:39 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
U.S. rights activist crosses into North Korea - reports
Jon Herskovitz, Reuters December 26, 2009, 4:00 pm Send
SEOUL (Reuters) - A U.S. human rights activist trying to raise global attention about the suffering of the North Korean people has crossed into the reclusive state, other activists and South Korean media said on Saturday.
There has been no comment from North Korea, which usually arrests foreign border crossers on site, or from U.S. officials.
Activists told Reuters that Robert Park, 28, had crossed into North Korea from China on Friday, while South Korea's Yonhap news agency and the Kukmin Ilbo newspaper quoted activists who went with him to the border as saying he had crossed at a sparsely patrolled point near the northeast border city of Hoeryong.
Park was quoted by activists who went with the border as shouting when he went across: "I am an American citizen. I am bringing God's love. God loves you."
/snip
"I don't want President Obama to come and pay to get me out. But I want the North Korean people to be free," Park said on Wednesday before departing for China.
(Excerpt) Read more at nz.news.yahoo.com ...
t This Darwin Award winner is as stupid as those drunken Australians dancing on the crocodile cages
I never mentioned his message but spoke to his actions but ok. Hmm, let me think. Nope. He’s still an idiot. And you know that. Comparing Graham and him is ridiculous. Graham set his visit up and went through all the proper channels. This guy had the gall to sneak across the border and then make demands on Kim. You seriously can’t think he’ll be welcomed with open arms or come within a mile of Kim.
He is not a martyr, he’s a missionary. Often the latter are martyred. (He’s just asking that resources not be expended to “save” him during his missionary work.) Besides, if he is a brother in Christ, who am I to question his calling when it is aligned with the great commission?
God Bless this man of God.
See my post above yours. Bonhoeffer wasn't stupid or a candidate for the Darwin award and he did the same thing. He did it at a time when America was holding back too, he left NYC for Germany when anyone with sense who could get to NYC from Germany was headed there. He could have sat out the war at Union Theological . Or gone and intellectualized with Gandhi. But he want back to certain death, to a Gestapo prison and being hanged by the neck.
Park doesn't deserve the slams he is getting. He deserves support. Just as Bonhoeffer deserved support in 1939. Had more paid attention to Bonhoeffer and the Confessing church, the death toll would have been lower.
It is very possible what Park has done will have some result. Even if the fall of the regime is advanced by one day, is that not enough? It could happen. But only if those who try to end the evil get support, not sneers of being idiots.
What an idiot. I hope not one dime of U.S. tax money goes for his “rescue”.
You are exactly right. Its a matter of style and a thoughtful way vs a clumsy stupid approach.
Seeing Kim isn’t the point. He is making a point to the Korean Christian community and Christians around the world. That someone feels so strongly he is willing to give his life should get praise from everyone but I guess not.
He picked the wrong country I suppose and is of the wrong faith.
I wish Mr Park well....but being an American citizen he thinks the USA will be obligated to get involved...No matter what public face he puts on he figures he will draw the USA into his affair. That he has the USA’s juice behind him
I take him at his word he doesn’t want Obama to get involved. But so what if our country is forced to pay attention? Shouldn’t Americans be more vocal against a regime with camps the horrors of which, when they are finally opened, will stun the world? Lots of Koreans in the USA. Koreans have done a lot for the country. Rather than send Bill Clinton’s half-brother to North Korea to put on a rock concert, shouldn’t we be behind Park?
I refer again back to another Christian, Bonhoeffer. We were isolationist at that time. If Bonhoeffer’s friends and fellow Christians put pressure on the USA at that time, would not that have been good?
(most did btw).
Aside from all that, this is what some Christians are called to do. They aren’t nuts. They aren’t candidates for a Darwin Award.
totally agree.
America’s Poor is more interested in 22” RIMS for their SUV and a playstation 3 for their 55” LCD instead of paying for their own healthcare...
Aside from Mr Park.....
I take hardly anyone at their spoken words. Most people are a bundle/mess of conscious and unconscious thoughts and motivations. Most people cannot even explain why they do something. In addition there are un-perceived thoughts and motivations on the spiritual level
God be with the North Koreans and this courageous man.
“America’s Poor is more interested in 22” RIMS for their SUV and a playstation 3 for their 55” LCD instead of paying for their own healthcare...”
Well said.
I’ll wait and see. If he does back out and plead for release then that would be despicable.
Thank you for your good postings on this.
Graham, by going through the “proper channels,” gave Kim legitimacy that Kim doesn’t deserve as a murderer of his people.
Reminds me of Western religious leaders visiting government-approved churches in China, instead of supporting the underground, non-government-controlled ones.
The people you mentioned didn't just walk across the border and announce, "I am here. Arrest Me." That is just stupid.
There has been so much going on today and since Christmas day....but earlier today when I was trying to get the latest on the terrorist attacks, I thought I saw a headline scrolling across Fox News saying something about Kim Jung Il stepping down today????
Is this a delusion or a dream? Anyone know?
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