Born in the Gulag: Why a North Korean Boy Sent His Own Mother to Her Death

The Atlantic ^ | 03/28/12 | Blaine Harden

[TigerLikesRooster]

Born in the Gulag: Why a North Korean Boy Sent His Own Mother to Her Death

By Blaine Harden

Mar 28 2012, 7:01 AM ET84

Life inside North Korea's Camp 14 so twisted 13-year-old Shin In Geun that he betrayed his mother and only brother.

Nine years after watching his mother's hanging, Shin In Geun squirmed through the electric fence that surrounds Camp 14 and ran off through the snow into the North Korean wilderness. It was January 2, 2005. Before then, no one born in a North Korean political prison camp had ever escaped. As far as can be determined, Shin is still the only one to do it.

He was 23 years old and knew no one outside the fence.

Within a month, he had walked into China. Within two years, he was living in South Korea. Four years later, he was living in Southern California.

Stunted by malnutrition, he is short and slight -- five feet six inches, about 120 pounds. His arms are bowed from childhood labor. His lower back and buttocks are scarred with burns from the torturer's fire. The skin over his pubis bears a puncture scar from the hook used to hold him in place over the fire. His ankles are scarred by shackles, from which he was hung upside down in solitary confinement. His right middle finger is cut off at the first knuckle, a guard's punishment for dropping a sewing machine in a camp garment factory. His shins, from ankle to knee on both legs, are mutilated and scarred by burns from the electrified barbed-wire fence that failed to keep him inside Camp 14.

[TigerLikesRooster]

A truly shocking revelation.

[TigerLikesRooster]

P!

[TwoSwords]

Wouldn’t think a man of your stature would trust the atlantic.

[Jonty30]

I’m not shocked by it, but I am glad to read it to confirm just how evil NorK is.

[wac3rd]

And the maggot Albright danced with that dead midget Jong Il

[citizencon]

Of course, Madeleine Albright will deny that this ever happened.

[Doofer]

If only North Korea had oil reserves this wouldn’t be happening. /s

[Bon mots]

This is where the left will lead us all if we let them.

[Hardraade]

Put a sock in it.

There’s other accounts generally corroborating what’s going on.

[wolficatZ]

Obama’s vision of Utopia.

[rocketmag]

This is absolutely true. Centralized planning doesn’t work, people starve, people get tortured

[nuconvert]

I wonder what his circumstances are now.

[jmaroneps37]

Does jimmy carter know about this? If he DID he certainly would do something about it, right?

[2001convSVT]

Carter would most likely turn him over to the proper NK authorities.

[Travis McGee]

Communism only varies by degree. North Korea is horrible, but even our own home-grown Communists (such as Obama’s mentor and ghost writer Bill Ayers) have planned to murder 25 million “bitter clingers” in order to abort any “counter-revolution.” The 25 million Americans to be murdered would be the ones who refused to accept Communist reeducation.

[Travis McGee]

Yep, Jimmy Carter would call the Nork embassy and give them the defector’s address, so their assassins could kill him.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

WSJ had the story a week ago.

[TigerLikesRooster]

25 million “bitter clingers”

That probably means 25 million guns, which made Ayers' blood pressure shoot up.

[BobL]

Obama’s America, at least for conservatives.

They just know enough not to say it publicly until they have the means to put it in place.

[OldMissileer]

That probably means 25 million guns, which made Ayers' blood pressure shoot up.

They only have ONE gun each?....Pikers.