A look back in anguish

IN BANGKOK last week for a press conference ahead of the release of a Thai version of her autobiography, North Korean defector Hyeonseo Lee shared the one thing that was, for many long years, wrong with her new life in the South of the divided peninsula.
She said that, at the moment she escaped from the North, she didn’t realise it would be the last time she’d ever see her homeland – or her family still living there.
Lee is now 34 and vividly remembers watching a public execution when she was seven. The victim was killed as a lesson to other citizens who might consider stepping out of line, she said. Nevertheless, she and every other North Korean grew up convinced – by state propaganda – that they were living in a “paradise”.
By the time she was 17, though, Lee had seen enough, and surreptitiously walked across the frozen Yalu River that forms the border with China. There she lived for 10 years, in constant fear of being caught and repatriated, before finally being granted asylum in South Korea.
Feeling safe and having lived there for years, Lee mustered the courage to face the North Koreans again, this time in a bid to help her mother, brother and other compatriots defect.
All of this is recounted in her book “The Girl with Seven Names”, published by William Collins last year and coming out in Thai through Sanskrit Ltd at next month’s National Book Fair. It is carrying Lee’s story to countries around the world, a tale already told in a video of her TED talk that’s drawn more than five million views online.
Lee has testified before a UN Security Council panel about rights infractions in North Korean and written dozens of articles for leading journals. She recently graduated from a Seoul university with degrees in Chinese and English and plans to start a support group for fellow North Korean expatriates.
Her drive is remarkable, equal to the determination she summoned to cross that river into China.
“I was very naive, only 17 years old,” she said in Bangkok. “I’ve never realised that that moment would be my last time in my country or that I might be separated from my family maybe forever.
“I didn’t know. I just wanted to find out if China or mine was the best country, because China was the only country I could compare with my own. We were taught that America was evil, not a place where humans could live, and Thailand was given very low status.”
After a decade on the outside, Lee was indeed caught in China.
“I was interrogated by 20 or 30 police, but I was lucky because my Chinese was good enough that I could convince them I was Korean-Chinese. After testing me, they believed me. That was the first miracle in my life. But then I couldn’t stay in one place because it wasn’t safe and I had to keep changing cities and workplaces and taking different names.”
Hence the title of her autobiography. Hyeonseo Lee is the seventh name she adopted.
Lee noted that, while most defectors are clearly malnourished, “we have rich people and poor people in North Korea. You’re born into the upper, middle or lower class. My father was an air force officer,” she says of the parent arrested and beaten so badly he had to be hospitalised, only to die soon after from his injuries. Prior to his fall from grace, though, thanks to his higher social status, “I was lucky. I was never hungry,” Lee said.
Lee was able to help her mother and brother escape the North, but then they were discovered in Laos, which routinely sends defectors back. “For nearly 50 days I negotiated with the Lao government, pretending to be just a volunteer from South Korea, and they were finally released.”
Thailand, in contrast, will not repatriate North Korean defectors and in fact facilitates their resettlement in South Korea, and for this Lee said she was grateful. “Coming to this country for the first time is very special to me. Thailand is the most important country in the world for North Korean defectors. That’s why I’m so emotional.”
The Thai government doesn’t recognise the defectors as refugees, but does permit their entry as illegal immigrants until Seoul accepts them. South Korea readily grants citizenship to northerners.
The situation in Thailand is in flux, however, Lee pointed out. “These things might change slightly. The Thai government tries to prevent defectors coming here and cooperates with Laos in blocking them, heeding what the Chinese government says.
“So right now it’s risky, yet I insist that Thailand is the only land of hope for North Korean defectors who have nowhere else to go. But please send them only to South Korea.”
Lee said the number of people defecting has actually decreased. “During the Kim Jong-il period, up until 2011, there were 300 refugees flowing into Thailand every month and being held in detention centres in Bangkok. Now Kim Jong-un is doing his best to stop would-be defectors at the border. He even built a high concrete barrier, and the guards are very tough.
“In the past they never actually shut the people in. So now everyone’s very scared because the consequences are so severe, and escapes have declined by more than 50 per cent. I’m happy, though, that there are still many people trying to escape when they have chance, proving that the regime can’t prevent it entirely.”
Readers of Lee’s book have been amazed to learn that she in fact wants to return to the North.
“They ask how I could miss a place that’s so horrible. But it’s where I was born and where I have more than 100 relatives and many friends. They’re not living in a paradise – they’re suffering.
“North Korea isn’t the land of the Kim family. It’s the land of the Korean people, and we are suffering under a dictator. Outsiders focus on the regime and the nuclear arms and forget about all the people suffering. I want to go back to help them, and do my best to fight against the regime.
“I’m happier than I ever expected to be in my life,” Lee said. “In North Korea that’s impossible because the dictator is a hero. And, even though I grew up in a place where people disappear in the night, where even folding a newspaper is illegal because it has a picture of the dictator’s face, I’m not afraid to go back.
“Because I’m not the only one fighting – there are many defectors trying their best to expose what’s happening the country. With the help of pressure from the international community, we are winning. North Korea isn’t a normal country – they don’t pay attention to what the rest of the world says – but who knows? Right to the end, I won’t give up hope.”