[Editor's Note: A former
North Korean People's Army instructor Cho Young
Chol, 33, who fled the North in August 1998 and
came to the South in December the following year,
has recently given an eyewitness account of the
gruesome reality of a North Korean prison operated
by the State Security Agency, and a secondhand
account of a group execution of people charged
with aiding fellow citizens to escape to the
South. It's rare that the executed have all been
identified.]
On July 1, 1998, six
people, among them my elder brother Cho Soung
Chol, were executed in public under the Namsan
Bridge in Onsong County, North Hamgyong Province.
It was dubbed the (South Korean) "National
Intelligence Service-instigated Espionage Team
Case." Public executions are generally confined to
economic criminals, with those of political
offenders carried out in secret. It was quite rare
that the State Security Agency itself performed
the public executions of the six offenders. Though
I too was arrested in the same case, I
dramatically avoided being executed.
Being the "wicked gang leader," my
elder brother was shot at so many times
indiscriminately that his upper body was all but
unrecognizable. Executed with him in public were
his friends Rim Chun Sam, 43, Chon In Sok, 33, Yun
Chang Man, 35, and Kim Yong Su, 33, as well as
Chang Chong Kwang, 33, who attempted in vain to
escape to the South with his own family. They were
convicted on charges of "having smuggled escapees
into the South and imported goods through illegal
channels in collaboration with the South Korean
National Intelligence Service."
Among
the North Koreans they helped escape to the South
were the family of Chang In Suk, 60, who took part
in the designing of the Juche (self-reliance)
Tower in Pyongyang. Our arrests came when Chang's
second son, Chong Kwan, was caught by security
agents while attempting to escape to the South
with his family. Chong Kwan's detention came at
the tip of his wife, who he tried in vain to
persuade into going to the South with him. At that
time a distant relative of ours, residing in
northeastern China, Cho Won Chol, who smuggled
goods with us, was abducted by North Korean
security agents in Tuman, to the North. Whether he
is still alive or where he is are unknown.
Arrested by security agents at our
home in the Namyang laborers' district in Onsong
County, we were taken to the State Security Agency
prison in Onsong County. It was around 9:00pm on
September 30, 1997. The State Security Agency
facility had 10-odd cells and interrogation rooms.
The preliminary questioning room had a chair on
which a suspect is fastened, square bars, iron
hooks, leather whips, metal chains and buckets.
The room with blood-stained walls was terrifying.
My brother and I were tortured
indiscriminately from the very night we were taken
to the prison. My brother, treated as a ring
leader, got more brutish torture. Reputed for his
guts and reticence, my brother adamantly denied
charges brought against him. In the ensuing cruel
torture, he had his arm and limb joints dislocated
and all his teeth broken when struck by a butt
plate. His face was disfigured beyond recognition.
I was also subjected to brutish torture. I was
laid down on a table naked. They tortured me with
electric shocks with both the arms and legs
fastened tightly. I fell unconscious many a time.
They poured cold water over me to wake me out of
unconsciousness. Without being allowed to sleep
for a week, I was beaten with square bars. I was
beaten while being hung from the ceiling upside
down.
They tortured me day after day,
demanding to know how much money I had received
from the South Korea National Intelligence Service
and what espionage missions I had been ordered to
fulfil. My denials invited even more and severer
tortures. Toward the end I was even made to stick
my nose into dung in a toilet stool overnight, and
I was brought to near death.
They made
us see other inmates being tortured. I saw one
killed instantly when struck on the head with an
iron hook, and interrogators dislocating inmates'
arms and limb joints. The bodies of those who died
from torture were taken away and buried somewhere
on the day they met their fate. I remember tens of
inmates who were killed in the course of torture.
The six inmates excluding me were
taken out of the prison. That was the last time I
saw my elder brother alive. His mouth and lips
were all covered with wounds. With his teeth all
broken, his spine injured and arms and limbs
dangling, he was carried out by two security
guards. "At least, you must stay alive and look
after our parents," were the last words he had for
me. My brother assumed all the charges brought
against me. Then he was executed publicly along
with his colleagues.
I was
subsequently transferred to the No. 12 Chonggori
Reformatory in North Hamgyong province. I heard
that a tentative approval had been given to my
execution by shooting. I too was mentally ready to
be shot to death. The 10-month torture at the
State Security Agency prison and hard labor at the
reformatory, however, nearly halved my weight to
46kg from 87kg. My flesh was all swollen and I was
declared at the threshold of death by the
reformatory. My parents came with a stretcher to
fetch me. Unable to move, I was carried home
aboard a cart. I lay in bed for three months, with
my urine and excrements taken care of by others. A
strong willpower to survive helped me regain my
health enough to stand up and walk. I had to cross
the Tumen River to avert being caught by the
security authorities who were chasing me tipped
off by the remarks I had made to a friend of mine
that I would blow up the State Security Agency
prison in retaliation for my brother's execution.
I encountered them four times in Yanji and
elsewhere in northeastern China, but managed to
disengage myself on the strength of marshal arts I
learned while serving as a commando. I came to
South Korea via China and Southeast Asian
countries.
Recalling the heinous
torture and slaughter perpetrated in the State
Security Agency prison and interrogation room, I
am infuriated and when I think of my elder brother
and his friends who met a horrible death in front
of a crowd, I cannot fall asleep even these days.
By Kang Chol Hwan
nkch@chosun.com
2001- 7-22 |
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