Between North and South Korea is much more and much less than the total Bashny.Net

21 photos will itself report.

In the midst of the latest aggravation of the situation around North Korea sounded even when the threat of nuclear attack, I spoke in Seoul with refugees from the North, which at different times barely managed to reach South Korea. And this, of course, was cool. First, it became clear that North Korea is no longer socialism. Then - since the days of the Great Migration People have not changed for the better. And finally - between North and South Korea is much more and much less common than one might imagine from afar.

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- I had everything well. I rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, he worked in the department for the fight against corruption - the bread position. But one day my uncle was shot, his children sent to a camp, parents kicked out of a nice apartment, and I realized that I do here is nothing more. I bought the boat for $ 200, took a 17-year-old nephew and we are guided by the stars, sailed to the south. The Coast Guard said that we were going on a fishing trip: the people in uniform as you can. We sailed for three days on the Sea of ​​Japan, not eating, not sleeping, they sailed to South Korea and surrendered to authorities. This was in 1997. I myself do not understand how we did it. (Ёnchhol Kim, 40 years old.)



I was all right. My husband and I traded in antiques - sold in China traditional Korean ceramics - and live better than all the neighbors. But once on the way back to Korea, my husband was arrested, and I did not even know what happened to him next. I am trying to find out in court, but I said, "Look for a best friend of her husband." This was a hint that he was dead. In winter 2012 I got in touch with a group of people who were planning a general escape. At first I did not want to take the daughter, then she was fifteen. But she heard what I was talking on the phone and said that anywhere I will not go without her. I had to take her. (Myung Ёnhi, 52 years old.)



I had everything well, but one day my mother was imprisoned for two years for economic crimes. Really wanted to put a political - to communicate with the southerners in China - but the evidence is not there. In 2007, she came out and said: "Go-ka you, my daughter, to the south, where you have no chance." (Hyansuk Kim, 23 years old.)



- I had everything well. I was the head of the youth organization in the food business. But one snitched on me that I supposedly a member of the underground movement against the state. That was in 1996, when food shortages started and failed policy of the party became evident. I talked about it with friends, as a result of swept me and another person as an organizer. We were put in a detention center near the city of Chongjin. What was even do not want to remember. They beat me every day, driven out into the cold in wet clothes. But I'm in no way admitted, and they let me go. But two months later in the same center of torture died friend, with whom we have arrested together - out of it and failed to make the leader of the counterrevolutionary organization, so it was again myself. One night of the political police came for me the second time. But here I filled two officers face, and my wife and I ran into the side of the border - from our city is near. We run across the ice and found the Tumen River in China. (Ёnsu Lee, 41 years old.)



To understand what is meant by the phrase "I was all good", it is necessary at least in general terms to imagine the world from which they fled. "All is well" - is primarily a good sonbun.Esli you happen to be born in the country of Juche, then your life is determined by childhood special stamp in the personal, "special", "main", "base", "wavering" and "hostile" .
It depends on what your ancestors in the male line with the Japanese in the 1950s. If the father, grandfather or great-grandfather fought with Kim Il Sung, you're in luck: in the personal file is stamped "special", and you have the opportunity to live in Pyongyang, to teach at the university and work in the political police. But if your great-grandfather "hostile" - for example, was a collaborator and helped the Japanese - that you even in the army will not take.
Information that the grandparents did, is stored in the administration of the place of residence, in police stations and public organizations. In fact, this system is much more complicated, within the groups there are several subgroups - in general, caste society. Chhulsin-sonbun passed through the male line, and can be changed only for the worse.

Sahwa-sonbun - the public, the profession and determined membership in the party, women's councils, peasant alliance. There are separate stamp "audience award" if you get the picture with the leader, you have great prospects. Sometimes, a good-Sahwa sonbun can compensate for bad chhulsin-sonbun, but more often the opposite: a person with poor origins not accept the union and given an audience.
If you are not from the "enemy", after school or institution under 30 will serve in the army. That is why the North Korean army in numbers in fifth place in the world: compulsory military service it is 5-10 years. After the army, you will be required to get a job. If you are a man and you have a good sonbun, it may be associated with different income left - in the service or supply in a department to combat corruption.
If you are "basic" or "fluctuating", you'd better hurry to marry: Women in North Korea do not have to go to work, and in 2002 they were allowed to trade in the markets. As an ordinary worker some factory, you will get two dollars a month, and your wife will grow corn to sell or trade the Chinese belongings.

The caste system in recent years has superseded by considerations of economic expediency - hunger late 90s flattened a few class distinctions. Owners of good sonbuna who believed in socialism, honest starve and "hostile" to take to survive on their own. The economy has become a semi-legal business activity.

But in general in modern North Korea, a regime that the Russian explorer Fyodor Tertitsky called "mixture of anarchy, totalitarianism": at the official level of Juche - party meetings, sessions of self-criticism and an informal spinning dollars and yuan, there are negotiations on the mobile phone through the Chinese mobile networks , being foreign and domestic private trade based on bribes, communication and access to state resources.
All this, of course, a gamble on the verge of, for example, for a trip to China to work you could be imprisoned or may not. You can buy off the Chinese DVD-player, and you can not pay off and crashing down into the camp.

And now imagine that everything finally settled somehow - and then disaster happens. Someone from the family exiled to the camp, your friend knocks you in the political police, wife caught on the border with the party ginseng. And you understand that not only you but also your children and grandchildren to spoil your good karma. And you decide to run. NOT one-way ticket

"Run to the South" - this is not the south. After the South Korean border now really can escape the soldier, who was sent to protect her. Ordinary man to climb even in the head does not come. Running should be in China. Moreover, many of the defectors was there and want, and about the opportunity to go to South Korea to learn later.

With China northerners have a connection, many relatives living there, and the government has long turned a blind eye to the fact that the people of the DPRK, especially in border areas, go to the neighbors to work. In addition, China has a fairly large group of local ethnic Koreans, Chinese citizens, among which can be dissolved. The border is guarded not too hard - it can be crossed for a bribe, or if you know the area well, secretly having got across the river. In China, the Koreans could hang for a few months, years or even a lifetime. During the famine there were hundreds of thousands of Korean illegal immigrants. According to a northerner, of those who deliberately flees to South Korea, to Seoul gets only one in five. Therefore, the next chapter in the history of a typical defector should be called "Life in China».

- My mother got up to some small farm and hid in a pigsty. There we found the owner, said that we will hand over to the authorities: for the apprehension of illegal migrant there supposed reward of 5,000 yuan. Mom began to plead with his cell phone - to call his uncle: he had long lives in China, he has his own factory. And he: "Give me a daughter and call." We pretended to agree. My uncle, an influential man on the phone strictly ordered him to not touch us. Then he came and bought us for 5000 yuan. (Nahёn Lee, 38 years old.)



- My wife was running too slow, we caught a Chinese border guards and sent back, - continues the story of a refugee who has sent in a knockout of the two Korean KGB agents. - In Korea, we have been waiting for a car with two policemen. I had to give them, and in the face, and we are again on the ice escaped to China, this time successfully. Settled from a friend, he gave us a false passport. He has a house near the town of Yanji - something like a small hotel. We stayed there for two and a half years - to do the cleaning, feeding the dogs, slowly taught Chinese. Then friends called me to work in the South Korean company in another city. I had an experience in Sino-Korean trade, and I have good money, pretending southerner. But one snitched on me.
In China, all the refugees from North Korea are considered illegal migrant workers who need to be deported to their homeland, where they are likely to be put, although this is not always the case. Northerners, who can not be naturalized in China, often took possession of the criminal world, women often become prostitutes.

- Probably, you know that the "one-child policy" has led to the fact that in China a huge preponderance of the male population - said Tim Peters, an American Baptist, which helps refugees. - So beggars north koreans very high risk of being sexually exploited - in the form of forced prostitution or concubinage. Often, the Korean women and Chinese men born children. But there is always the danger that the mother went back to North Korea.

- The uncle said that we can not hide forever, and contain, and I need to get married, - says the woman, who was hiding in a pigsty. - I have given for the Chinese, I lived with him for three years, gave birth to a child. One day my son said, "Mom, why do not you speak Chinese? I'm ashamed of you. " Then I left him with his grandmother and decided to go to South Korea.

There is already a third stage - "Escape from China." The South Korean Embassy in Beijing, did not want to spoil relations with the Chinese authorities, fails almost never - except very high-ranking defectors, are of interest to the state. Therefore it is necessary to escape through a third country: Mongolia, Laos and Vietnam. All this, too, is far from friendly regimes. Friendly - Thailand, but has yet to be reached. Here, for example, ran across Mongolia that Superman, who povyrubal on its way all police. By the time of the flight from China he had already had a two year old daughter.
- In 2002, my wife and daughter, stocked with water, food, and on the chaise drove to the Mongolian border, which runs through the desert. There we had to overcome several rows of barbed wire. Somewhere we lifted the it somewhere had to dig. Twelve hours we walked through the desert to the side of the railway. We got to a station, where we caught the Mongolian police. "Oh, - he says - we are South Korean tourists, lost, help contact the embassy." They called the embassy, ​​here we tell it like it is, and we were taken to Ulaanbaatar, and two weeks later was sent to Seoul.
Rocker
But a failed Vietnamese script with a broker - an intermediary who transports people for money:
- The broker has brought us to a restaurant in Hanoi and said his Vietnamese partner will approach a half hour. But over the half hour and we, and the broker was caught by police. Three weeks have marinated in the department, eventually sent back to China. And we Chinese do not say anything at all do not know here. We took the ferry and sailed back to Vietnam. They have once again in China. We - again to Vietnam. We - again in China. Three times since swam back and forth, then still find a hotel in China. The next day, we sent another broker, he said he will take us to the border with Laos. There we went 10:00 in the mountains through the jungle, and on the other side we have met Lao broker. He took us by car to Thailand, where he immediately identified by type: ragged, dirty - it is clear that from North Korea. The police sent us to the South Korean embassy, ​​where there is a special center for the detention of refugees.

Broker - a 60-year-old aunt with a handbag that will never be suspected of clandestine activity. Ms. Choi Minsuk (name changed) has officially operating in South Korea, a social worker, caring for the disabled and the elderly. But in fact, it has been quite different: money helps North Korean refugees from North Korea to pull relatives.



Each year, through the underground network of Ms. Choi held from 50 to 70 people. The service is eight thousand dollars, plus another thousand who gets herself. To earn this amount, the average North Korean refugees required five years. But you can still expect to lift that defector then receive from the state - about $ 5,000. Once Minsuk she has passed all stages of the flight from North Korea and in the process has established the necessary connections.
- Prepayment - four thousand - I immediately translate into the bank account of the Chinese partner. Of these, three and a half thousand he gives North Korean broker. This is an ordinary man who lives close to the border and knows who to bribe. The second half is spent on everything else: people dovozyat to Yanji, where there is an underground shelter, and then to the border with Laos and Thailand through Laos to.

From Yanji to the border with Laos more than 4000 kilometers. By traveling to China for seven days on public transport with transfers. Broker gets in the intercity bus with a group of refugees, but gave no sign that familiar with them - only communicate views.
- There's nothing we can not guarantee - sometimes only check the documents of the driver, sometimes all passengers. If you find and deport a refugee to Korea, no refund.
- A discount for children doing?
- No, thank you! The children are even more complicated: the baby can at the most inopportune moment to scream and draw attention to themselves, so they have to stab a sleeping pill.

In Thailand, a friendly ending chain of brokers and refugees dragged specially harvested flag of South Korea, to police it easier to understand who they are. According to Ms. Choi, recent flow of refugees has decreased: border guard became tougher, prices rose further, saying that Kim Jong-un returns the family responsible for the crime - a rule under Kim Jong-il is not widely applied.
American Tim Peters does not like to be compared with brokers, although, in fact, it does the same thing, only for free. His Baptist Helping Hands organization has built a "secret way" - some underground communities in China, Laos and Vietnam, a haven for Korean-Chinese orphan care centers North Korean women who were victims of violence. Sometimes Peters have to buy their wards, for example, one in Vietnam, police locked the refugees at home and said that he will send him back to China, if you do not bring redemption.

- We are different from brokers so that they in case of unforeseen problems can always quit the client. And we are responsible for a person as long as he would not be safe.
Peters believes that if China changed its policy on refugees, the Kim regime could collapse in a few months.
- If the South Korean Embassy in Beijing would agree to take the northerners, hearing about it will spread like wildfire. People run, and nothing can stop it. The union, which for many years talking only in theory, happen in a matter of hours. Unfortunately, China has its own geopolitical interests: he is going to use a North Korean port for their trade and do not want to spoil relations with Pyongyang.

The only thing that Peters does - it helps to cross the North Korean border.
- We do not urge people to flee from North Korea and does not help them in this. But if they have decided and are in trouble, we are on their side. Incidentally, our secret way to work and you - we recently helped reach Moscow several Koreans who escaped from the labor camp in Manchuria, in which North Korea sends its citizens to work. They've cut the Russian forest and this work was quenched with North Korean debt to Russia.



















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