Reporters Recount Arrest by North Korea

Reporters Recount Arrest by North Korea
By CHOE SANG-HUN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: September 2, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/world/asia/03korea.html?ref=global-home


SEOUL — Two American journalists freed by North Korea after four and half months of captivity admitted Wednesday they had crossed into the Communist state. But they also said they were back across the border — “firmly back inside China,” according to their joint statement — when North Korean border guards chased and apprehended them, then “violently dragged” them back into the North.

The journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, posted their account on the Web site of their organization, Current TV, based in San Francisco. It was their first explanation of how they were apprehended on March 17. Former President Bill Clinton flew to Pyongyang and met the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, to secure their release, which took place Aug. 4.

They said they hoped their sensational episode would not overshadow the real story they had gone there to cover: the plight of North Koreans living under a harsh regime and the difficult conditions they face once smuggled into China.

“We didn’t spend more than a minute on North Korean soil before turning back, but it is a minute we deeply regret,” the reporters said.

They said that when they had arrived with a Current TV producer, Mitch Koss, at the Tumen River, which separates China and North Korea, at 5 a.m. on March 17, they had no intention of leaving China. But when their Korean-Chinese guide “beckoned” for them to follow him across the frozen river they did, eventually reaching the North Korean riverbank, which overlooked a small village.

Nervous, they turned back. But midway across, they said, they heard two North Korean soldiers, carrying rifles, yelling and running toward them. The two women were caught. Mr. Koss and their guide outran the North Korean soldiers, but were later caught and detained by Chinese police.

“We tried with all our might to cling to bushes, ground, anything that would keep us on Chinese soil, but we were no match for the determined soldiers,” the women recount. “To this day, we still don’t know if we were lured into a trap,” by their guide, they said. “But it was ultimately our decision to follow him, and we continue to pay for that decision today with dark memories of our captivity.”

Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee do not comment on the fate of their guide, but he is reportedly still being detained in China. Mr. Koss was freed by the Chinese and allowed to return to the United States after being interrogated, and has not spoken publicly of his ordeal. The two women were arrested and sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp on charges of illegal entry and “hostile acts.”

The women were widely portrayed in the United States as victims of a repressive regime. But in South Korea, human rights activists and bloggers accused them of foolhardiness, fearing that the notes and videotapes they had gathered in China might have been seized by the North Korean and Chinese authorities, potentially compromising the identities of the refugees and activists who had helped them.

Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee said they travelled to China to report on the harsh and vulnerable living conditions of North Korean refugees in China.

They said they “took extreme caution” to protect their sources and the people they interviewed. During their detention in North Korea, they said they swallowed notes and damaged videotapes to destroy incriminating evidence. But they did not clarify what had happened to videotapes, perhaps those held by Mr. Koss, that activists believed were confiscated by Chinese police.

Before their trip to the border, the reporters had visited and filmed a foster home in China for the children of North Korean women refugees. Lee Chan-woo, the South Korean Christian pastor who founded the home, said the Chinese police raided his home two days after their arrest and interrogated him based on videotapes they had taken from the crew.

Mr. Lee was forced to close his five foster homes in China and was deported.

Chun Ki-won, head of the Durihana Mission in Seoul, helped arrange the journalists’ trip. He said that after their arrests, he smuggled three North Korean women whom the crew had interviewed out of China for fear that their identities had been exposed and they were vulnerable to arrest or deportation.

“We regret if any of our actions, including the high-profile nature of our confinement, has led to increased scrutiny of activists and North Koreans living along the border,” the reporters said in their statement. “Our experiences pale when compared to the hardship facing so many people living in North Korea or as illegal immigrants in China.”

Part of the women’s statement is reserved for criticism of Mr. Chun. The reporters said that they while they their families and colleagues in the United States had “maintained total silence” about their detention for two months, both to protect the work along the border and the reporters themselves, Mr. Chun chose to speak to the media soon after their arrests, potentially endangering them. Mr. Chun said he had spoken out only in reaction to South Korean media, which had first reported the detentions.

The reporters also differed with Mr. Chun over whether he had warned them not to go near the border. On Wednesday, Mr. Chun reaffirmed that he gave such a warning in the presence of two South Korean journalists when he met the Americans in Seoul on March 13.

Shortly before their arrests, Mr. Chun said he had his last phone conservation with the journalists and was told that they were heading to Dandong, a Chinese town near the western end of the border.

“In that conversation, they didn’t say anything about going near the border where they were caught,” Mr. Chun said. “I had told them that they could not cover human trafficking on the border within several days, as they planned to do. Others took several months.”

But Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee disagreed. “He was well aware of our plans because he had been communicating with us throughout our time in China, and he never suggested we shouldn’t go,” the women said.

Mr. Chun said he was distressed that he and the American journalists were now being seen as placing blame on each other for the incident. He said he wanted to meet with them and sort out what had gone so wrong.

The reporters also cast suspicion on their guide, whom Mr. Chun had found for them. In retrospect, they said, the guide had acted “oddly,” such as making “deep, low hooting sounds” while crossing the river. South Korean activists and reporters who had worked with the man said they were familiar with the sounds, which they said the guide used to signal to his contacts on the North Korean side.

The two women said that they hoped that all of the attention now focused on them would be refocused on the plight of the North Korean defectors, which they said they felt they had a responsibility as journalists to shed light on.

“One of us, Euna, is a devout Christian whose faith infused her interest in the story,” the women wrote. “The other, Laura, has reported on the exploitation of women around the world for years. We wanted to raise awareness about the harsh reality facing these North Korean defectors who, because of their illegal status in China, live in terror of being sent back to their homeland.”