Interviews with Kim Seung-chul

My name is Kim Seung-Chul.

I was born May 3, 1961, in North Korea in an area called Hamhung. It was an area where many refugees were located during the Korean war. I was educated in North Korea all the way through college.

Because I studied civil engineering, I worked in the field for about a year and a half. After that, I went to Russia to work in logging. At the time, that was the only way to make money in North Korea. It was October 1991 when I went to Russia. That was the first year after the collapse of the Soviet Union so Russia was very poor, but not as poor as North Korea.

I was working in an area of central Russia in Siberia. There was a cross continental train going through that area. The rail was about 200 – 300 km long. There were about 70 to 80 Russians living in the area where I was working. Our construction office was built in the forest and we weren’t allowed to go out for six months.

So, it was actually after six months in June 1992 that I had a chance to walk out to the station area. There I saw a store where they were selling sugar, oil, eggs, and meat and I was shocked. Before entering Russia, I was told that it was a country that had entirely collapsed and was much poorer than North Korea. This area where I was working was in the deepest part of the mountains. I was surprised to learn that even in this remote place, they were selling basic necessities for the people. I started to see the realities of communism and decided to escape.

In January 1993, I left for Vladivostok. After that, I crossed over to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and stayed for about a year. In May 1994, I crossed the border to South Korea. That same year, on July 8, the former North Korean leader Kim Il Sung passed away. I was being investigated for having defected. Because of this, my life officially began in South Korea in 1995.

I joined the [Institute of North Korean Studies] and spent over 10 years there. Many people in South Korea thought that after Kim Il Sung’s death, North Korea would collapse, but my view was quite different. I wrote articles about it and voiced my opinion. It was through that opportunity that I was able to join the [Institute of North Korean Studies]. On Christmas Eve 2007, I started North Korea Reform Radio.

[Kim Il Sung (1912 – 1994) was the founder and leader of the North Korean state from 1948 until his death in 1994.]

Kim Seung-chul is the founder of North Korea Reform Radio and a passionate advocate for freedom of information. Kim grew up in North Korea where all media is completely controlled by the regime. Desperate for alternative sources of information, he would listen to illegal foreign radio broadcasts targeted at North Koreans. As a result of his exposure to independent media, Kim started questioning his country’s totalitarian system.

Trained as a civil engineer, Kim was selected to work on an international construction project in Siberia. He was amazed at how people in Russia’s most isolated region still had access to basic necessities that were unavailable to many in North Korea. Kim decided to escape and start a new life in South Korea. Once there, he launched shortwave radio programming that targets North Korea’s elite who Kim believes will lead the country’s liberalization. Remembering his own experiences with foreign radio, Kim made it his mission to deliver alternative sources of information to his people and inspire change. As such, North Korea Reform Radio delivers news and programming on leadership, reform, and liberalization that offers elites different perspectives on North Korean society and political philosophy.

North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) is a country of 23 million people in northeast Asia, ruled by Communist dictator Kim Jong-Un. His deceased predecessors—father, Kim Jong-Il, and grandfather, Kim Il-Sung – respectively retain the titles of “Eternal President” and “The Great Leader.”

The Korean War began in 1950, when Kim Il-Sung, backed by the Soviet Union and China, attacked South Korea. The conflict ended in a cease-fire rather than a peace treaty, and the border between the two Koreas remains tense and heavily militarized.

Kim Il-Sung employed harsh tactics to consolidate his power and propagated an extreme personality cult that has been continued by his successors. A blend of communist doctrine, state terror, xenophobia and hyper-nationalism has given North Korea its unique ideology. Despite some recent openings, North Korea remains largely isolated from the rest of the world.

With the end of Soviet communism and withdrawal of economic support, North Korea’s economy collapsed in the 1990s. A massive famine, aggravated by the regime’s indifference, killed as many as 2 million people between 1994 and 1998. While conditions have improved, even today, North Korea faces problems of malnutrition and insufficient access to food.

Tensions between North and South Korea remain high. In 2010, North Korea sank a South Korean naval vessel, killing 46 sailors and attacked a South Korean island, killing four civilians. North Korea has developed and tested nuclear weapons in contravention of several international agreements. The country withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 in order to test ballistic missiles and eventually a nuclear device. Multilateral negotiations have so far failed to constrain North Korea’s arms buildup and nuclear program.

North Korea is among the world’s most repressive states, engaging in widespread and systematic human rights violations, including extrajudicial executions, torture, forced abortion, arbitrary detention, and denial of the rights of expression, association, assembly, and religion. The government pervasively regulates all aspects of the lives of its citizens, each of whom is categorized as “core,” “wavering,” or “hostile,” according to the history of his or her family’s relationship with the regime. Access to housing, employment, education, and other social and economic goods depend heavily on these security classifications. The government determines where each citizen will live, and travel within the country is strictly limited.

Emigration is prohibited. Refugees who have escaped to China have frequently been forcibly returned to North Korea where they are imprisoned, subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, and sometimes executed. The government operates a network of forced labor camps for an estimated 120,000 political prisoners. While persons convicted of ordinary crimes serve fixed sentences, those convicted of political crimes are confined indefinitely. Punishment is extended to three generations – the offender’s parents, siblings, and children are also incarcerated, as a way to pressure North Koreans to conform. Political offenders are often denied food, clothing, and medical care, and many die in prison.

Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report classifies North Korea as “not free” and as one of nine nations whose lack of political rights and civil liberties are considered the “worst of the worst.”