Interviews with Kim Seung-chul

To understand North Korea’s mentality you first have to understand that a North Korean’s perception of their country is skewed.

This is because North Korean authorities have indoctrinated every resident into believing that they are living in the best country led by the best leader under the best circumstances. People may be unhappy with life in North Korea, but it is very hard for them to be critical of the North Korean regime.

In the late 1990s through the early 21st century, many North Koreans defected after the famine. This is when North Koreans started understanding what their country was like as food and basic necessities had to be imported from China.

[In the mid-1990s, North Korea experienced mass famine that resulted in an estimated three million deaths.]

With those products came Chinese culture. It gave them a glimpse of China’s advancements. [South] Korean soap operas also entered into North Korea. To this day, when I meet a North Korean who recently defected, they know that something is wrong with North Korea but they don’t know exactly what and why. They have a hard time understanding the fundamental issues behind their feelings.

Even though all North Koreans are very poor, many people tend to think that Kim Jong Il is a great leader. But once they cross the border and spend a month in China, their mindset changes. But unless they have the chance to visit another country, they have no basis for comparison.

[Kim Jong Il (1941 – 2011) succeeded his father and led North Korea from 1994 until his death in 2011.]

I had the chance to speak on the phone with a North Korean who listened to my [radio] programs. He has actually defected to the South now. Back then he told me, “When I first listened to your programs I thought to myself: is this psychological warfare? Is this person trying to lie to me?” But after repeatedly being exposed to the program, he began believing what I was telling him.

Even so, he questioned my existence, the person speaking on the radio program. He told me my voice was unique and once he had a chance to talk with me over the phone, he believed everything I said. I had similar experience before coming to South Korea.

In recent years, a lot has changed in North Korea in terms of people’s mindsets. But even with this change and North Koreans dissatisfaction [with their situation], I don’t think they know what the core problem is within their society. This is why few North Koreans can think critically about their country.

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.”