North Korean defector

tells of American POWs

in recent captivity

By: Donna Downes Knox

Kim Yong grew up as an orphan in North Korea and came to work for the North Korean State Security Department as an adult. Kim tells how, in 1993, he was accused of using a false identity to infiltrate the State Security Department and was sent to a hard labor camp for political prisoners, where he was tortured and nearly killed. In September, 1998, Kim escaped from a coal train headed for a refinery. He arrived in South Korea in October, 1999.

The following are excerpts from remarks Kim made on February 24, 2000, at the Annual General Assembly of Citizens Alliance to Help Political Prisoners in North Korea. Kim’s remarks were republished on May 22, 2001 on the web site of the Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights, a non-profit DPRK human-rights group based in Seoul. That web site can be visited at NKnet.

Kim said that more serious enemies of the State in the eyes of Kim Il-Sung, North Korea’s former leader, were sent to one of the Communist regime’s political prison camps throughout the country. In Camp #14 alone he said there were some 15,000 inmates who were assigned to hard labor in a mine. In addition, Kim said there were children and American and British POWs who were captured near Jang-jin Lake in South Hamkyong Province during the Korean War. A passing sentence for most who listened to his speech. Another wake-up call for those of us whose loved ones are still missing from the Korean War.

At Camp #14 an iron gate opens in the morning to let inmates out for work. It closes in the evening when they return. Kim reports that escape was impossible. Even a small step away from one’s work site was considered an escape attempt and the prisoner was executed immediately.

Kim was eventually transferred to Camp #18 where the prison population totaled approximately 50,000 people. He describes security around Camp #18 in sufficient detail to convey that no one got out without permission.

The horrors, that Kim recounts as routine practice in the camps, are many. Any collection of the worst things one might imagine would aptly depict the human rights violations he describes. In addition to the outrage and compassion we feel for every victim of such inhumane treatment in North Korea, we are particularly concerned about Mr. Kim’s reference to American and British POWs in the camp, at least as late as 1993.

Analysis of the live-sighting report

The U.S. Department of Defense has repeatedly told the families of missing American servicemen that U.S. officials debrief every defector and escaped POW who make their way out of North Korea. They number well into the hundreds. Time and again we have been told that none of them have had any credible

information about Americans detained against

their will in North Korea.

Mr. Kim arrived in the South nearly two years ago. U.S. officials never mentioned his report of American POWs in Camp #14. As with other live sightings, we had to read about it in the foreign press. No doubt Mr. Kim’s information is among those reports that have been stamped Classified by the U.S. government, and thus, kept from the families.

I contacted the DPMO and asked about Kim’s report. I was told that Kim’s report did not measure up to standards of credibility, has been dismissed as unreliable, and that no further investigation is expected.

Apparently, when Kim first defected, he was debriefed by officials (whose office affiliation could not be divulged to me) and he did not report having any information about American POWs. Some months later, when he spoke in public, Kim stated that American and British POWs from the Korean War had been in Camp #14. He was debriefed a second time and apparently was unwilling, or unable, to offer much in

the way of details about the Americans.

Kim’s reluctance was deemed suspicious. We think it is worth considering that many factors might go into a person’s unwillingness to come forward with information. In this case, Kim was a lifelong member of the North Korean Communist party, self described as well-steeped in its doctrine and, no doubt, hatred for the West. He was suddenly yanked from his life, demeaned and tortured by his own government and forced to escape to a country he had never known or trusted. It is not hard to imagine that he might have been reluctant, especially at first, to reveal highly provocative information upon being debriefed by foreign intelligence officials.

With this underlying mistrust of Kim’s information, U.S. analysts took a look at the substance of what he said. In the end, his report was dismissed as unreliable. DPMO analysts are familiar with the Jang-jin Lake Kim mentioned as the location in which the men supposedly had been captured. It is an area near the Chosin Reservoir where intense battles took place. There was a unit called Task Force Drysdale that fought to clear the road between the coast and U.S. Marine positions to the west of the Chosin. This Task Force consisted of American, British and ROK troops. DPMO analysts believe this is the unit from which any men in Camp #14 would have come.

Except, according to DPMO, British records don’t list any Royal Marines as missing from this area. No Americans from the Drysdale unit who were taken prisoner, and later repatriated, mentioned that any Task Force Drysdale POWs had been taken and never seen again. For the DPMO, Mr. Kim’s story does not add up and the case is closed. Another live sighting report that is not credible.

In our view, this kind of dismissive analysis is narrow and potentially costly in the effort to account for missing servicemen. Consider another approach.

Kim’s report did not specify whether he got the information from a lengthy sit down chat with the POWs themselves, or if he had heard snippets of information in hushed tones when the menacing prison guards were not listening. Did he purport to know with certainty that all the men were captured at Jang-jin Lake, or did someone say something vague like, “I think some of them were captured at Jang-jin Lake,” or perhaps, “ … near Jang-jin Lake?” Maybe it was an assumption, based on some unknown factor, that the men had been captured at or near Jang-jin Lake.

Also, assuming the report is specific in its claim that the men were captured in the Jang-jin Lake (Chosin Reservoir) area, were the early battles in the Chosin area the only fighting that took place in that area during the whole war? Did no other U.N. forces pass through that area for the rest of the war? Maybe it was different men from a different time in the war altogether, and the Drysdale POWs had nothing to do with the men at Camp #14.

Kim’s report did not mention when the men were supposed to have been captured, nor if they were captured together or at different times. It doesn’t say whether the American and British troops were supposedly fighting in the same place at the same time. There was no information as to whether they had been part of a large battle or perhaps snatched on isolated patrol, or under some other circumstances. We don’t know if he was talking about two men or 200 men.

All of these unanswered questions could impact the credibility of Kim’s report.

The main reason Kim’s report was dismissed is because none of the returning Drysdale POWs reported that some among them had been taken and not returned after captivity. In the judgment of DPMO analysts, that fact rendered Kim’s report untrue. When I asked if all members of the Drysdale unit had been accounted for one way or another, the answer was “No.” There are Americans from the Drysdale Task Force who are simply missing in action.

So, what happened to those men? Might they have been captured separately in the chaos of battle and taken away by different guards? Might they have met a fate different from the others? Maybe a group of Drysdale POWs were held together and all of them were repatriated, but unbeknownst to them others had been captured and taken away to Camp #14.

The point is, we do not know. The analysts have assumed, from what appears to be incomplete information, that the men Kim referred to were from the Drysdale unit. They have further assumed that no Drysdale POWs were secreted away, even though some are missing without explanation. DPMO has told me, “Our analysts are reasonably certain that they know what happened to the POW stream from TF Drysdale and from the Chosin Reservoir battles.”

Reasonably certain, based on incomplete information, is in my judgment not good enough when we are talking about the disappearance of American servicemen. Answers to the questions I’ve listed, and no doubt many other missing pieces of information, could make the difference between a report that lacks credibility and a report that is, perhaps, simply incomplete or mistaken in some particulars. It is not hard to imagine that Mr. Kim might have gotten fragments of information, or even information that is, in part, inaccurate. That doesn’t mean Americans were not at Camp 14. Nevertheless, Mr. Kim’s live-sighting report has been deemed incredible and worthy of total dismissal.

Because the families are not included in the circle of information, we are not given the opportunity to see the actual reports. We usually are not a part of, nor privy to, the analysis that is performed on these reports. All too often, though, when we do stumble onto information months or years later, we find that there are many questions that have not been answered, and indeed many that have not even been asked. In my

opinion, this is one of those situations.

I will be the first to admit that I do not have complete information on the nature and extent of the investigation into Mr. Kim’s report. From what I do know, the analysis appears to be incomplete and the result of unwarranted assumptions. All too often we find that information is wrapped into tidy little bundles and, if it does not meet a test of certainty, it is dismissed as unreliable.

Then we are told that there are no credible live sighting reports of Americans in North Korea. And the National Security Counsel is told the same thing. And so is the State Department, and the Secretary of Defense and the President, too, no doubt. The media gets the same report and in the end, everyone is saying the same thing, almost to the word. It all reinforces itself and becomes the accepted truth. But if this accepted truth boils down to faulty or incomplete analysis, we are operating on the mistaken premise that there is no credible evidence that men are still alive in North Korea against their will.

We know some missing American servicemen were alive in captivity near and even at the end of the Korean War.

We know the North Koreans kept South Korean POWs who have survived to the present day.

We know the North Koreans have heavily guarded labor camps.

We have heard numerous reports, time and again, of Americans in captivity.

Somehow, though, all these reports are said to lack credibility and are dismissed. On a skeptical day, it is easy to feel that something, somewhere doesn’t add up. Report analysis is a key component of the accounting process. We must be sure the analysis is complete, well-founded and borne of open minds.

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