North Korean backstory

August 6, 2009 By

First, simple gratitude: Thank you, Vice President Gore, for founding Current and employing such inspiring journalists as Laura Ling and Euna Lee. Thank you, President Clinton, for securing their safe return.

Ever since Ling and Lee were first detained in North Korea, I kept thinking there was a largely untold religion angle to their story. I did not presume this was for any sinister reasons, but because journalists were more focused on other details, such as whether the two young women would ever be free again.

Well, there is a religion angle. In the weeks ahead, remember the name of the Rev. Chun Ki Won. He appeared in the occasional news story as the man who helped arrange the journalists’ investigation into human trafficking, and advised them on the risks they were taking.

For a good introduction to the work of this South Korean missionary, watch the embedded video from the PBS series Wide Angle. In July that series devoted an episode, “Crossing Heaven’s Border,” to the plight of North Koreans trying to escape their country.

Until Laura Ling and Euna Lee are ready to tell their stories, this PBS report is a good primer in the horrors that attracted their journalistic interest.

Print Friendly

Filed Under: People, Politics, Radio & TV, World
  • Jerry

    Thank you, President Clinton, for securing their safe return.

    Unless the reports are wrong, President Clinton did not “secure their safe return” but went to pick them up after President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton and others negotiated their releease. Some people are upset about this negotiation, but most feel that it is a very good outcome that amongst other things gave us a close look at the North Korean leadership.

    We might all complain about the state of affairs in the US, but it does us all good to remember the plight of those living under dictatorships whether in North Korea or Iran.

  • http://www.getreligion.org/?p=2 Douglas LeBlanc

    Jerry, I based my sentence on reports that North Korea insisted on a meeting with Clinton as part of the negotiated release. I did not mean to imply that Clinton alone freed the journalists, but his role was important.

  • Dave

    One might suspect that the North Koreans cheerfully traded off two American journalists of no intrinsic value to them for a chance to show a credible international witness — Bill Clinton — that their Dear Leader is in fine fettle and recovered from whatever pulled him out of the public eye last year.

  • Jerry

    Doug, A news report I heard said that the North Koreans were given a choice of several people and chose Clinton. I wonder what really happened? Sigh.

  • kevin

    Thanks, religious people, for giving Bill Clinton some props. He deserves our thanks (Clinton, not God, just capitalizing ‘he’ because it started the sentence), not that God doesn’t deserve it… (backs slowly away)

  • Dale

    Dave wrote:

    One might suspect that the North Koreans cheerfully traded off two American journalists of no intrinsic value to them for a chance to show a credible international witness — Bill Clinton — that their Dear Leader is in fine fettle and recovered from whatever pulled him out of the public eye last year.

    I’ll join with you in a cynical attitude as to what purpose the DPRK put the Clinton visit, although I think it was intended (like everything else in the hermit kingdom) for internal consumption. “Yes, you may have no food for your table, but see how we make the big Americans kow-tow.”

    While I lived in northeastern China, I could pick up the English broadcasts of North Korean radio. It made the methods of Big Brother in 1984 seem subtle. I don’t think the broadcasts were intended for anyone but their own ears.