Miracle Healing North Korea/Juche Style

This has to be watched to be believed.

Crippled North Korean woman gets 'healed' after gazing upon a portrait of Kim Il-sung and a young Kim Jong-il. Grand-pappy and pappy of pudge-boy Kim Jong-un.

Lower the volume because it's loud.

It's pretty darn wacky.

Inside The Hell Of North Korea

In honor of the father of North Korean Communist-cum-Socialist-cum-Juche rule, Kim Il-sung's birthday today, here are some behind the scene documentaries of the uber-secretive and bizarre DPRK. Where everyone lives in perpetual fear, and worships their leader as God.

Most of these documentaries were filmed while Kim Jong-il was "Dear Leader" of North Korea, and although not much is revealed of the dark side of the DPRK- since the ever present "minders" control every movement of visitors to the country- what you do see is just as creepy and repellent. Empty hotels, empty streets, visitors forced to purchase flowers and bow to a statue of Kim Il-sung, perpetually fostering hatred of the US, and people like automatons, as one of the filmmakers describes them. And then there's all those statues and monuments and photos of Kim Il-sung. Everywhere.

Most are under an hour long.

"Don't Tell My Mother- That I'm In North Korea" is a National Geographic documentary by French/American (sort of) Diego Buñuel filmed while Kim Jong-il was still alive and ruling the DPRK.  Diego shows us the little he can of the real Pynonyang, including the dilapidated slum buildings hidden behind the outer 'showcase' facades, and supermarkets- for the DPRK elite- selling American products that you pay for with U.S. dollars (like Cuba), or with Euros if you have them. We discover that farmers don't get salaries, and the average North Korean makes $100.00 a year, but pays no tax. The army is the leading employer.

"Welcome to North Korea", by filmmakers Peter Tetteroo and Raymond Feddema, was shot in 2000. It won a 2001 International Emmy award for Best Documentary and is strange and sad look inside North Korea, including an interview with a defector (who was a propaganda writer for the regime) who shares some harrowing stories.

Another National Geographic documentary, "Inside North Korea", has journalist Lisa Ling she traveling undercover in 2007 with an eye surgeon on a mission to bring sight to the poor.  In this one we get more insight into the whole cult of personality. Lisa's younger sister, Laura Ling, was one of two journalists arrested in North Korea in 2009 for illegal entry. Sentenced to 12 years in one of the infamous labor camps, Bill Clinton negotiated their release.

And this "60 Minutes" segment, an interview with Shin Dong-hyuk, a young man who was born under "Three Generations of Punishment" in Camp 14- the horrific labor camp that houses around 15,000 political prisoners who are there for life. Under the "Three Generations of Punishment" policy a North Korean found guilty of something as simple as trying to escape will be thrown in prison along with every member of his family. Dong-hyuk is the only known Camp 14 prisoner to have been born in captivity who managed to escape and survive.

There are a slew of other videos with interviews of defectors, but these give you a general idea of how wretched it must be to live there.

And there are many who wholeheartedly support the DPRK.

Documentary: Kim Jong-Il's Comedy Club

One of the most bizarre looks at North Korea during Kim Jong-Il's reign. The documentary aired on BBC Four in 2009, prior to the DPRK somewhat lightening up on its restrictions on filming there.

The film's alternate title is The Red Chapel or in Danish -Det Røde Kapel.

It's very entertaining in a rather humorous but sometimes disturbing way.

A journalist with no scruples and a pair of Danish comedians travel to North Korea with a mission to use humour to uncover the truth behind one of the world's most notorious regimes

On the pretext of being a small Danish theatre troupe on a cultural exchange, the filmmaker was granted permission by the North Korean government to stage a performance for a select audience in the capital. In reality, the troupe was comprised of an unscrupulous journalist, Mads Brugger, and two Danish/Korean comedians, Jacob and Simon, of whom the former is handicapped. Their goal is to use humour to expose the intricate effects of an oppressive regime.

The film follows the troupe as they are lovingly yet firmly escorted by a motherly government employee around the important historical sights, and as they 'collaborate' with other government officials on their performance.

Their double life is wearing on Jacob who feels conflicting emotions of affection and hatred for his hosts. With a sensibility similar to that of Lars Von Trier's controversial film The Idiots, this documentary takes a darkly humorous look inside the North Korean dictatorship.

North Korea's 23 million citizens are ruled by the iron hand of 'The Dear Leader', General Kim Jong-il. The country has a history of starving its people, violating human rights and abusing and killing its handicapped citizens.

N Korea Celebrates Dead "Dear Leader's" Birthday With Fun Stuff

In honor of dead "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il's birthday on February 16 (today) North Korea presented a series of celebratory events, including the synchronized swimming video below.

A demonstration performance of synchronized swimming "February in Yearning" was given at the Changgwang Health Complex on Friday on the occasion of the birth anniversary of leader Kim Jong Il (the Day of the Shining Star). The performers presented such colorful numbers as group synchronized swimming "February Is Beautiful", single synchronized swimming "Charm", children's group synchronized swimming "Where Are You from". The performers represented the profound reverence of the army and people of the DPRK for Generalissimo Kim Jong Il, symbol of the great Paektusan nation through graceful rhythms and a variety of formation change. The performance showed well the stirring reality of the country advancing toward the eminence of a thriving country while performing miracles and feats in the efforts to build an economic power and improve the standard of people's living under the leadership of the great party. It also vividly showed the development made in the synchronized swimming of the country. Among the spectators were Kim Ki Nam, secretary of the C.C., the Workers' Party of Korea, officials concerned, persons of meritorious services and people in the city. Present there on invitation were delegations of overseas compatriots and other overseas Koreans, the chief of the Pyongyang mission of the Anti-Imperialist National Democratic Front and foreign guests.

They also hosted an international figure skating festival for the same purpose.

The 22nd Paektusan Prize International Figure Skating Festival opened Friday with due ceremony at the Ice Rink here to mark the birth anniversary of leader Kim Jong Il. Present at the ceremony were Yang Hyong Sop, Ro Tu Chol and officials concerned, sportspersons and other people, the delegation of Koreans in Japan and other delegations of overseas Koreans, overseas compatriots, the chief of the Pyongyang mission of the Anti-Imperialist National Democratic Front and foreign guests. DPRK's figure skaters and those from Russia, Ukraine, Estonia and Canada entered the ice rink. Ri Jong Mu, minister of Physical Culture and Sports, in his opening address that the festival has been held with splendor as a significant one reflecting the boundless reverence of all people for Kim Jong Il, who made a great contribution to the revolutionary cause of Juche and the human cause of independence. He expressed belief that the festival would greatly encourage the army and the people of the DPRK in dynamically speeding up the grand onward march in the new century of Juche under the leadership of the dear respected Kim Jong Un. The flag of the festival was hoisted and demonstration performances of figure skaters of the DPRK and other countries were staged.

Both these videos are probably some of the creepiest I have ever seen. Not the performances themselves, but if you focus on the audience you will see what I mean. Not one smile, no enjoyment, no movement. In fact they look like those cardboard cutouts of people that commercials use so they don't have to hire hundreds of extras. I sat next to one on a commercial shoot once.

And here's one from some of the many celebrations  held today- note the heil hitler-esque kids.



It's all so sad, and yet there are foreigners who actually praise the North Korean government.

N. Korea's Dead Dear Leader's Palestinian Daughter

Did you know that Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Il had a Palestinian daughter? Well, not technically but since the poor brainwashed, oppressed and intimidated North Koreans believed the now-dead North Korean president was, among many things, their "Dear Leader" and "Our Father" I suppose he was, in a bizarre sort of twisted way. But how did a Palestinian woman come to view Jong-Il as her father? When I first  saw the title of a recommended Youtube video "Kim Jong-Il's Daughter Jindallae Safarini" I thought, 'that old dog!" I knew he had done some bizarre things, like kidnap a South Korean actress Choi Eun-hi and her director  husband Shin Sang-ok to create propaganda films in the late 1970s and 1980s, but what was this 'Palestinian daughter' all about. I was intrigued.

The Youtube video is actually a propaganda piece from North Korea, a devotional tribute of sorts from a grateful young Palestinian woman, the daughter of  Palestinian Ambassador, Mustafa Safarini, stationed in Pyongyang from 1982 - 1992.

More than 27 years ago my parents lost a child, after the loss of a child they could not be pregnant, and could not have children, they went to so many places but could not find a cure, so they came to Pyongyang Maternity Hospital, where they gave all their love and care to my Mother. That’s how she conceived a child. After having me, my parents were so happy and it was the system of the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital, the system of our Great Leader Kim Il Sung and Dear Leader Kim Jong Il that gave us this miracle.

Pyongyang is my native place and I spent my childhood there. And it is my second fatherland. Kim Jong Il is my father because he gave me life and love. I express my deepest grief over the demise of my dearest father. Some days ago, I visited Pyongyang, my native place, with a dream to meet you, my dearest father, after 20 years since I left there.

Jong-Il actually named the young girl Jindallae when she was born, and she still has ties with the communist country. Based out of China, she has set up the "Jindallae Fund" to help North Korean kids. Just as well since they need it desperately. She created the foundation as a gift for Jong-il to “repay him for all his love and affection”.

On current "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-un, Jong-il's pillsbury dough boy son:

When I first saw him, it was during the unveiling of the bronze statue of our Great Leader [Kim Il Sung] and our Dear Leader [Kim Jong Il] on the 100th birthday of our Great Leader. When he walked past, and waved to everybody, I felt this very deep emotion since he looked so alike with his father, our Dear Leader Father Kim Jong Il.

Great leader? Right. The same man who ranked as the World's Worst Dictator in Parade Magazine's Top Ten for 2011, right before he died. The same man who had billions stashed away in banks in Luxembourg and pigged out on gourmet and junk food while his people starved, and continue to do so.

Quotes Source: NK News

3 Executed For Cannibalism In North Korea

China made the news early in May when a shipment of smuggled dead baby flesh  (found in 'stamina-boosting' gel caps) was intercepted in South Korea. Now there's news of cannibalism in North Korea.

It seems that the North Korean people are  so food-deprived they are turning to cannibalism for nourishment. Not that eating each other goes unpunished. According to 230 North Korean defectors, cannibals are summarily executed for selling or eating human flesh, and it's been going on since 2006, and possibly as far back as 1999. Although these are all allegations by people who have escaped from the uber-secretive North Korea, it wouldn't surprise me at all.

A state-run South Korean think tank- Korean Institute for National Unification- has compiled a report of allegations from those defectors who claim they witnessed the public executions. That report, in turn, was then reviewed by Yonhap News Agency.

Authorities executed one man for killing and eating parts of a co-worker then trying to sell the rest at a market as mutton.

Widespread food shortages forced another to kill and eat a girl three years ago in Hyesan, Yonhap reported.

A third incident of cannibalism was reported in 2011, but researchers were unable to uncover more details.

Yonhap could not verify the allegations because of strict clampdowns on information coming from the North Korea, according to Global Post.

The internationally isolated country has long battled food shortages, especially after an attempt to reform its currency in 2009.

A North Korean official who defected in 2001 said about a dozen incidents of cannibalism surfaced in that country as far back as 1999.

The allegations of cannibalism followed a huge famine in the late 1990s killed two million people.

Renewed reports of cannibalism come after another human rights group accused North Korea of operating a system of secret gulag-style prison camps, The Associated Press reported.

As many as 200,000 political prisoners occupy the camps, said the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea based in Washington, DC.

Based on satellite imagery and interviews with escapees and former guards, the committee said entire families are sometimes imprisoned for the political crimes of one person.

North Korea, naturally, denies that the gulag exists.

Ironically, while the North Korean people starve, and some turn to eating their office-mates, the leadership does pretty well. Dead "Dear Leader", Kim Jong-il, used to airlift Big-Macs from China, had 10,000 bottles of liquor in his cellar, and regularly pigged-out on lobster (and caviar) with silver chopsticks, to boot. He's also said to have amassed 4 billion dollars which he kept in Luxembourg banks.  That's why he constantly ranked high in Parade's Worst Dictator lists for so many years, and hit the number 1 spot last year, right before he croaked.

How's that communism working out for the North Korean people?

China Sends Back North Korean Refugees To Face Jail, Torture and Death

It looks like North Korea's Kim Jong-un is following in his "dear" father Kim Jong -il's footsteps.  Jong-il's baby boy is continuing the legacy of torturing, jailing and killing defectors, all with the help of China.
Over the years many North Koreans have fled to China (and elsewhere), to escape the dire conditions created by the late lunatic dictator Kim Jong-il's leadership. But rather than helping these people, China has been sending them back knowing full well it's a death sentence. 

In fact, in the 100 days of mourning for papa Jong-il, Jong-un decided to step up the tracking down of defectors:

As Kim Jong-Un attempts to consolidate his power in North Korea, one of the new regime's focus has been arresting as many North Koreans in China as possible. Right now, North Korea has sent into China a task force of covert agents numbering in the thousands -- a scale simply unprecedented -- who would pretend to be North Korean defectors, only to rat out true defectors to the Chinese police. The Chinese police arrests these defectors and repatriate them back to North Korea. Once back in North Korea, these defectors will face near certain deaths in gulags out of hard labor and starvation. Recently, there was an arrest of 28 North Korean defectors in China, who will be repatriated back to North Korea in just a few days. Right now, even as we speak, these defectors are essentially facing a death penalty if they are sent back to North Korea. Some of the defectors' families in South Korea (who defected before this group of defectors) are pleading that if these defectors are to be sent back to North Korea, they are better off killing themselves in the Chinese prison.

And it's not just North Koreans who hunt down these defector 'refugees', China is actively involved in doing the same thing, in spite of the fact that China is a party to the  U.N. Refugee Convention, its 1967 Protocol and the U.N. Convention Against Torture.  The U.N. is supposed to have access to refugees, but China has categorically refused.

Over 5,000 people per annum are repatriated to North Korea from China, and pregnant women who are deported are forced to abort their babies if they are half Chinese.

But it seems that the lives of North Koreans in China are as tragic as they probably were in their homeland, especially for women. According to Robert Park, a human rights activist, writing for the Mercury News:

Sixty to 70 percent of the North Korean refugees in China are women, 70 to 80 percent of whom, without recourse to legal rights or protections, have become victims of sex trafficking. Their children conceived through rape are considered stateless in China and are vulnerable to trafficking and abandonment. Furthermore, innumerable children who escaped from North Korea with their parents have become orphans because one or both of their parents were found by Chinese officials. These children also usually end up homeless or become victims of exploitation.

Park says that North Korean refugees are welcome in South Korea, and are considered citizens and thus should have diplomatic protection, but that doesn't seem to make any difference to the Chinese who currently have 80 defectors detained in prison ready to be sent home.

Among them are a 16-year-old orphan who escaped North Korea after losing his parents in an attempt to find an older brother in South Korea, and a 19-year-old woman whose parents live in Seoul. If sent back to North Korea, they will be tortured and most likely killed. Kim Jong-un vowed in January to annihilate those who attempt to leave the country and their entire families.

In spite of requests from South Korea not to repatriate nine caputured refugees, last week China sent them back anyway. 

The problem is no-one seems to want to ruffle China's feathers, and so North Korean's will continue to be shipped back to an uncertain fate.

Parade Magazine's 2011 #1 "World's Worst Dictator" Kim Jong-il Is Dead At 69

North Korea's lunatic leader Kim Jong-il, who has hovered in the top ten of Parade Magazine's 'World's Worst Dictators' for as long as I can remember, had the dubious honor of being named 2011's number 1 the day before his death was announced. 

This morning I picked up my Sunday Parade Magazine, and listed were this year's top ten.  At the top of the list was Kim Jong-il. Followed by

2. Isaias Afewerki, Eritrea
3. Omar al-Bashir, Sudan
4. Bashar al-Assad, Syria
5. U Thein Sein, Burma (Myanmar)
6. Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov (imagine having that name) Turkmenistan
7. Raul Castro, Cuba
8. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Equatorial Guinea
9. Hugo Chavez, Venezuela

I'm not sure what criteria is used for ranking, but over the years they have all at some point switched positions. Although these 10 certainly deserve to be on the list, there are plenty of others who definitely warrant joining them since they are all equally nasty. But as evil as they all are,  Kim Jong-il was one of the more bizarre ones.

Jong-il, aka 'Dear Leader', 'Supreme Leader', 'the General', 'Generalissimo' and 'Our Father', was 69 when he apparently dropped dead on a train a few days ago. According to the BBC, the announcement on state television claimed he had died of  '..physical and mental over-work', but as secretive as N. Korea is, the truth will probably never be known. His youngest son, Kim Jong-un, will take over leadership, and only time will tell whether Jong-un will continue the 'cult of personality' that began with Jong-il's dictator father, Kim il-sung.

I watched a fascinating documentary a few years ago about N. Korea (see part one below). Lisa Ling went undercover and exposed the grotesque manner in which Jong-il was revered and worshipped as a God.  One of the most isolated and secretive countries in the world he has starved, tortured and kept his people in poverty, all the while living a lavish lifestyle.  He is said to have deposited 4 billion dollars in banks in Luxembourg, just in case. A hedonist, he regularly chomped on lobster (with silver chopsticks), airlifted big macs from China, had 10,000 bottles of alcohol in his cellar, and had his personal chefs (many of whom were kidnapped and eventually fled) fetch caviar and other delicacies from around the world. And yet his people starved. 

And Jong-il was used to getting what he wanted. An ardent film buff, he actually kidnapped a South Korean director and his actress wife in the late 1970s to create propaganda films for the 'Dear Leader'.

Not that things could get any worse for the N. Koreans under his son, but one can hope they get better. Though I doubt it.  His children are all probably very happy living the good life, and like Jong-il continued his father's legacy, I'm sure Jong-un will continue his daddy's.  With nuclear capabilities, this evil, mad dictator won't be missed.

Next?

UPDATE: 50 bizarre facts about Jong-il and N. Korea