Lee and Ling Speak Out

I'm playing catch-up after some vacation time, but Lee and Ling wrote this piece in the LATimes Tuesday detailing their capture and imprisonment.

They concede they entered North Korea briefly, but, sure enough, they were snatched on the Chinese side of the border.

Feeling nervous about where we were, we quickly turned back toward China. Midway across the ice, we heard yelling. We looked back and saw two North Korean soldiers with rifles running toward us. Instinctively, we ran.

We were firmly back inside China when the soldiers apprehended us. Producer Mitch Koss and our guide were both able to outrun the border guards. We were not. We tried with all our might to cling to bushes, ground, anything that would keep us on Chinese soil, but we were no match for the determined soldiers. They violently dragged us back across the ice to North Korea and marched us to a nearby army base, where we were detained.

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In researching the story, we sought help from several activists and missionaries who operate in the region. Our main contact was the Seoul-based Rev. Chun Ki-won, a well-known figure in the world of North Korean defectors. Chun and his network have helped smuggle hundreds of North
Koreans out of China and into countries -- including the U.S. -- where they can start new lives. He introduced us to our guide and gave us a cellphone to use in China, telephone numbers to reach his associates and specific instructions on how to contact them. We carefully followed his directions so as to not endanger anyone in this underground world.

Because these defectors live in fear of being repatriated to North Korea, we took extreme caution to ensure that the people we interviewed and their locations were not identifiable. We met with defectors away from their actual places of work or residence. We avoided filming the faces of defectors so as not to reveal their identities. The exception was one woman who allowed us to film her profile.

Most of the North Koreans we spoke with said they were fleeing poverty and food shortages. One girl in her early 20s said she had been told she could find work in the computer industry in China. After being smuggled across the Tumen River, she found herself working with computers, but not in the way she had expected. She became one of a growing number of North Korean women who are being used as Internet sex workers, undressing for online clients on streaming video. Some defectors appeared more nervous about being interviewed than others. But they all agreed that their lives in China, while stark, were better than what they had left behind in North Korea.

Full story here.

Clinton Appeals for Amnesty For Ling and Lee

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for amnesty for Laura Ling and Euna Lee, saying that the two women had expressed "great remorse for the incident." Clinton also said that "everyone is very sorry that it happened."

The BBC News article also has more on Han Park, the University of Georgia professor who recently returned from Pyongyang.

If Park's reports are accurate and North Korea is likely to respond to a formal apology, then this might be a very good sign.

Detained Journalists Reportedly Being Held in Guest House

Hat tip: ROK Drop.

If its true, it suggests both that the North Koreans don't want Euna Lee and Laura Ling to be able to report conditions in a labor camp and that they are willing to discuss the journalists' release with the U.S.

From Huffington Post:

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has delayed sending two convicted U.S. journalists to a prison labor camp, in a possible attempt to seek talks with Washington on their release, a scholar who visited the North said in an interview published Friday.

Laura Ling and Euna lee, who work for former U.S. Vice President Al Gore's California-based Current TV media group, are being kept at guest house in the North Korean capital and have not yet been sent to a prison camp as called for in their sentences, University of Georgia political scientist Han Park said.

"I heard from North Korean officials that the American journalists were doing fine at a guest house in Pyongyang," Park told South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. Park, originally from South Korea, arrived Thursday in Seoul following a trip to Pyongyang.

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North Korea's move not to carry out the sentence suggests that it could release them through a dialogue with the United States and they could be set free at an early date, depending on the U.S. gesture," Park said.

Separately, Park told South Korea's Yonhap news agency that the issue of the journalists could be resolved if the U.S. government offers an official apology over their hostile acts and promises that such things won't happen again.

He also predicted that Washington and Pyongyang could hold a dialogue soon over the journalists' release and their return to the U.S., according to Yonhap. No timeframe for a possible meeting was given, and officials in Washington could not immediately be reached to comment on the likelihood of such discussions taking place.

Detained Journalist Talks to Sister - A Message from the DPRK?

From Reuters:

Lisa Ling told Sacramento NBC affiliate KCRA that her sister Laura told her by telephone on Tuesday that she and colleague Lee had violated North Korean law and needed help from the U.S. government to secure amnesty.

She quoted Laura Ling as saying: "We broke the law, we are sorry, and we need help. We need our government's help to try and get amnesty because that really is our only hope."

Soon afterward, U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly called on North Korea to release them on grounds of "amnesty," implying for the first time that the U.S. government believes they committed an offense.

Previously, the State Department had called for their release on "humanitarian" grounds and had not acknowledged the possibility of any wrongdoing.

Lisa Ling goes on to say that this phone calls sounded different from the two previous conversations she'd had with her sister since Laura was detained in March; this time, her sister spoke very slowly and deliberately. Full story here.

Very possible, of course, that the entire call was staged or that the slow and deliberate speech was Ling reciting a prepared statement. If that's the case, and its the North telling her to ask the US government for help, does this mean they're willing to talk?

Euna Lee and Laura Ling (Photo: AP)