North Koreans

Propaganda film backfires

"A North Korean propaganda film about the repatriation of a spy — Lee In-Mo — who had languished for years in a South Korean prison may have a short shelf life, according to defectors now living in the South. [...]

'What we could not believe in the movie was that Lee and others were conducting hunger strikes in the prison,' said one defector about the movie.

'Refusing to eat was a form of resistance in the South? Boy, South Korea must be a paradise. That's what we said among ourselves'

Lee received a hero's welcome and, sure enough, Pyongyang made a film on Lee's 'heroic struggle for the motherland' in South Korean prisons and made sure all North Koreans saw it.

However, the movie caused many North Koreans to become curious about South Korean society.

Many North Korean defectors said their first reaction upon seeing the film was to ask how people could stay in prison for more than 10 years and remain alive? They say few people survive even three years in North Korean political prisons. Being fed three regular meals a day is utterly unimaginable.

Political prisoners die from disease and malnutrition, if not from torture, as documented by Kang Chul-Won in his best-selling book, 'Aquariums of Pyongyang,' which recently led him to be invited by President Bush to the White House.

The North Korean defectors said the movie had the opposite effect from what was intended. One wondered if Pyongyang is still showing the movie to the people.

'I bet they are not,' he said."

Well, that is a happy little irony. :-D