Axis of Evil

(CIA Mission, US Embassy, Beijing, China, February 2004)

"This is political dynamite!" the CIA interrogator announced in the secure facility his intelligence service possessed in the innards of the American Embassy in Beijing. "Yes, it is," his very experienced, long-serving head of mission agreed, "but unfortunately it’s a year too late, as our Washington Administration no longer wants to publicise such material about North Korea!"

"Why not?" asked the incredulous, newly arrived interrogator, who was good at the psychology of his particular line of work and, as a result of his recent briefings, at Chinese issues but was not conversant about the political realities regarding North Korea.

"Sad events elsewhere," the head of mission answered, "now make thoughts of affecting a regime-change in other rogue states unattractive to Washington. This revised attitude prevails despite the fact that those in power in North Korea have brutally killed, accidentally and purposefully, far more of its citizens than anyone else has ever recently done. Kim Jong Il’s regime also truly possesses weapons of mass destruction, as is further proven by your recent interrogation. They now have a few atom bombs and numerous chemical weapons, all of which are deliverable by missiles that can strike at both the south and as far away as Japan. They additionally have real, furtive, sinister links with al-Qaeda."

"Have we suddenly become too scared of the North Koreans," the interrogator then enquired rather disconsolately, "to do anything about the bastards?" "Well," his boss replied, "you have to put things into context. First, our regional allies, the South Koreans and the Japanese, at whom most of this terrible weaponry is aimed, have begged us to be careful and circumspect. They believe that Kim Jong Il’s unrepentant Stalinist regime, in their capital of Pyongyang, is not only evil and dangerous but also rather mad and trigger-happy, a situation exacerbated by now being almost friendless in the world after the collapse of the USSR and the introduction of capitalism into China. They think that it wouldn’t take much provocation on our part for the WMDs to be launched."

"In fact," the head of mission advised, "the South Koreans are so petrified about the Northerner’s temperament that they’re pumping millions of dollars of their own currency, the ‘won’, into trying to stabilise Pyongyang’s desperate economy. Kim Jong Il pours so many resources into the military in order to sustain his regime that his country suffers regular famine and power shut-downs. It’s estimated that about three million people have died of starvation there during the last decade. If you also inspect a satellite photograph of this part of the world at night, you’ll see the whole region awash with brightly-lit conurbations, with the exception of the sinister darkness that is North Korea, where only a few communist monuments and palaces are afforded continuous lighting."

"Another, rather egotistic motive for South Korea’s largesse towards the north," the head of mission commented, "is fear that, if the regime in the north collapses, their own, rather prosperous economy, which is the 12^th largest in the world, might be swamped with starving and destitute refugees. Selfish southern political pragmatists appear to believe that sustaining Kim Jong Il is a better option, regardless of the cruelty over which he presides."

(CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia, USA, next day)

Following the orders of his superiors, the head of the CIA’s North Korean section handed the top-secret dossier to his female secretary. "Please see that this is filed in the relevant registry," he requested before leaving his office to enjoy lunch.

The woman looked at the working title on the cover of the dossier. This read ‘Interrogation of North Korean Defector: Yun Ki Ho’.

As usual, the secretary, who was fully security cleared, had chosen to remain at her desk, whilst she enjoyed her own home-packed luncheon. As she had nothing better to read whilst she ate, she decided to glance inside the file before she took the dossier away to the relevant document repository.

She was rewarded by learning about the life to date of Yun Ki Ho.

(CIA Mission, US Embassy, Beijing, China, previous day)

‘A chi mun bin na ra i gang san!’

(‘Shine bright, o dawn, on this land so fair!)

- National anthem of North Korea

"It’s therefore agreed," the interrogator confirmed via an interpreter, "that we’ll secure you a new life in South Korea if you tell us about your previous life in the north. Now, please start by advising where and when you were born."

About a year previously, 35 year-old Yun Ki Ho would have preferred to endure torture than to reveal anything to an American. However, the awful events of the past 12 months had completely changed not only his life but also his former devoted patriotic attitude to his homeland and the President he had called the ‘Great General’, Kim Jong Il, whose deceased father, Kim Il Sung, had been called the ‘Great Leader’.

The interrogator soon discovered that Yun Ki Ho had been born to a peasant family in a small village, not far from Kanggye, the capital of the northerly province of Chagang. His father had been a devoted Communist and brave soldier during the Korean War, who had brought up his children to follow his beliefs, including his genuine admiration for Kim Il Sung.

The sons and daughters were tempted to adopt their father’s opinions by not only their parent’s eloquent persuasion but also the on-going propaganda to which they were inflicted in daily life, not least at school, plus genuine fear. Everyone in North Korea is encouraged to denounce anyone airing treacherous views, even children in respect of their parents and vice-versa. Doubters, as to the immense worthiness of the Great Leader and his successor, are therefore often condemned, sometimes by close acquaintances and even family, and then tend to disappear, never to be mentioned again, as if they had not existed.

Meanwhile, the regime’s promotional activities are incessant. The sole television channel repeatedly shows military parades, with goose-stepping soldiers marching past their rather tubby ‘Great General’, or other programmes lauding the rulers and their philosophies, whilst demonising the west, particularly the USA. Public displays of carefully choreographed singing, dancing and other mass spectacles, full of blatant propaganda messages, are also common on screen or in those areas where closely chaperoned foreigners are allowed to venture. Huge posters proclaiming the same are everywhere, with some now threatening to use nuclear weapons, even as a first strike, in response to any threat to national sovereignty.

Much money has been expended on massive monuments, particularly in Pyongyang, which is a showpiece city, deliberately kept spruce to impress the few visitors allowed into the country. The vast, modern mausoleum of Kim Il Sung is a regular place of compulsory pilgrimage for the population, who are invariably dressed in their best clothes to be marched in a military manner through the place.

The pilgrims are also addressed at the statue and tomb of Kim Il Sung himself by traditionally garbed actresses. The job of the latter requires them to relate the death of the Great Leader in such a tragic manner that tears are induced within their properly solemn and respectful audiences.

Meanwhile, other aspects of modern North Korean society that are particularly blatant to foreigners, besides the frequent power cuts and invariably completely dark nights, include the total lack of private motor vehicles, with even bicycles scarce. The immense personal reserve of the population is also noticeable, between both themselves and visitors to their country, presumably because they are too terrified to drop their guards to anyone except their most trusted family members and friends.

Little effort is made to disguise, from foreign visitors, the fact that they are being carefully watched. Not only do state officials, in the role of guides, accompany such guests everywhere, partly to ensure that the strict itineraries are followed, but also the microphones, which seek to monitor everything that is spoken, are barely hidden, with the wiring only crudely fitted.

Nevertheless, an example of the efficiency of the aural monitoring arises from the tale about one foreign visitor, who recalled complaining, supposedly privately to another guest in his hotel, about the lack of toothpicks. On the next evening, his hosts provided their dining table with hundreds of the little wooden spikes, presumably in chagrin that their country could be accused of lacking such dental luxuries.

It was, however, about different types of spikes that Yun Ki Ho’s interrogator now learnt. These are the deadly, closely-packed, pointed wooden stakes that line the bottom of the 3-metre deep and wide trenches surrounding all of North Korea’s more than twenty, large concentration camps for political prisoners. Immediately on the outside of each of these ditches are high voltage, barbed wire fences, which even the biggest oxen could not touch and survive.

It is customary in Communist North Korea for the extended family of someone found guilty of political subversion also to suffer the fate of the accused. This tradition not only encompasses wives and children but also brothers and sisters and their spouses and offspring. Consequently, one person’s condemnation can lead to over thirty or even more people being sent to the country’s concentration camps, from where very few ever re-emerge.

In the case of Yun Ki Ho, it was one of his older brothers who had caused such a calamity to befall his extended family. The man, who was considered an elder in his community, had politely complained to the local Communist Party official that he thought that his village was being unfairly treated in respect of food distribution.

Yun Ki Ho’s brother believed that his complaint seemed proved by the fact that many of the local populace were exhibiting dangerous signs of acute malnutrition. However, the Communist Party official, who was actually corruptly siphoning off much of the food to sell on the black market, did not agree with him and successfully accused him of political subversion.

The fact that Yun Ki Ho had served efficiently and loyally in the North Korean army for 13 years, and had not met his older brother for a decade, did not save him or his family from arrest and incarceration in one of the concentration camps. The latter tend to be located in the country’s remote northern regions, where foreign visitors are rarely allowed to venture, itineraries instead concentrating on Pyongyang and the southern border area round Panmunjom.

Yun Ki Ho and his similarly aged wife, 12 year-old son and 10 year-old daughter found themselves, with the rest of their extended family, amongst the horrors of Camp 21. The 35 year-old now began, amidst restrained sobs, to relate the precise nature of these terrors to the American interrogator.

(CIA Mission, US Embassy, Beijing, China)

‘Disloyalty and undutifulness will bring death.'

- Kim Jong Il

"I was witness to many atrocities in Camp 21," the tearful Yun Ki Ho confessed via his interpreter, "which completely destroyed my previously unshakeable belief in my country and Great General. I shall begin to describe the least horrific before gradually moving on to the truly inhumane acts."

"All of the guards, without exception, were sadistic. They clearly enjoyed torturing people, men and women, boys and girls. Some victims did not survive their attentions, whilst others emerged either physically or mentally maimed for life."

"I was myself placed naked in a small room, filled up to my waist with cold water. I was left there for many days, unable to sit or lie down because otherwise I would drown. In fact, I once, in my distress, sought such an end but I was observed and pulled back to my feet and told that, if I tried to repeat my action, my son would follow me into that terrible place."

"On another occasion, a catheter and dildo were respectively inserted into my penis and anus and, whilst lying face-up on the ground, I was forced to drink copious amounts of water from a large kettle, whose spout was forced down my throat. By the time that I was eventually gagged, my stomach naturally bulged grotesquely. It was then that a short plank was placed on my belly and two guards began to stand on each side of the wood."

"I was frequently beaten, with the worst occasion being when the soles of my feet were thrashed to a pulp. However, amidst all this, the true horrors were not what I was forced to suffer but rather to witness."

"The first time that I realised that the guards were testing chemicals on the prisoners was when a soldier entered the barrack my family and I...." Yun Ki Ho momentarily hesitated, whilst he considered his next word. He then continued "I was going to say ‘lived’ but it would be more accurate for me instead to say ‘existed’."

"The guard had brought a large metal pan, full of raw cabbage leaves, which represented great luxury for us starving prisoners. However, about fifty other inmates had grabbed and eagerly consumed the food before the soldier reached us."

"Our initial, acute disappointment was then quickly overcome by the sight of those who had eaten, for their faces now quickly turned ashen. I have never seen people subsequently excrete so much, from both face and bottom, as those poor wretches did over the next quarter of an hour. The foamy, reddish-brown, bloodstained mixture that literally poured out of them was an appalling sight in its own right, but their screams, and the expressions and mannerisms of pure agony revealed by their bodies, were even more abhorrent. It is therefore perhaps fortunate that all were dead within twenty minutes, after which the guard who had fed them the poison happily left to report his observations and arrange the burial detail."

"The second time that I came across such chemical testing was when I was ordered to form part of a small gang of labourers, being readied to perform an unknown task. However, we soon discovered what this was to be when we entered a large, newly-built hut, the inside layout of which we initially found amazing and intriguing."

"In the centre of the hut was a completely enclosed cube of strengthened glass, about three metres in each dimension. Entrance was via a short corridor with carefully sealed doors at either end. A narrow pipe intruded into the other side of the transparent cell, whilst surrounding metal platforms facilitated observation of the internal scene from above as well as outside."

"Soon, many white-coated scientists, some holding pens and clipboards, were on these platforms, as well as surrounding the glass cube at floor level. Soldiers then brought the experimental victims, all of whom had already been stripped naked and carefully washed. They included four, obviously petrified individuals, two young men in their early 20s and two similarly aged women. There was also a family, comprising husband and wife and son and daughter. The children were about the age of my own."

"Some of the scientists carefully examined all of these naked people most intimately. Anyone who protested, as the husband did, was hit brutally with the butt of a rifle by a guard to ensure compliance. It seemed to me that they were being checked to ensure that they were all good healthy specimens for the test to come."

"The guards then forced the eight people through the two entrances to the glass cube before leaving the cell, carefully sealing and locking the doors behind them. I noticed that the four individuals cowered in a corner apiece, whilst the family hugged each other in a huddle in the middle. I then heard the gas in the pipe."

"The faces on the poor victims already displayed immense fear. However, their expressions now became even more afraid, whilst they screamed and started hammering at the glass, which proved unbreakable."

"This early reaction eventually became unsustainable, as the invisible but obviously poisonously suffocating gas began to invade the victims’ lungs. Their eyes began to bulge, and their faces change hue to a perceptible bright yellow. However, even amidst their death throes, I observed one final exhibition of loving humanity, as the parents of the children tried to use their own failing breaths to resuscitate their collapsed and dying son and daughter, before their own prone bodies finally fell on top of their offspring."

"The noise of the poison gas being sucked back out of the cube was then heard before me and the other prisoner labourers were ordered inside to check the efficiency of the pump and carry the naked bodies out for autopsy and then burial."

Yun Ki Ho had retained remarkable composure during his description of these horrors, despite the fact that such recollections were obviously causing him much anguish, as well as a few tears and sobs. However, he now broke down completely, although his equally appalled interrogator never subsequently worked out whether the man’s reaction was in response to what he had already mentioned or was about to relate.

(CIA Mission, US Embassy, Beijing, China)

‘To establish Juche [North Korean Communist Party philosophy] means, in a word, to approach revolution and construction in one’s own country with the attitude of a master.’

- Kim Il Sung

After Yun Ki Ho managed to re-compose himself once more, he described more of the atrocities he had been witness to at Camp 21, including the exposure to fatal doses of radiation of some prisoners in lead-lined cells. He also eventually related the death through disease, exacerbated by malnutrition and mistreatment, of his beloved wife and 10 year-old daughter. He then went on to tell of the fate of his only son.

"The tests at Camp 21," Yun Ki Ho explained, "which I have no reason to believe aren’t repeated elsewhere, are not only confined to ones involving poisons, deadly gases and radioactive radiation but also include medical experiments." On hearing the translated words, the interrogator could not help but think of similar Nazi establishments of sixty years before and wonder how the modern world was still allowed to possess such places.

"My son, who was now both poorly because of his harsh treatment and distraught at the loss of his mother and sister, and I," Yun Ki Ho continued bitterly, "were eventually taken to a complex, which I thought contained the camp hospital. My hopes were momentarily raised that we might receive some treatment for our various ailments, or at least gain some better sustenance. Instead, we were stripped of our now sparse, grubby clothing and forced to wash ourselves thoroughly."

"A hot shower and soap, unknown in our barracks, were provided for the purpose. However, I no longer thought that this might be a sign of better treatment, as I recalled that the poor people, on whom poison gas had been tested, had also been required to clean themselves thoroughly before being murdered in the name of North Korean science."

"My fear was proved justified, although we were not sent to the glass cube. Instead, we both found ourselves strapped, face-up, spreadeagled and gagged, to sturdy white-topped tables in what resembled a very large medical operating theatre, along with a few other pairs of similarly aged and prepared fathers and sons. I then gained an inkling of what the nature of the experimentation about to be perpetrated on us might be when a white-coated medic quickly and efficiently shaved my genitalia of all hair, along with that of all the other nude men present. There was obviously no deed to do the same with the boys, as their loins were all still completely smooth."

"My worst fears then materialised when a doctor entered the room, accompanied by an assistant holding a large tray. I saw the former approach the first father and son pair and, without any further preparation, pick up an exceedingly sharp scalpel and unceremoniously begin to emasculate the boy completely."

"I suppose that the boy must have immediately entered shock because he hardly moved during the whole process, as his relatively small set of genitalia were sliced off him. However, all the other naked, prone prisoners, watching the appalling spectacle, had obviously not been traumatised into immobility, as we all, including my own son, began desperately to try to escape our tight restraints."

"The most vigorous in his efforts was the current young victim’s father, his motives undoubtedly more to do with saving his son’s masculinity rather than his own. However, unfortunately, all of our attempts to escape our bondage proved fruitless. Instead, we watched solemnly as the first set of young, severed, bloody genitalia was placed on the tray carried by the doctor’s assistant. They were soon followed by those belonging to the boy’s male parent."

"I never did find out what the true purpose of this experiment was, although I suppose one weird aim was to discover the best approach to repairing the resultant terrible wound, as each pair of emasculated males were treated differently. For example, the first father and son to suffer were left to bleed, whereas the second duo were cauterised, using what looked like a large electric soldering iron. Stitching was used on the third twosome."

(CIA Mission, US Embassy, Beijing, China)

‘In the fight for complete liberation, the oppressed people rely first of all on their own struggle and then, and only then, on international assistance.'

- Mao Tse-Tung

"I escaped from Camp 21 a month later," Yun Ki Ho advised his interrogator, "having been aided by the fact that, by now, after the treatment I had received at their hands and those of others, the guards considered me too weak to make an attempt. However, one soldier in particular, who happened to be amongst the most sadistic, found that this wasn’t the case, after I caught him alone and started to strangle him to death. I then redressed in his uniform and, using his pass, simply walked out of the gates."

"I was also assisted in my escape by the fact that Camp 21 is so far to the north of my homeland that the border with China is nearby. I was additionally helped because I was now unencumbered by close family, my son having died a week previously."

It was another five minutes before Yun Ki Ho could continue his story, as remembrance of this further tragic event had caused him to break down again. However, when he finally recovered, he related how he had somehow managed to cross the border, which was heavily guarded but not as much as the southerly one along the 38^th parallel.

Yun Ki Ho had then fortuitously met some sympathetic North Koreans, who were economic migrants living in China, near the border with their homeland. They eventually managed to smuggle the vengeful refugee to Beijing and the Embassy in that city of the previously deeply hated Americans.

Yun Ki Ho, however, after his appalling experiences at the hands of his fellow countrymen and so-called Communists, was now more than happy to sup with the capitalist devil.

(CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia, USA, next day)

‘And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.'

- Quotation from St. John's Gospel, chiselled at the front of the CIA's Headquarters

The CIA secretary was saddened to learn that the scalpel of Camp 21’s version of the Nazi ‘Angel of Death’, Mengele, had not been prevented from nullifying Yun Ki Ho and his son, with the boy dying of his stitched wound three weeks later. However, she was also glad that the father had survived the loss of both his family and manhood to tell his tale and hopefully move on to a better life in South Korea.

As lunchtime was now over, the secretary closed the file on Yun Ki Ho and went to carry out her boss’s order to lodge the dossier in the relevant repository. However, as she proceeded to accomplish the task, she retained, within her attractive form, some sadness regarding the final outcome.

The secretary’s attitude was no longer connected with the particulars of the sorrowful story she had read but was instead linked to the fact that she was unhappy that no one else was ever likely to learn of the tale. Yun Ki Ho had been sworn to reluctant secrecy in return for his comfortable resettlement and the file she carried was over-stamped by an instruction in large lettering.

The stamped words clearly read ‘No Further Action’.

THE END

Of

‘AXIS OF EVIL’

by Pueros