About North-Korean Defecters and Such

I have a real burden for the people of North Korea. My heart breaks when I think of the sufferings they endure, how they are brain washed by the North Korean Communist regime, how some of the most basic of human rights are violated.

I watched this short documentary video recently about North Korean child defectors trying to adjust in South Korea, and admittedly I cried. I wrote once about meeting a North Korean defector and his trials. Coming to South Korea is not the end of their hardship. Here they feel completely inept for the fast pace, highly technological lifestyle. Simple things like taking the subway or a bus are completely new and foreign to them. In South Korea where computer literacy is among the highest in the world, defectors are often completely computer illiterate. Also, it is very difficult to make close friendships in Korea, since culturally, the closest friendships are formed while in school. There is also some social discrimination against North Koreans which makes it very difficult for them to find partners.

I've had this burden for the plight of the North Korean people for many years now -- even before I came to Korea. It might be my connection with Korean history through ITF Taekwon-Do. In ITF Taekwon-Do one is continually exposed to many aspects of Korea's long and often tragic history.

In the video I referred to earlier, the girl cries, wondering if reunification between North and South Korea will ever occur, so that she can see her parents again. I share her angst. The chances of reunification happening any time soon is very minute. North Korea has a lot of mineral resources and a large labour force, while South Korea excel in technology. If the two should unite the combined Korea would be extremely strong. Of course this is a serious concern for Japan; therefore, Japan is not in favour of Korea's reunification. Also, North Korea creates a buffer between the American forces in South Korea and China. For this reason China doesn't want reunification for fear of a closer presence of American forces to China. Thus for political and economic reasons, Korea's closest neighbours, China and Japan, are not making reunification an easy task. Not to mention the internal strifling between the two Koreas themselves.

It is just a sad sad tale, and at present I can only anguish with that girl and all those children that are weeping for their families. I really don't know what the solution is. I can only hope for some miraculous solution, 'cause all the man-made options seem without positive effect. What will open up North Korea but war? And how much further suffering will such a war bring and at what cost? Then again, how much is the freedom of these poor people worth? Isn't it worth a relatively short war, versus the long time suffering they are exposed to at present? But can war ever be condoned, apart from national defence? There are just so many questions and in the meantime the suffering continues. The worst part is that some of those poor people are too brainwashed to realise the extremity of their plight or see the real cause of their suffering. Many of them really think that they are suffering the way they do because of "Evil America"; instead of their real enemy their "Dear Leader", the dictator Kim Jong-Il.

What we see here is the human plight within the Great Controversy. The character of God has been so blighted that we often accuse God of the misery in the world, instead of seeing the true source of evil.