Jackie: Why I'm doing this

Because we and other people in the US ought to think about gettting some priorities straight, my friend Dawn and I have decided to increase our awareness of the horrors of North Korea by decreasing our food intake until it resembles that of two young American journalists incarcerated in that country. On 8 June 2009 Laura Ling and Euna Lee were sentenced to twelve years' hard labor in a Korean prison camp. Just imagining their harrowing environment and starvation has preyed on me. A North Korean labor camp is a gulag, a deathtrap where slave inmates get plenty of torture and beatings, no medical care, and almost certain starvation.

I am paid to teach at a community college, and I complain about my job on occasion, feeling overburdened by the heaps of grading on my desk. However, I don't work a regular minimum of twelve hours a day like Lee and Ling are facing right this minute. I do work twelve-hour days sometimes, but I get paid and I get to do most of my work in the comfort of my home office with an iMac, a padded antique chair, and air conditioning. Lee and Ling will endure sweltering heat in fields, mines, and forests, all day, seven days a week, perhaps until they die. These camps routinely lose (kill) 25% of their population per year.

A major feature of life at the camp is torture. Kneeling on hot steel, being punched and kicked, and being starved and then forced to watch others eat are things ex-inmates report having endured. Women who give birth are forced to watch their babies murdered on the spot. Difficult inmates are locked in cells so small the inmates cannot sit or lie down for a month. Most of this last group die.

Medical care does not exist unless one counts forced abortions, or execution for becoming pregnant.

The diet at prison camps reportedly consists of corn, rice, cabbage soup, beans (generally stolen by guards), rats, salamanders, and cockroaches: all in the total amount of one small bowl a day.

I really can't simulate most of the above conditions, but I will eat one small bowl a day of rice, corn, and beans, or maybe a splurge of quinoa (no rats, salamanders, or cockroaches, thanks). I mean to stick with this diet for one month, starting on the four-month anniversary of their arrest. I may turn pretty mean, but I'm going to give it a try. God help my students during this time.

Can you live on a small bowl of food a day?We intend to try.

by DMC

By doing so,we hope to bring more attention to the inhumane conditions in North Korea and, specifically, to the plight of two American journalists who have been sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean labor prison. Beginning July 17th, Jacquelline Marshall and I will embark on a 30-day sympathy campaign and will restrict our food intake to that given to the more fortunate prisoners in North Korean labor camps. We've chosen the date July 17th because it marks the four-month anniversary of the arrests of Euna Lee and Laura Ling.

We will eat only one cup of rice, beans, and cornmeal (combined) each day. Because the food rations in North Korea are so poor that many people die of starvation, we're following a "best case" scenario (we are not restricting ourselves to mere cornmeal and cabbage soup, as many prisoners are forced to endure). In addition, we may substitute Quinoa for rice, and we are not restricting our water intake. We estimate our daily caloric intake will be no more than 350 calories per day. We want to emphasize that we'll live off about 350 calories a day while leading a relatively sedentary lifestyle. The prisoners in the camps work long days filled with hard, physical labor and are exposed to extreme temperatures and other physical abuses.

We call on our government and the world to take a firm stand against North Korea and to do everything possible to secure the release of Euna Lee and Laura Ling. These two women were arrested on March 17th while filming a documentary in China near the North Korean border. They intended their documentary to expose North Korea's trafficking of women.

North Korea claims the women illegally crossed the border into North Korea. Other sources, such as a South Korean television station, claim North Korean guards crossed the border into China to kidnap and arrest the two women. In fact, North Korean border guards have frequently crossed into China to kidnap dissidents and prevent the spread of information critical of Kim Jong-il or North Korea.

North Korean labor camps are notorious for their horrific conditions. The kyo-hwa-so are long-term prison-labor camps where prisoners are supposedly "re-educated through labor." In reality, North Korean labor camps represented the worst human rights violation of any nation on earth.

Prisoners are kept on the verge of starvation, receiving only a small cup of cornmeal and cabbage soup a day. In the best conditions, mostly in the pre-famine days of the 1990s, prisoners were allotted a small palm-sized portion of rice and beans with the cornmeal, but the guards usually stole the rice and beans, leaving prisoners with only the corn meal and a tiny amount of cabbage soup.

Many prisoners die of starvation or illnesses associated with malnutrition. In fact, prisoners are so starved, they risk execution to steal food from livestock. Many eat whatever they can find -- rats, bugs, frogs and grass. Some have been known to steal leather belts, soak them in water, and eat the animal hide.

Prisoners are frequently tortured -- beaten, electrocuted, or confined for weeks in small "punishment cells" where they can neither sit nor stand, among other abuses. Prisoners are sometimes publicly executed to deter others from trying to escape or stealing food. Women are subject to sexual assaults, and those who become pregnant (especially those repatriated from China) are often forced to watch as their newborn babies are killed.

The world should not tolerate North Korea's human rights abuses. By embarking on our 30 day sympathy diet, Jackie and I hope to remind the United States -- and, hopefully, the rest of the world -- of the two American women, and the many other human beings, imprisoned in North Korea's harsh labor camps.

To learn more about North Korean labor camps, visit http://www.hrnk.org/hiddengulag/part1.html

Lee and Ling, Forgotten

by DMC

America is failing Euna Lee and Laura Ling. These two journalists set out from California in March to spotlight the underground railroad that North Korean refugees use to reach China. They haven't returned. Captured by North Korean officers, they were tried and sentenced to 12 years in a hard labor camp. The last real bit of news coverage these two women received was on Tuesday, June 23rd when the Swedish ambassador visited briefly with the two women.

Then, on June 25th, Michael Jackson died, and both the media and America seemed to forget all about Euna Lee and Laura Ling.

Well, I haven't forgotten. This is my reminder to CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, and Hillary Clinton that there are two American women laboring in a North Korean prison. They were sentenced after a closed trial for attempting to shed light on North Korea's inhumanity. They became victims themselves of that inhumanity.

Michael Jackson's death has dominated the airwaves. Yes, he was a controversial music icon, but he is dead. For the moment, Euna Lee and Laura Ling are still alive, and they need help.

If you still need convincing, listen to the words of Gotham Chopra, who claims to have spoken to Michael Jackson just before he died. According to Chopra, the entertainer expressed a wish to help Euna and Laura. I imagine Jackson wouldn't have wanted his death to contribute to these two women spending even one more day away from their families.

North Korean's Kim Jong-il is a bully and tyrant, and those, like Euna and Laura, who try to expose his tyranny continue to pay the price. I call on America not to forget, because those who remain silent to tyranny, enable tyranny.