Former detainees say freedom came fast in North Korea

Kenneth Bae pauses before speaking at a news conference at U.S. Air Force Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Fort Lewis, Washington, U.S., November 8, 2014. REUTERS/Anthony Bolante/Files
  May 10 (Reuters) - Time can feel like it is standing still for U.S. citizens held prisoner by North Korea, but the ordeal can end with startling swiftness, former detainees said.   After months and even years of hardship, those released by North Korea said they found themselves boarding a U.S. plane and being flown out of the country less than an hour after being told by their captors that they were going home.   The three Americans that U.S. President Donald Trump said were released by North Korea and headed home on Wednesday may have similar stories to tell when they land at a military base outside Washington early Thursday morning.   "They didn’t tell me anything about my release until the last minute. I was in the hospital and taken to a hotel," the longest-held American in North Korea, Kenneth Bae, said in an interview from South Korea.   Once informed of his release in 2014, an American delegation came in and within 30 minutes he was aboard an airplane to take him out of North Korea. From there it was a 24-hour journey via Guam and Hawaii home to Seattle, where his family was waiting.   While a prisoner, Bae was forced to shovel coal and haul rocks. He had about 30 guards watching him as their sole prisoner during his two years in captivity, which included hospital stays for the beating his body took from the hard labor.   Since the end of the Korean War, North Korea has taken 17 Americans captive, many of whom were in the country for humanitarian reasons inspired by their Christian faith. Bae and the three Americans just released - Kim Hak-song, Kim Dong-chul and Kim Sang-Duk, also known as Tony Kim - fall into that category.   In North Korea, where the Kim family that has ruled the country for more than 70 years is revered as demigods, proselytizing is seen as an assault on the state, punishable by years of hard labor.   TIME STANDS STILL   Isolated from the world, time seems to halt, former detainees say. Confinement for the Americans detained by North Korea can range from hotel rooms to cramped, windowless shacks offering little protection from the country's bitter cold.   Former prisoners, who also have included tourists and journalists, have said they were interrogated for hours and suffered mental humiliation. A few said the isolation led them to consider suicide.   The United States demands the release of U.S. citizens every time it deals with North Korea, which detains, and releases, them for its own reasons, said a former U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.   In an interview prior to the three prisoners' release, the former official said some negotiations are handled by the U.S. State Department via the "New York channel" of contacts with North Korean diplomats at the United Nations, while others are handled via the U.S. intelligence community.   "They don't just keep them. They keep them for a reason and then they release them for a reason," he added. The latest release came ahead of a planned meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.   For the prisoners treated as bargaining chips, releases can move at alarming speeds.   Jeffrey Fowle, a tourist held for about six months in North Korea for leaving a Bible in a sailor's club during his visit, said the day he was released, he was told he was being transferred, and presented with belongings he had not seen for months.   "I thought I was going to the detention camp, or to trial, or something. I went from my guest house to a nearby hotel," he said in a telephone interview from his Ohio home.   "Then some well-dressed North Korean man came in and said 'Kim Jong Un has recommended that you be released.' And that was the first thing I heard about it," he said.   Otto Warmbier, 22, from Wyoming, Ohio, was imprisoned from January 2016 to June 2017, and was released in a coma. He died a few days later in the United States, with his parents accusing North Korea of torturing him, a charge Pyongyang denies.   A few months after Warmbier's death, former detainee Aijalon Gomes, 38, set himself on fire in a San Diego lot in November 2017. Gomes was held for about seven months in North Korea after he crossed into the country from China in January 2010 on what he saw as a religious mission.   After his return, Gomes wrote a self-published autobiography titled "Violence and Humanity," in which he talked about his suicide attempts while being held in North Korea.   Bae and Fowle, devout Christians, said their time in North Korea deepened their faith and helped get them through.   "Emotionally and psychologically, they (the North Koreans) were trying to wear me out," said Bae. [caption id="attachment_362408" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter gestures towards Aijalon Mahli Gomes' family that came to greet him in Boston, Massachusetts, August 27, 2010. REUTERS/Adam Hunger/Files[/caption] [caption id="attachment_362409" align="aligncenter" width="800"] U.S. student Otto Warmbier speaks at a news conference in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang February 29, 2016. REUTERS/KCNA/Files[/caption] [caption id="attachment_362410" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Former North Korean detainee Jeffrey Fowle, is shown at this home in Dayton, Ohio,U.S., May 4, 2018. REUTERS/Maddie McGarvey/Files[/caption] [caption id="attachment_362411" align="aligncenter" width="800"] A North Korean flag flutters on top of a 160-metre tower in North Korea's propaganda village of Gijungdong, in this picture taken from the Dora observatory near the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, in Paju, South Korea, April 24, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/Files[/caption]

Factbox: The three Americans imprisoned by North Korea

  (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that three Americans detained by North Korea have been released and are on their way home with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.   Here is a look at the three men:   * Kim Dong Chul, a Korean-American missionary formerly of Fairfax, Virginia, and thought to be about 62, was sentenced in March 2016 to 10 years of hard labor for subversion. He admitted to committing "unpardonable espionage" under the direction of the U.S. and South Korean governments and deeply apologized for his crimes, the North's KCNA news agency said. Other Americans taken captive by North Korea have said after their release they were forced into making confessions. In an interview with CNN conducted in Pyongyang in January 2016, Kim said he was arrested in October 2015 after spying on behalf of what he called "South Korean conservative elements" who approached him while he was working at a trading business in Rason, a city in northern North Korea near the Chinese border. A North Korean defector later said she had met Kim in the United States and that he had told church gatherings he was a missionary helping North Koreans.   * Kim Sang-duk, also known as Tony Kim, spent a month teaching accounting at the foreign-funded Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) before he was detained at Pyongyang International Airport in April 2017 while trying to leave the country. The university's chancellor said the arrest was not connected to PUST and that Kim, 59, had been involved with other activities, including helping an orphanage. North Korean state media reported that he was arrested for committing "hostile acts" against the government.   * Kim Hak Song, thought to be about 55, also taught at PUST, which was founded by evangelical Christians and opened in 2010. The university's co-founder said that Kim, who managed the school's experimental farm at the college of agriculture and life sciences, was detained in May while traveling on a train from Pyongyang to the Chinese border town of Dandong. In February 2015, Kim wrote in a fundraising post on the website of a Korean-Brazilian church that he was a Christian missionary devoted to helping North Korea's people learn to be self-sufficient. North Korean state media said he also was arrested on suspicion of committing "hostile acts" against the government.



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