On April 6-9, believers around the world are solemnly
called to fasting, repentance and prayer for the region where the most
extreme form of religious persecution and a full-scale genocide
continues to take place unabated. This worldwide call to intercession
comes via the International Prayer Council (IPC), distinguished North
Korean Christian leaders and organizers of Prayer Initiative for North
Korea (PINK) 2015.
For the 13th consecutive
year in 2015, watchdog Open Doors determined North Korea to be the
world’s worst persecutor of Christians, followed respectively by
Somalia, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan—categorically all countries global
believers should at present be vigilantly, sacrificially, unceasingly,
and fervently crying out to God for. According to Open Doors, an
estimated 50,000-70,000 Christians are imprisoned in North Korea’s vast
network of brutal concentration camps today. Believers, their children
and their family members to three generations are consigned to camp
divisions from where none can be released; when not outright murdered
through executions, cruel beatings or human vivisection, prisoners are
effectively worked, starved and/or tortured to death.
Each genocidal action prohibited by Article 2 of the UN
Genocide Convention is being employed by the North Korean security
apparatus within these camps to eliminate hundreds of thousands of
innocents, one-third of them children. These crimes include but are not
limited to: summary execution, human experimentation, enslavement,
widespread rape and sexual violence, systematized torture, enforced
starvation, forced abortions, infanticide and the forcible transfer and
imprisonment of children.
A landmark UN report on North Korea’s human rights
crimes published in February 2014 found that the DPRK was committing
“extermination” and “crimes against humanity” as defined by the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court, detailing a “systematic,
widespread attack against all populations” perceived to pose a threat to
the DPRK regime. Among the devastating findings contained in the
report, a commission of inquiry mandated by the UN found that a
catastrophic famine in the 1990s—which some estimates indicate claimed
the lives of over 3 million North Koreans—resulted from deliberate
actions and omissions by North Korea’s leadership.
Michael Kirby, chairman of the UN Commission and a
retired Justice of the High Court of Australia, has drawn parallels
between North Korea’s atrocities and those perpetrated by the Khmer
Rouge and the Nazis. At an informal gathering of members of the UN
Security Council in April 2014 (NB: China and Russia were absent), Kirby
stated, "In a week of many grave human rights matters occupying the
attention of the members of this council, we dare say that the case of
human rights in the DPRK (Democratic People Republic of Korea) exceeds
all others in duration, intensity and horror."
Still, the Commission of Inquiry’s report was far from
comprehensive. It failed to exhaustively examine the possibility of
genocide in North Korea, particularly against Christians and the
murdered half-Chinese babies—killed solely on account of their mixed
race and as a matter of North Korean policy—of repatriated North Korean
mothers from China.The report also failed to investigate meaningfully
the atrocity of human experimentation by neglecting to interview
numerous key defector witnesses.
Independent international law firm Hogan Lovells,while
endorsing the findings of the UN report in other respects, found that
further investigation was needed with regards to the question of
genocide in North Korea. In a June 2014 statement the law firm conveyed
that its viewpoint differed from the UN inquiry’s findings in “its
argument for a strong case that certain actions committed by the North
Korean government are tantamount to genocide,” and “that the targeting
by DPRK state-controlled officials of groups classified by the DPRK as
being in the hostile class, Christians, and children of Chinese heritage
with the intent to destroy such groups could be found to amount to
genocide.” In alignment with Hogan Lovells’ conclusions, anti-genocide
NGO Genocide Watch, founder and chair of the Alliance Against Genocide,
published a report shortly after Kim Jong-il’s death in 2011 upholding
that North Korea has violated the UN Genocide Convention and continues
to do so, attesting that “Genocide Watch has ample proof that genocide
has been committed and mass killing is still underway in North Korea.”
Not withstanding all the documentation and diverse
harrowing reports, it remains true that the international community
consistently takes for granted the fact that North Korea’s atrocities
extend significantly further than what has been thus far uncovered. By
way of illustration, most North Korean refugees who have managed to
escape are from those provinces bordering China, and with recent
disclosures of discrepancies connected to the book Escape from Camp 14 by
Blaine Harden, we must come to grips with the frightful truth that
there may in actuality be no surviving witness, with the exception of
former guards and perpetrators, from North Korea’s “Total Control Zone.”
These are the sections within North Korea’s prison camp system where
all are effectively under a death sentence, can never be released and
the majority of North Korea’s prisoners—including Christians, their
children and relatives to three generations—are being enslaved,
brutalized and eventually murdered under inhuman conditions.
Our organization conducted two extensive interviews last
year with Mr. Im Cheon-yong, a former member of the DPRK special
operations forces who has been sought after by South Korean media for
his knowledge with respect to North Korea’s internal military practices
and policies. Although the interviews were primarily intended to be
related to long-standing charges against the DPRK concerning biological
and chemical weapon experiments directed against prisoners of conscience
and their families, Mr. Im also wished to speak about the reality of
North Korea’s “political prison camps” and the fate of all these
prisoners.
Mr. Im's words were distressing, to say the least, but
is consistent with what former guards and prison camp officials have
attested to for years.
He stated:
In the real political prison camp, three generations are
killed. You know how the regime stubbornly persists in declaring that
there are no political prison camps in North Korea. Do you know why?
It’s because there is no one alive who knows the secret of these camps.
If North Korea falls later and the outside world goes in to do research,
it will be very shocking. I can’t express it in words… We only have
indirect knowledge [of these places]. No one can survive from there,
only a corpse can come out.
Please join in fasting, repentance and intercession for
Korea on April 6-9. Hundreds of Korean church leaders will be gathering
in South Korea for what organizers hope will be the “last international
prayer gathering for N. Korea,” believing God for historic and
much-needed changes in the North, and in the very imminent future.
Although there is much to pray for with respect to Korea’s situation, the following are three core prayer requests:
- Please pray fervently for the liberation of North Korea's prison camps, as well as the preservation and restoration of every prisoner's life. We released a video appeal last year outlining the extreme peril those in North Korea's prison camp system are currently facing. The horrifying truth is that all of these prisoners can be killed off at any moment according to the DPRK regime’s whim. Some 20,000 prisoners of conscience and their family members are believed to have been murdered when Camp 22 (formerly one of North Korea's most notorious death camps) was shuttered in 2012. In the wake of the February 2014 UN report, South Korea's National Intelligence Service and media outlets have reported that North Korea was now "Whitewashing" Yodok Camp 15 through removing and relocating prisoners. It is accepted the DPRK is doing this as a "PR exercise," that prisoners would most likely be replaced with farmers, in the course of time making the camp appear to be an innocuous collective farm. This is precisely what happened with Camp 22. The fear is that these prisoners—whom the DPRK deems wholly dispensable—may have died or been killed along the way while being transferred, and that ultimately the regime may decide to “do away” with all prisoners as their existence now poses more of a threat to the regime’s political survival than before. Please do everything in your power to mobilize prayers for the lives of those in North Korea's prison camps.
- Also intercede for hundreds of thousands of North Korean refugees who are in hiding in China. Most of these defectors are women, 70-80 percent of whom, without recourse to legal protections in China, become victims of sex trafficking. Their children conceived through rape are also stateless in China and become vulnerable to trafficking and abandonment. China, in contravention of international laws and norms, forcibly repatriates all North Korean refugees found within its territory in accordance with a long-established political pact with the DPRK; tens of thousands of lives have been lost and countless families torn apart due to China’s inhumane and illegal policy. China shows no signs of changing. In February 2014, in response to the UN report which also highlighted “concerns relating to China’s policy and practice of forced repatriation,” warning Beijing that its officials could be found guilty of the “aiding and abetting of crimes against humanity,” China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, categorically rejected all criticisms or charges of wrongdoing. Ms. Chunying stated on China’s behalf, “Of course we cannot accept this unreasonable criticism… We believe that taking human rights issues to the International Criminal Court is not helpful to improving a country’s human rights situation… These people are not refugees. We term them illegal North Korean migrants.” Predictably, China did not cooperate with the UN Commission in the slightest, barring UN investigators from even visiting the Sino-North Korea border.
- Finally, pray for Korea's unification through the power of the Holy Spirit, and the end of Kim Jong-un's rule. Korea's unification represents the only viable solution to North Korea's mass atrocity situation and the refugee crisis in China. Under South Korea's Constitution, all North Koreans are also legal citizens of the South, as North Korea has (rightfully) not been recognized as a legitimate state by the South throughout its history. With the unification of the Peninsula, refugees in China could return to Korea without fear or threat of maltreatment, and all those living in the North would be provided the basic protection and respect for human rights afforded by the rule of law. Intercede especially for those North Korean activists whom God has chosen to stand at the forefront of the movement for transformation, freedom and revival within the North. Pray for victory in 2015 as they collaborate with those in South Korea and around the world for substantive changes within the North conducive to the purpose of life, freedom, restoration and dignity for all North Koreans. Pray also for true reconciliation between the people of the North and South (with emphasis and priority given to the general people, not the DPRK regime, which is actively committing genocide and must be dealt with according to justice), and spiritual revival according to Christ’s Word.
For those who wish to get involved beyond prayer, I
strongly recommend fundraising for the North Korean activists who are
associated with this specific movement. Some of the North Korean
Christians involved with PINK 2015 are personal friends of mine going
back several years, and they are spearheading various crucial
initiatives for freedom and unification in cooperation with dissidents
and underground Christians within N. Korea. Please pray for and consider
donating to this work.
After the 9th of
April, North Korean Christians have proclaimed constant prayer at
Korea’s Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) until the day of unification. Please
also continue to uphold Korea in your prayers with all vigilance until
the dream of freedom, life, peace and unity on the Peninsula becomes a
reality.
Related Scriptures:
Isaiah
58:6 (ESV) “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of
wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go
free, and to break every yoke?”
1
Corinthians 12:25-26 (ESV) “that there may be no division in the body,
but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one
member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all
rejoice together.”
Hebrews
13:3 (NIV) “Continue to remember those in prison as if you were
together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you
yourselves were suffering.”
1 John
3:16 (NIV) “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his
life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and
sisters.”
Matthew 3:8 (ASV) “Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance”
By Robert Park
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