[lbo-talk] Liberal imperialism

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Michael:
> Mrs. Sun-Ok Lee survived a five years sentence in a North Korean
> concentration camp and finally succeeded to flee the DPRK. Her
> testimony [5] is very detailed and unbelievably cruel, but she is very
> trustworthy and her report is consistent with many other reports [6].
> 
> A recent BBC documentary [7] also reported that in one of these camps,
> North Korea tests chemical weapons on prisoners in a gas chamber:
> 
>     'I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and
> dying in the gas chamber,' he said. 'The parents, son and a daughter.
> The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment
> they tried to save kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing.'
> 
>     Hyuk has drawn detailed diagrams of the gas chamber he saw. He
> said: 'The glass chamber is sealed airtight. It is 3.5 metres wide, 3m
> long and 2.2m high_ [There] is the injection tube going through the
> unit. Normally, a family sticks together and individual prisoners
> stand separately around the corners. Scientists observe the entire
> process from above, through the glass.' [8]

I do not mean to be cynical, but I suggest extreme caution when dealing with
stories told by defectors and repeated for propaganda purposes by the
enemies of the regime from which they defected.  We all heard about babies
being thrown out of the incubators or weapons of mass destruction being told
by one defector after another, and amplified by the US government propaganda
mouthpieces - all of which turned out to be fabrications.  Why should I
believe in similar stories told by defectors from another "axis of evil"
country?

Do not get me wrong - I am not defending North Korea - all I am saying is
that we should view information coming from defectors and repeated by
Western media that love to hate certain kinds of regimes while turning their
blind eye on others with a healthy does of skepticism.

Wojtek