I saw a special on CNN about Shin Dong Hyuk, who escaped a North Korean prison camp. It is unbelievable what they do to people there. Three generations of punishment, cruelty and torture for people who have been born there and have no idea why they are even there.
Moderator’s Note: The TOS prohibits extensive quoting. Please link to the primary source which I have done for this post. I also trimmed the quote
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If anyone would like to see actual footage of North Korea, check out Rimjin-gang* (it’s in English). They smuggle footage and pictures out of North Korea to show life beyond the government propaganda. There are a lot of starving children, malnourished elderly, etc.
*http://www.asiapress.org/rimjin-gang/
I also assume that his parents decided to take him off whatever life support or nutritional support he was on.
ETA: I know a lot about NK, having read just about everything available at our local library – fiction, real-life memoirs, non-fiction. There is nothing we can do to punish NK that we are not already doing. NK is worse than the worst gulags in the Soviet Union ever were, and Kim Jung Un rules with an iron fist. Unless there is a mass uprising by the people, that’s never going to change. And the likelihood of a mass uprising is slim to none. People know the punishment they would incur if they were to attempt and fail.
The only real chance a NK person has is to escape to China – where they are considered lower class scum by the Chinese – and then make their way to South Korea. It does not happen very often.
MODERATOR’S RESPONSE:
Theoretical US military response has no place in this conversation. 4 posts deleted/edited.
It’s also difficult to have an uprising when not only the perpetrator of a “crime” is arrested but their family may be arrested also. Knowing what you do can land grandma in prison is a big deterrent.
Yet people do defect. If you have ever watched interviews with North Korean defectors, they know full well what happened to their families left behind. Some left wives and children, not to mention their parents, uncles, aunts, etc. behind to face the unimaginable. The guilt must be unbearable.
The Asia Press link in post 205 is really interesting.
“Your bright accomplished college age kid goes off on a tour you think is an exciting experience. Good for the resume.”
I feel horribly for his family but its a stretch to think that this was thought of as a resume builder.
Regarding the video coverage posted in #205, yes NK is a horrible place run by a lunatic however it is easy to selectively film ANY place and make it look atrocious. Not saying it isn’t true but be careful of propaganda from both sides. Could you imagine what could be selectively filmed here and shown (and probably is in NK) that many face in this country? One video in the link above was about people needing to carry water from a town pump to their house. If I was going to contrast that story here if my job was to create anti-American propaganda, I’d make a story about the Flint water debacle.
As much as I grieve for Otto’s family’s pain and loss, creating a conflict or worse that could result in casualties to American soldiers and/or destabilize things in the region is not an appropriate response to this event, IMO.
Dos–it’s an interesting site way beyond whatever video you looked at. They have numerous reporters with secret cameras who report on just about everything–how the government department store runs, market place prices, the opinion of banks by the people. The construction of a skyscraper meant for show. The view on war by the people. What their real opinions are. Whatever they can dig out about the military (the lower positions are hungry too from the photos). How people get around the rules and how life there works in practice. No, they aren’t reporting on how the higher echelons of society may live.
The government obviously has enough video of its own sterling view of life in NK.
I just wonder given the brutality of this regime and how intent they are at keeping things contained, how the video gets out in the first place.
According to what I gather from the site is that most reporters live very near borders where there is some connectivity for cell phone use. They are issued chinese mobile cell phones. We aren’t talking news crews here–it’s a guy with a cell phone camera taking pix where they can and talking to a few people or just reporting what they see.
From the link to the video website, we learn that:
"Why Do N.Korean Women Care About Looks? ‘I want to get attention from the guys.’ "
^Haha. I thought when I saw that headline, so how is it different? 
I apologize if this has already been said, but I just heard on the news that there will be an autopsy.
@HarvestMoon1, like Soviet Russia and its satellites, NK is dependent on some low-level capitalism from abroad, so there is SOME highly controlled private trade (mostly with China and South Korea) to bring in much needed foreign cash into the country. There’s also a lot of smuggling (as there was with the Soviet block) – another source of uncensored videos, information etc coming from NK.
I don’t know Otto nor his family. I barely remembered the incident after 18 months of silence (but I remembered the initial story on his return). And now him and his family are continuously in my thoughts. RIP.
If nothing else, I’ve learned more history about Korea in the past few days than I ever had in school at any time growing up. As someone mentioned earlier “MASH” was the extent of my knowledge that the war even occurred.
Just hoping that a new awareness grips more people like me.
Ironically, the Kim dynasty here is taking a page from old practices practiced for centuries in the Korean Kingdom/Empire and the Chinese empire.
Then again, the Kim dynasty has exhibited far greater power/control and ruthlessness over their “kingdom” than even most of the Korean or Chinese Emperors of the old dynastic periods.
If a dictionary wanted a textbook case of ruthless totalitarianism…there aren’t many other regimes which could match the Kim Dynasty/Kim Jong Un in this regard.
What’s more ironic was this tendency towards imperial pretensions was already apparent and such a concern to both the Soviet Union and the Mainland Chinese CCP as early as the mid-1950’s that both governments encouraged and supported an attempted coup by their respective NK Communist party factions against the first Kim…Kim Il Sung in the mid-late '50s.
Despite that, Kim Il Sung and his supporters managed to successfully outmaneuver both the pro-Soviet and Pro-CCP factions, quash the coup, and initiated a massive purge of all who were involved with executions for all who were involved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Faction_Incident
Not may arrest the family. They WILL arrest and harshly punish/torture/kill family of anyone who is viewed by the NK state/Kim Jong Un of being a “criminal”.
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@gouf78 unless the US gov does something very quickly, I think this story will fade for the vast majority of people.
There’s just so much going on that it’s hard to remember what happens from week to week. 
ETA: Just for clarification, I’m not saying the gov should or shouldn’t do anything. That is well above my pay grade.
What are the viable options for the US government? Not much besides making noise about stopping Americans from going to North Korea.