What could a free man hope to accomplish by crossing without permission into North Korea, to ask its rulers to repent, close the prison camps and free the people? Robert Park, a young American of Korean descent made exactly that crossing on Christmas day, walking from China into North Korea across the frozen Tumen River. There are reports that as he crossed, he called out, “I came here to proclaim God’s love.”
A manifesto attributed to Park, leader of a Christian group advocating human rights for North Koreans, includes the statement: “All we are asking is for all North Koreans to be free, safe and have life.”
Chances are nil that North Korea’s regime will receive Park in that spirit. North Korea-watcher Joshua Stanton, who includes the full text of the above manifesto on his well-informed One Free Korea blog, worries with good reason that Park will become yet another pawn in the endless extortion rackets and depravities of North Korean “diplomacy.” Park reportedly said before he went in to North Korea that he did not want to be ransomed by the U.S. government. But based on dismal experience — recall Bill Clinton’s Pyongyang trip in August to pick up the detained Laura Ling and Euna Lee – Stanton fears that already “junior and has-been diplomats all along the Eastern Seaboard are imagining themselves escorting Robert Park up the steps of a charter flight at Sunan Airport, having left behind enough ransom aid to run a small concentration camp for years.”
That sounds sadly accurate. And yet… there are powerful reasons why a man who cares deeply about human rights for North Koreans might feel impelled to set out across that frozen river. For years, the monstrous miseries inside North Korea have been known, detailed, attested to before congressional committees, documented by carefully cross-correlated reports, deplored by human rights groups and chronicled by defectors. For a sample, you can browse the atrocities documented by the Washington-based U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea — and if you want to look further, you can amass a large collection of books, movies, news reports and graphic findings about the brutalities North Korea’s government systematically inflicts on its people.
No. Just crazy.
A quick, sobering and heartbreaking read.
The Aquariums of Pyongyang
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Aquariums-of-Pyongyang/Chol-Hwan-Kang/e/9780465011049
How about as an act of considerable courage that is unlikely to have much good effect, but could have significant negative effects? It’s entirely possible for something to be both an act of courage and unspeakably silly and stupid.
“They get arrested in China”
Who was arrested in China for helping N. Koreans escape, or bringing measure of freedom to N. Korea..??
So how did the two female journalists held in North Korea get released?
MONEY…A SUITCASE FULL OF MONEY
Handed over by Clintoon to Kim Jong Il
Now..if you admire this moron…if you think
he is idealistic and heroic…YOU..back up your ideals with YOUR MONEY to get him released.
I did my hitch in Korea back in the 80′s, NK is a dark and scary place, and maybe he can shine some much needed light there. However the only thing that keeps coming to mind is the saying “there is a thin line between Huah and stupid”
Godspeed Mr. Park
I am not familiar with Mr. Park but, from what I read in the article, I gather that he is a Christian man who has a deep burden for his people in North Korea. Unbelievers who only live for this world may consider his actions to be foolish but if God directed his steps then he may be the pebble that starts a landslide. Mr. Park, as all believers should, holds his life cheaply in the service of God and was ready to lay down his life to bring the only message of hope to a people under Satanic oppression. If anyone doubts the cruelty of the North Korean regime or its fear of Christianity which has led it to kill all known Christians, please check out the Voice of the Martyrs.
I fail to see how the actions of Mr. Park could make the situation there any worse. The western world, including the United States, has failed to stand up to the demonic leadership of North Korea. Mr. Park asked to not be ransomed so my guess is that he will be tortured and killed for his actions and his faith. May God protect him and use him to bring light into that darkness.
He may be very brave. He may be very crazy. He may be both.
But regardless of what his mental state is (or was, considering how notoriously brutal that regime is), if you insist on doing something with virtually no chance of success, in spite of repeated warnings by our own government and other groups to avoid the place, you have just signed your own potential death warrant and shouldn’t expect the rest of humanity to come running to your rescue simply because you have a passport from the US/UK/some other civilized nation.
I’m not only thinking of Mr. Park but also the three Americans currently being held in Iran for “hiking” along the Iran/Iraq border, the various Westerners who’ve been busted for attempting to smuggle drugs out of/into other foreign lands, etc.
Good luck, Mr Park. You’ll need every bit of it.
When I first read the e-mail that a young Christian named Robert Park was planning to enter into North Korea by himself shouting peace and love from God, I thought to myself he was not going to do it. He could not possibly do it. Then, another e-mail that he was ready to do it. Is he going to do it, really? Now, he’s done it! He jumped off the cliff, ten thousand feet deep into the abyss. I felt numb. I still feel numb.
Should we rescue him the way Bill Clinton rescued Laura and Euna? I say no. We should honor his wish not to be ransomed out of North Korea. I watched seven years ago when MoFA Seven Freedom Fighters tried to get in to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing in August 2002. They all signed their death wish before they went to the devils den; Liberty or Death! They evaporated on the spot, and it still breaks my heart. I watch their faces everyday in my office on the wall. They are still looking at me. We’ve done what we had to do. What are you doing? I honor them and remember them in my heart everyday.
If some politicians or do-gooders try to ransom Robert Park out of North Korea, it will be like taking down Joan of Arc from the burning stake. Robert Park did what he had to do. He did what we all had to do. He did what I had to do long time ago. We have to honor his wish, and keep on fighting with this evil monster, Kim Jong-il.
9. Kipling: “Mr. Park, as all believers should, holds his life cheaply in the service of God and was ready to lay down his life to bring the only message of hope to a people under Satanic oppression.”
C’mon, Kippy, admit it — you copied this from a pamphlet al qaeda uses to recruit suicide bombers.
A real cause for concern is that the North Koreans are experts at extracting information from unwilling/uncooperative people. As Mr. Stanton notes on One Free Korea, of real concern is what Mr. Park is going to tell the North Koreans about other people involved in trying to do something for the people of North Korea.
Mr. Park will tell them names, locations, activities, connections, etc., all of which will be of substantial use to the North Koreans and the Chinese on both sides of the border in suppressing efforts to aid escapees and those who remain behind. Mr. Park may not die for his efforts, but there is reason to believe that other people with lower profiles (working clandestinely) may well die as a result of the position he has put himself in and make doing anything for North Koreans in and out of the country much more difficult.
As a Bible clinger myself, I have absolutely no problem with the gentleman’s choice to do what he did, however wise or unwise in the eyes of men. However, I fervantly hope that he is not presuming on American taxpayer dollars in the hundreds of millions (or a billion?) to make it all right and get him out of there.
He is responsible for his own predicament just as surely as he would be if he fell asleep driving at 75 mph because he hadn’t slept for 3 days—on purpose—to prove a point.
Mr Parks action will probably be pointless, as it’s extremely likely he would have been isolated immediately from any crowds. He probably would have been busted within the hour, brought to a detention centre, where a interogatation ‘procedure’ would start.
His initial passion, advocacy will probably wear off within a number of days once he realizes he’s gonna spend a helluva long time in a cold isolation cell.
I think he should have been stopped by his ‘friends’. Anyone hearing him speak can see immediately he is not in a right frame of mind, and probably bordering on delusional.
Most likely Mr Park is a nobody in his own country, and finds that probably hard to accept. As a way of escapism of this fact, he fantasizes about grand things he can possibly do, thus convincing himself he can bring peace to North Korea – not fully appreciating the actual reality of NK.
Good luck to him, let’s hope he’ll get deported rather sooner than later, and if he is, he can really thank God for that, as it would be a miracle in its own right.
12. Zeke, giving your life for others or taking innocent life? Are you blind to the difference?
Response to Zeke @12: As Steve Church pointed out at #16, if you cannot tell the difference between a suicide bomber whose objective is to kill the innocent and a person who willingly lays down his life for others, then you truly lack discernment and judgment.
Thanks to Steve Church @16.
Courage is that midpoint between cowardice and foolishness. What Park did was foolish, and only someone who can’t think clearly would characterize it otherwise. Had he not performed that stunt and remained outside North Korea, he could have worked in many other ways to achieve his religious goals.
My wife Stella & I are from Wales, UK, but have lived in the Boston area for 30 years.
Four months ago we moved back to LLanover, Wales to renovate the boyhood home of Robert Jermain Thomas, who was the first Protestant Christian martyr in Korea. Thomas was executed in Pyongyang by the Taewungun, Korean Leader, in 1886.My wife has researched & written the account of his brief life in her book entitled “Chosen for Chosun” {The old name for the “Hermit Kingdom” of Korea}. The book is available via our web site http://www.roadmin.org The knowledge of Thomas’ life & passion for Korea impelled us to learn more about this country. As a result I had a desire to follow in Thomas’ footsteps and also reach out to the people he loved. I have visited North Korea on 2 occasions in the last 3 years as part of a medical mission to build bridges of relationship with the doctors of North Korea & to assist in updating their medical knowledge as they seek to care for their own people. It was a delight to my soul to visit Suk Island,in the Taedong River, the place where Thomas was executed.
I have learned to respect the many Korean doctors I have worked alongside. There are great needs in North Korea. My wife & I want to assist in bringing positive change whenever we are able.
I am 65 years of age & have been a Family and Emergency Room Physician for 40 years. I have undertaken voluntary emergency medical relief in many regions of the world including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, Congo, United Arab Emirates and also here in USA after the Louisiana hurricanes.
As I have learned about the history of the Korean people, I have a great respect of the fearlessness of many as they have suffered persecution for their faith. I have stayed at the leprosarium in Aeyunwan, S.Korea and visited the tomb of Pastor Sohn, who had taken the murderer of his own sons into his home.He was later executed as a result of the act of love……. “No greater love for one’s fellow human being can be shown”.
Similarly I love and respect the actions of my friend Robert Park, who recently carried the Christian message of love & forgiveness to Kim Jong Il and the leaders of North Korea. What a great blessing it would be to World Peace if he was well received and his desire to bring good was publicly acknowledged. He was bringing a message of “Love & Life” ……with the ever present risk of losing his own life……..not like the deluded religious fanatic who recently tried to blow up an airplane & kill hundreds in Detroit.
Our story is not yet over as we have much work to do in welcoming the hundreds of Korean Christians who come to Wales to thank God for Thomas’ life & self sacrifice in bringing the Gospel to Korea. I believe also that our work in North Korea has only just begun and is expression of our solidarity with our Korean brothers & sisters in their quest to bring hope & healing to the Korean Peninsula.
Sincerely,
Stephen Price M.D.