"Oh, you can't believe refugees, they will tell you anything you want to hear." This quote is from Rogue Regime by Jasper Becker and is not his feeling but the attitude of UN officials back in the days before the rest of the world believed North Korea was in serious trouble. Other Western minds figured that all the horror stories coming from real eyewitnesses were some kind of South Korean plot to make the North look bad. The South Koreans on their part thought the North Koreans were making all this up to squeeze more aid and sympathy from their neighbors. Smart people who work at the Pentagon looked for mass graves with their satellite photography, as one normally sees such mounds during famines as in Africa. No mounds. Must be no graves. Must be no famine. Others knew the truth but downplayed it so as not to insult the NK government and harm nuclear negotiations.
And today it would seem that history is repeating itself. Though organizations have painstakingly sent interviewers to listen to independent stories from individual refugees... Though these eyewitnesses without corroboration continue to tell the same story of the horrors of North Korea... Though escapees and defectors join in the chorus, write books, create websites... there is still a group of politically elite folks in Eastern U.S. cities who think just like the no-holocaust crowd. They are in denial of the real North Korea. They tell us it's not really that bad. They say the NK government is being victimized. They say it's all political. They say Bush is the problem.
We Christians know about this phenomenon. In the first century Jesus told His people they would be witnesses. That was a promise, not a command. Witnesses see things. If you don't see anything, you don't say anything. Makes sense to me. We've got believers running around today like the seven sons of Sceva in Acts 19. They know the name of Jesus and try to use it to promote thier own interests, but they've never seen Jesus or known Him. They are false witnesses.
And yes, there are a lot of people who have been to North Korea. Ambassadors. Politicians. But when they are there they see what they are supposed to see and that's it. They come back, blind witnesses, telling us to hold our peace and not believe everything we're hearing. They're afraid to ignite more conflict.
Well, on this site, I will continue to see through the eyes of those who have lived there, grown up under Kim's strange and awful ways, and been forever damaged by his government. I choose to believe those who know the prisons from the inside, not satellite photography guesswork. I choose to believe those who have starved in North Korea over the soft Washingtonians who may have never missed a meal in their lives. I choose to believe ex-guards from North Korean prisons over reporters bound by a party line and a salary.
Truth is more important now than all the nuclear bombs put together. We have seen what lies will do. Rip the cover off North Korea though the stench is overwhelming, and let the healing light of Truth make it anew.
That's my prayer anyway. And my God can do all this and more. Let's keep praying.
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