There’s a new chapter in the saga of Private Travis King, the U.S. soldier who ran into North Korea from the South while on a tour of the demilitarized zone on July 18.
In its first confirmation of King’s actions, North Korea announced through its state-run media organization that the American “confessed that he had decided to come over to the DPRK as he harbored ill feeling against inhumane maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army.”
The statement continues, claiming that King “expressed his willingness to seek refuge in the DPRK or a third country, saying that he was disillusioned at [sic] the unequal American society.”
It’s important to recognize that there’s no guarantee that King said any of this. The statement falls perfectly in line with North Korean propaganda against the U.S., and it’s impossible to verify whether any of it is true.
For the sake of argument, let’s say it is. Let’s say King is so distraught about what he perceives as “inhumane maltreatment” and an “unequal American society” that he decided to defect.
This is North Korea we’re talking about. That’s like trying to escape the heat by flying into the sun.
On the long list of the DPRK’s crimes against humanity are extrajudicial state killings, abductions of civilians, and reeducation camps. The state forces children to work on farms and construction sites. Its policies “encourage human trafficking” for the purposes of both sexual exploitation and unpaid labor. Its centrally planned economy means human-caused famine (unless you’re able to bribe government officials, according to former United Nations high commissioner for human rights Michelle Bachelet).
And on the topic of racism, North Korea has an impressive record. Women suspected of having been impregnated by a foreigner are subjected to forced abortions, lest they taint the “pure Korean race.” In a famous incident, a former Cuban ambassador to the DPRK and his family — who happened to be black — were accosted by a crowd of North Koreans, which garnered no response from militiamen stationed nearby. The same state-run media network that published the King update once referred to Barack Obama as a “wicked black monkey.” After a yearlong investigation, U.N. Human Rights Council representatives declared North Korea “strikingly similar” to Nazi Germany.
As for King, his bolt across the DMZ came just days after he was released from a South Korean prison, having serving two months for assault. In February, he was fined for destruction of public goods resulting from an altercation with police — King was in police custody at the time, following an alleged assault on a nightclub patron.
Did that play any role in his cross over the DMZ? We don’t know. Yes, we should try to bring King back home. He’s an American, after all. But regardless of whether he actually said what North Korea claims he said, I’d hope the differences between that country and our own are clear to him when this is over.