Campbell: It is Asias Great Escape -- North Koreans fleeing to freedom over embassy walls. For months now, desperate adults and children have been risking all to seek asylum. It was once an impossible dream, the fortified border with North Korea trapping them like a prison wall. But after years of enduring famine and repression, North Koreans are feeling real hope of getting out , their goal to reach sanctuary in the southern capital, Seoul. And the reason is a highly effective people smuggling network, thats been set up in Seoul. Its illegal, but its not run by criminals, its run mainly by churches. And its aim is not just to help North Korean refugees, its to start a process they believe will bring down the North Korean regime. Douglas Shin is Gods smuggler. A Korean-American pastor, hes helped create what was once unthinkable -- an escape route to the south. He believes he has a divine mission to rescue North Koreans.
Douglas: I have to save and help these people who are being drowned in the sea of cult and the sea of dictatorship, in a sea of atrocities.
Campbell: The escape route is through China. Over the past year, Shin and his associates have brought out almost a thousand people. Hundreds have been smuggled to Western embassies in China, dodging police and paramilitaries in desperate sprints to freedom. Many more have escaped overland to Mongolia or Russia where theyve been granted refugee status and flown to Seoul. Shins aim is to recreate what happened in East Germany 13 years ago when a refugee exodus prompted the collapse of the Communist regime.
Douglas: It will happen and we want that to happen. And the alternative is an all out war or prolonging of this humanitarian disaster in the north. So the sooner the better.
Campbell: And Lee Soon-Ok can imagine seeing it. She recently escaped to South Korea and can scarcely believe the land of plenty shes come to.
Lee: Living in North Korea was so difficult. We had to go to the mountains to pick weeds and grass to survive.
Campbell: She has no doubt how many would follow if they could.
Lee: Now many North Koreans know how well South Koreans live. I think if South Korea said come all North Koreans, the ordinary people, would come down.
Campbell: This is where the long road to freedom begins -- North Koreas 1400 kilometre border with its communist ally, China. Unlike the border with South Korea, there are no minefields or barbed wire fences here -- just guards to check nobody sneaks across the frozen river that separates the nations. Tens of thousands of North Koreans have bribed their way across to flee the famine. But all have exchanged one prison for another. China fears a flood of North Koreans. So its refused to class them as refugees or let them travel further. Instead, its tried to hunt them down and send them back to North Korea.
Douglas: So they are sent to political prisoners camp forever if they are a repeated offender, or they are tried and sent to penitentiary, or in case of first time offender and little children or women, maybe the penalty is a little bit lighter, but across the board its about seven years.
Campbell: Nobodys sure how many North Koreans are hiding here but all are classed as illegal economic migrants. Chinese authorities have erected signs threatening to punish anyone who helps them. These photographs, obtained by Douglas Shin, show the state to which they can be reduced -- families hiding in rubbish dumps in the latter stages of malnutrition. Those healthy enough to work live at the mercy of unscrupulous police and businessmen. Park Young-Hee fled to China four years ago. A landlord gave her a place to stay -- then sold her for 250 dollars.
Park: I didnt like that man and said I wouldnt live in this house, Id find somewhere else. I ran away. I was away, and was away for five days but the landlord blackmailed me, threatening to report me.
Campbell: She was not just forced to marry a stranger, she also bore his child.
Park: The landlord said if I dont live with him hed report me and send me back to North Korea to starve and suffer. He said Now youve been fed in China youve forgotten I never imagine that getting married would be such a sad thing.
Campbell: South Korean Christians have flocked to Douglas Shins campaign to rescue refugees from such misery. Presbyterian Pastor Chun Ki Won has personally brought out more 150 people. He decided to lead escape attempts after he saw North Koreans plight during a visit to northern China.
Chun: Since they are living illegally in China neighbours report them for the reward, and the police arrest them. They dont have human rights. Fifteen to seventeen year old girls are sold to 40 or 50-year-old men for $50 to $100 dollars. They often beat their children, are abused and beaten. North Korean refugee men do not get paid for their work.
Campbell: In October 2001 Pastor Chun travelled to the Chinese city of Harbin to bring a dozen asylum seekers to safety. The plan -- to cross by rail to the frontier town of Manzhouli, then by foot to Mongolia. Their escape bid was recorded on tape to prepare future asylum seekers for the perils ahead. The group included Lee Soon-Ok and Park Young-Hee. Weve disguised the faces of some other refugees who fear their families could be punished if theyre identified.
Man 1: There are two ways you can go this way or that way -- but this is the fast way to get there.
Man 2: Yes, its faster and safer.
Chun [?] : We cant see it on the map, but I know theres a way to cross the border.
Man 2: Yes, its there.
Chun [?]: So be sure to go there.
Campbell: For three days, the refugees were briefed in a safe house on what to do and say.Each person was given a fake ID card. They would have to pass as Chinese at every document check. And it wasnt long before the risk became reality. At the train station, the first checkpoint brought the first arrest.
Lee: One guy was stopped and questioned, but didnt get through because he couldnt speak Chinese and didnt have proper I.D.
Campbell: Then more document checks inside the train. Park Young-Hee had more to lose than anyone. She was travelling with her daughter.
Park: I felt heartbroken, thinking of my childs future. Growing up in China without I.D. would be so painful for her, so I insisted on bringing my baby with me.
Campbell: By morning they had reached the town of Manzhouli near the Mongolian border. Once again in a safe house, they gathered supplies and readied for the final dash to Mongolia. Mrs Lee made what she feared would be her last phone call to her sons, also hiding in northern China.
Lee: This is your mum. Are you there? What? Yes, tonight. I'm halfway there.
Campbell: They drove as close as possible to the border, ever fearful of Chinese patrols. The weather had turned cold; the snow had come early. The crossing would be even more dangerous. After saying goodbye to their helpers, they faced a 12 hour walk through the night. Battling exhaustion, Park Young-Hee carried her daughter the entire way.
Park: I even thought Id rather die there -- but I had my baby on my back and I had to be responsible for her. So I gritted my teeth and kept walking. When I saw the Mongolian border it gave me strength. The river there was twenty metres wide, and very icy. We both got frozen from wading through it and I lost all my toenails.
Campbell: Once in Mongolia, they were granted refugee status and flown to South Korea. But the man who brought them out -- Pastor Chun Ki Won -- was later caught by Chinese police and jailed for seven months.
Chun: Although we violate Chinese domestic laws, they are only created to suit their own ends. Common sense says laws should be there to protect peoples lives and human rights. China knows full well what happens to refugees when theyre caught and sent back to North Korea.
Campbell: There is one other way out for North Koreans thats far less gruelling than the overland escapes but perhaps even more dangerous. Its here in Beijings diplomatic district where freedom can come just by jumping over an embassy wall. This escape route is far more than a way to freedom. Its become a battleground between activists and the Chinese Government over the treatment of North Korean refugees. Since May last year, Korean church groups and their allies have organised mass asylum bids at Western embassies and consulates. Theyve risked arrest every time. Not only does China refuse to recognise North Koreans as refugees -- Chinese police are under orders to stop them defecting. In this asylum bid at the South Korean embassy, police pushed and punched six diplomats and tried to drag the North Koreans back outside.The people smugglers have tipped off Western media before every asylum bid, despite the risk of alerting police. Part of the aim has been to cause maximum embarrassment to the Chinese authorities.
Norbert: Most of the time I like to create trouble, to create a confusion
Campbell: Norbert Vollersten has been a key instigator of the embassy escapes. Hes an associate of Douglas Shin, but unlike the church groups, hes not motivated by religion.
Norbert: Im a German. I'm a German who realised that his grandfathers generation, his parents generation, was accused that they kept silent when they got some knowledge about rumours about concentration camps. And I think I have to learn out of history.
Campbell: Norbert Vollertsen spent 18 months in North Korea as an emergency doctor with the German aid group Cap Anamur. The North Korean Government awarded him its highest honour -- the Friendship Medal -- after he grafted his own skin on to a burn victim. That allowed him to travel freely around the country -- to see children starving and adults tortured. What he found reminded him of Nazi death camps.
Norbert: Im not a politician, Im not a lawyer, Im not a diplomat. Im a simple emergency doctor. And I got the knowledge, there are some rumours of concentration camps in North Korea, and there are children who are starving. So I have to speak out and as a German I have to learn out of history not to keep silent when there is some crime against humanity.
Campbell: Now based in Seoul, Dr Vollersten has become a full-time activist against North Korea and its ally China. His determination to expose Chinas treatment of asylum seekers is matched only by Chinas determination to conceal it. When North Koreans rushed the Ecuador Embassy -- inside a foreigners compound in Beijing -- police surrounded the only news crew they thought was filming. They attacked the cameraman and seized the tape, unaware another camera was recording the whole melee from the building opposite.
Norbert: We thought together with the media we can make this point when in front of television cameras there are some North Korean refugees who are detained, who are arrested, who are kicked, punished, in front of the television cameras, in front of the international community, then we can raise the issue of North Korean refugees.
Campbell: Police caught some of asylum seekers and dragged them out to be deported. But under the glare of the media spotlight, China has so far allowed all North Koreans who gain sanctuary in embassies to leave for Seoul.
Norbert: Even when we are getting arrested we dont care because the Chinese police proved, and the Chinese authority proved, that they will release our members and the North Korean refugees very soon when they are arrested in front of television cameras.
Campbell: The authorities have now surrounded the embassies with barbed wire and paramilitaries to stop asylum seekers scaling the fences. China has an agreement with North Korea to deport would be defectors. Its continued to steadfastly support its Stalinist neighbour, fearing the instability that could follow the regimes collapse.
Norbert: Whenever you are dealing with a dictatorship they will fight back. There will be a crackdown, and the Chinese authorities are not amused about our activities, so first there will be a crackdown, but in the long run I am very much convinced that we will succeed.
Campbell: The refugees themselves have no interest in geopolitics. Theyre just trying to find a better life. Mrs Lee has used a grant from the South Korean Government to set up a restaurant. She will never go hungry again. Two of her sons have also made the journey from China. But she worries about the fate of her third son still trapped in North Korea.
Lee: I cry everyday. It breaks my heart to think of him. I will work hard to make money and bring him here.
Campbell: Park Young-Hee has had a harder time. Her relatives in North Korea were jailed in apparent retaliation for her escape.
Park: Every time I go to church I pray for them to be released. I heard my younger sister was sent to prison for six years -- and my mother for three years. Whenever I think about it I feel as if my heart is being ripped apart.
Campbell: The refugees whove escape are a tiny fraction of the population, but perhaps the start of something much bigger. Every one of them has left loved ones behind. And none will have true peace until their families and friends can join them too.
Douglas: I have to save and help these people who are being drowned in the sea of cult and the sea of dictatorship, in a sea of atrocities.
Campbell: The escape route is through China. Over the past year, Shin and his associates have brought out almost a thousand people. Hundreds have been smuggled to Western embassies in China, dodging police and paramilitaries in desperate sprints to freedom. Many more have escaped overland to Mongolia or Russia where theyve been granted refugee status and flown to Seoul. Shins aim is to recreate what happened in East Germany 13 years ago when a refugee exodus prompted the collapse of the Communist regime.
Douglas: It will happen and we want that to happen. And the alternative is an all out war or prolonging of this humanitarian disaster in the north. So the sooner the better.
Campbell: And Lee Soon-Ok can imagine seeing it. She recently escaped to South Korea and can scarcely believe the land of plenty shes come to.
Lee: Living in North Korea was so difficult. We had to go to the mountains to pick weeds and grass to survive.
Campbell: She has no doubt how many would follow if they could.
Lee: Now many North Koreans know how well South Koreans live. I think if South Korea said come all North Koreans, the ordinary people, would come down.
Campbell: This is where the long road to freedom begins -- North Koreas 1400 kilometre border with its communist ally, China. Unlike the border with South Korea, there are no minefields or barbed wire fences here -- just guards to check nobody sneaks across the frozen river that separates the nations. Tens of thousands of North Koreans have bribed their way across to flee the famine. But all have exchanged one prison for another. China fears a flood of North Koreans. So its refused to class them as refugees or let them travel further. Instead, its tried to hunt them down and send them back to North Korea.
Douglas: So they are sent to political prisoners camp forever if they are a repeated offender, or they are tried and sent to penitentiary, or in case of first time offender and little children or women, maybe the penalty is a little bit lighter, but across the board its about seven years.
Campbell: Nobodys sure how many North Koreans are hiding here but all are classed as illegal economic migrants. Chinese authorities have erected signs threatening to punish anyone who helps them. These photographs, obtained by Douglas Shin, show the state to which they can be reduced -- families hiding in rubbish dumps in the latter stages of malnutrition. Those healthy enough to work live at the mercy of unscrupulous police and businessmen. Park Young-Hee fled to China four years ago. A landlord gave her a place to stay -- then sold her for 250 dollars.
Park: I didnt like that man and said I wouldnt live in this house, Id find somewhere else. I ran away. I was away, and was away for five days but the landlord blackmailed me, threatening to report me.
Campbell: She was not just forced to marry a stranger, she also bore his child.
Park: The landlord said if I dont live with him hed report me and send me back to North Korea to starve and suffer. He said Now youve been fed in China youve forgotten I never imagine that getting married would be such a sad thing.
Campbell: South Korean Christians have flocked to Douglas Shins campaign to rescue refugees from such misery. Presbyterian Pastor Chun Ki Won has personally brought out more 150 people. He decided to lead escape attempts after he saw North Koreans plight during a visit to northern China.
Chun: Since they are living illegally in China neighbours report them for the reward, and the police arrest them. They dont have human rights. Fifteen to seventeen year old girls are sold to 40 or 50-year-old men for $50 to $100 dollars. They often beat their children, are abused and beaten. North Korean refugee men do not get paid for their work.
Campbell: In October 2001 Pastor Chun travelled to the Chinese city of Harbin to bring a dozen asylum seekers to safety. The plan -- to cross by rail to the frontier town of Manzhouli, then by foot to Mongolia. Their escape bid was recorded on tape to prepare future asylum seekers for the perils ahead. The group included Lee Soon-Ok and Park Young-Hee. Weve disguised the faces of some other refugees who fear their families could be punished if theyre identified.
Man 1: There are two ways you can go this way or that way -- but this is the fast way to get there.
Man 2: Yes, its faster and safer.
Chun [?] : We cant see it on the map, but I know theres a way to cross the border.
Man 2: Yes, its there.
Chun [?]: So be sure to go there.
Campbell: For three days, the refugees were briefed in a safe house on what to do and say.Each person was given a fake ID card. They would have to pass as Chinese at every document check. And it wasnt long before the risk became reality. At the train station, the first checkpoint brought the first arrest.
Lee: One guy was stopped and questioned, but didnt get through because he couldnt speak Chinese and didnt have proper I.D.
Campbell: Then more document checks inside the train. Park Young-Hee had more to lose than anyone. She was travelling with her daughter.
Park: I felt heartbroken, thinking of my childs future. Growing up in China without I.D. would be so painful for her, so I insisted on bringing my baby with me.
Campbell: By morning they had reached the town of Manzhouli near the Mongolian border. Once again in a safe house, they gathered supplies and readied for the final dash to Mongolia. Mrs Lee made what she feared would be her last phone call to her sons, also hiding in northern China.
Lee: This is your mum. Are you there? What? Yes, tonight. I'm halfway there.
Campbell: They drove as close as possible to the border, ever fearful of Chinese patrols. The weather had turned cold; the snow had come early. The crossing would be even more dangerous. After saying goodbye to their helpers, they faced a 12 hour walk through the night. Battling exhaustion, Park Young-Hee carried her daughter the entire way.
Park: I even thought Id rather die there -- but I had my baby on my back and I had to be responsible for her. So I gritted my teeth and kept walking. When I saw the Mongolian border it gave me strength. The river there was twenty metres wide, and very icy. We both got frozen from wading through it and I lost all my toenails.
Campbell: Once in Mongolia, they were granted refugee status and flown to South Korea. But the man who brought them out -- Pastor Chun Ki Won -- was later caught by Chinese police and jailed for seven months.
Chun: Although we violate Chinese domestic laws, they are only created to suit their own ends. Common sense says laws should be there to protect peoples lives and human rights. China knows full well what happens to refugees when theyre caught and sent back to North Korea.
Campbell: There is one other way out for North Koreans thats far less gruelling than the overland escapes but perhaps even more dangerous. Its here in Beijings diplomatic district where freedom can come just by jumping over an embassy wall. This escape route is far more than a way to freedom. Its become a battleground between activists and the Chinese Government over the treatment of North Korean refugees. Since May last year, Korean church groups and their allies have organised mass asylum bids at Western embassies and consulates. Theyve risked arrest every time. Not only does China refuse to recognise North Koreans as refugees -- Chinese police are under orders to stop them defecting. In this asylum bid at the South Korean embassy, police pushed and punched six diplomats and tried to drag the North Koreans back outside.The people smugglers have tipped off Western media before every asylum bid, despite the risk of alerting police. Part of the aim has been to cause maximum embarrassment to the Chinese authorities.
Norbert: Most of the time I like to create trouble, to create a confusion
Campbell: Norbert Vollersten has been a key instigator of the embassy escapes. Hes an associate of Douglas Shin, but unlike the church groups, hes not motivated by religion.
Norbert: Im a German. I'm a German who realised that his grandfathers generation, his parents generation, was accused that they kept silent when they got some knowledge about rumours about concentration camps. And I think I have to learn out of history.
Campbell: Norbert Vollertsen spent 18 months in North Korea as an emergency doctor with the German aid group Cap Anamur. The North Korean Government awarded him its highest honour -- the Friendship Medal -- after he grafted his own skin on to a burn victim. That allowed him to travel freely around the country -- to see children starving and adults tortured. What he found reminded him of Nazi death camps.
Norbert: Im not a politician, Im not a lawyer, Im not a diplomat. Im a simple emergency doctor. And I got the knowledge, there are some rumours of concentration camps in North Korea, and there are children who are starving. So I have to speak out and as a German I have to learn out of history not to keep silent when there is some crime against humanity.
Campbell: Now based in Seoul, Dr Vollersten has become a full-time activist against North Korea and its ally China. His determination to expose Chinas treatment of asylum seekers is matched only by Chinas determination to conceal it. When North Koreans rushed the Ecuador Embassy -- inside a foreigners compound in Beijing -- police surrounded the only news crew they thought was filming. They attacked the cameraman and seized the tape, unaware another camera was recording the whole melee from the building opposite.
Norbert: We thought together with the media we can make this point when in front of television cameras there are some North Korean refugees who are detained, who are arrested, who are kicked, punished, in front of the television cameras, in front of the international community, then we can raise the issue of North Korean refugees.
Campbell: Police caught some of asylum seekers and dragged them out to be deported. But under the glare of the media spotlight, China has so far allowed all North Koreans who gain sanctuary in embassies to leave for Seoul.
Norbert: Even when we are getting arrested we dont care because the Chinese police proved, and the Chinese authority proved, that they will release our members and the North Korean refugees very soon when they are arrested in front of television cameras.
Campbell: The authorities have now surrounded the embassies with barbed wire and paramilitaries to stop asylum seekers scaling the fences. China has an agreement with North Korea to deport would be defectors. Its continued to steadfastly support its Stalinist neighbour, fearing the instability that could follow the regimes collapse.
Norbert: Whenever you are dealing with a dictatorship they will fight back. There will be a crackdown, and the Chinese authorities are not amused about our activities, so first there will be a crackdown, but in the long run I am very much convinced that we will succeed.
Campbell: The refugees themselves have no interest in geopolitics. Theyre just trying to find a better life. Mrs Lee has used a grant from the South Korean Government to set up a restaurant. She will never go hungry again. Two of her sons have also made the journey from China. But she worries about the fate of her third son still trapped in North Korea.
Lee: I cry everyday. It breaks my heart to think of him. I will work hard to make money and bring him here.
Campbell: Park Young-Hee has had a harder time. Her relatives in North Korea were jailed in apparent retaliation for her escape.
Park: Every time I go to church I pray for them to be released. I heard my younger sister was sent to prison for six years -- and my mother for three years. Whenever I think about it I feel as if my heart is being ripped apart.
Campbell: The refugees whove escape are a tiny fraction of the population, but perhaps the start of something much bigger. Every one of them has left loved ones behind. And none will have true peace until their families and friends can join them too.