By Casey Lartigue Jr.

 

It has been said that everything is brand new to those who don’t know history. Earlier this year, I was interviewed live on Arirang TV about recent “creative” escapes by North Korean refugees. The inspiration for the interview was a pair of newspaper articles in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post highlighting modern-day defection stories and portraying them as unprecedented responses to the Kim regime’s tightening grip.

One point I made during the interview is that this narrative misses a critical point: for decades, defectors have defied overwhelming odds to escape to freedom, and their stories deserve to be remembered even when reporters believe they have found something new.

The Washington Post highlighted a family that bravely escaped in a rickety boat in 2023. But in 1984, several North Korean fishermen sailed across the Sea of Japan to Japan, eventually receiving asylum in South Korea. In 1998, a family braved rough currents and North Korean patrols in a fishing boat to reach South Korea. In 2019, four defectors used a small boat to cross the East Sea.

Even under heavy surveillance, defectors have taken to the skies to escape North Korea. In 1953, Lt. No Kum-sok flew a Soviet MiG-15 jet to Gimpo Air Base in South Korea, a story later chronicled by Blaine Harden in “The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot.” Decades later, in 1994, Lt. Cho Chang-ho crossed the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in a helicopter with his family. In 1996, another North Korean pilot flew a MiG-19 fighter jet to South Korea.

The most perilous route remains the DMZ, a deadly, fortified strip dividing North and South Korea. I have personally met three North Koreans who escaped directly across the DMZ, including one who shot another North Korean soldier on patrol with him before fleeing across the border.

In 1967, Lee Soo-keun, vice president of the North Korean Central News Agency, leaped into a U.N. Command vehicle at Panmunjom under fire from North Korean troops. (He was later executed as an accused spy).

In 1977, a young North Korean soldier stole his sergeant’s lunch and fled across the DMZ to avoid retaliation. That same year, a North Korean farmer defected across the DMZ to South Korea, describing widespread starvation and harsh living conditions in North Korea. In 2017, soldier Oh Chong Song sprinted across the DMZ under heavy gunfire from his comrades. In 2018, a North Korean soldier swam across a river in the DMZ to reach South Korea.

Embassies have often served as temporary sanctuaries for North Korean defectors. In March 2002, about two dozen North Koreans rushed into the Spanish Embassy in Beijing. In May 2002, numerous North Koreans sought asylum by entering various foreign diplomatic missions in Beijing, including U.S., Canadian and Japanese consulates. The frequency of such escapes led China to fortify embassies against defectors. Later that same year, 36 North Koreans, including two babies, navigated through China and other third countries before arriving in Seoul.

Learning about these escapes evokes the ingenuity and determination seen in other historic struggles for freedom, such as enslaved Black people in America escaping to freedom, East Germans scaling the Berlin Wall and Jews fleeing Nazi persecution. Enslaved Black people often relied on disguises and false identity papers to pass as free Black people or even as White individuals. Others hid in boxes, barrels or containers to be shipped to free states, like Henry “Box” Brown, who escaped by mailing himself in a wooden crate from Virginia to Philadelphia.

Everything is brand new to those who don’t know history. History shows that ingenuity and courage have always defined escapes from one of the world’s most repressive regimes.

I also take issue with the categorization of escapes as “creative.” From what I have heard from North Korean refugees, they did what was necessary and within their capability to escape to freedom, not that there was anything “creative” about their escapes. Many North Korean refugees, such as my co-author, Han Song-mi, escaped across the border to China while being shot at by North Korean guards.

While the daring escapes inspire us, they also serve as a reminder of the ongoing human rights crisis in North Korea. Each successful defection sheds light on the lives of those left behind and challenges us to do more to support those who risk everything for freedom. Plus, let’s remember that after these daring escapes, there is the reality that North Korean refugees escaping to freedom are adjusting to the challenge of living in freedom.

As we hear these stories, let’s remember that behind every statistic is a human life. The courage and resilience “or creativity” of North Korean defectors deserve our admiration. For those of you who want to help share such stories, my email is in my bio.

Casey Lartigue Jr. (CJL@alumni.harvard.edu) is the co-founder of Freedom Speakers International with Lee Eun-koo; and co-author with Han Song-mi of her memoir “Greenlight to Freedom: A North Korean Daughter’s Search for Her Mother and Herself.”