Yeonmi
Park: The Defector Who Fooled the World
I’m
writing this message because I care about human rights and North
Korean defectors. I was initially a big supporter of Yeonmi Park
until I read Mary Ann Jolley’s
exposé at the Diplomat.com. Then I realized something was very
wrong with Yeonmi’s story. So I began to do some research. The more
I researched, the more shocked and outraged I became at the extent of
her lies.
Many
people are still unaware of Jolley’s article or are not willing to
believe that Yeonmi is misleading us. I made this document for
everyone to see the truth. Ms. Park is doing serious harm to the
human rights field and to North Korean defectors. After she is
exposed, many people around the world are going to feel betrayed.
They may not be willing to listen or care about other defectors. That
would be a tragic mistake, since many other defectors are surely
honest and deserve our support.
The
other reason I made this document was the suspicious Yeonmi Park
Foundation website. Mary Ann Jolley pointed out that the website had
a PayPal donate button, but there was no mention of how the money
would be used. I was concerned that honest people who want to help
defectors might be sending their money into the wrong hands. I was
relieved when Yeonmi responded to the Diplomat.com article by taking
her foundation website down.
Her
explanation (“it was a dummy website made by a friend that
accidentally went live and couldn’t really receive donations”) is
obviously very dubious. We should thank Jolley for helping to ensure
that donations to defectors go through reputable charities, with
oversight and clear guidelines for how the money will be used.
I’m
still very concerned that Yeonmi and some of the people around her
have a high potential to mislead others and harm North Korean
defector causes. So I’m sending this document out in the hopes that
you will help spread the truth. This information can be shared via
email, as a web-link
from my blogger website or downloaded as a PDF
at Scribd.com.
I’ve
divided this document into four parts. Part I includes the most
serious questions for Yeonmi. I ask that if Yeonmi responds to these
questions, she do it in the order that the questions are posed. I
think the responses to the Diplomat.com exposé by Yeonmi and her
promoter, Casey Lartigue Jr., were very misleading and vague. I’ve
challenged their responses in Part II. Part III includes some of
Yeonmi’s other suspicious and inconsistent stories, but I don't
want any questions from Part III to be discussed until Part I is
addressed first. People have been distracted or confused by less
important questions while missing the big picture. Part IV is the
conclusion.
PART
I: KEY QUESTIONS FOR YEONMI PARK
YEONMI’S
ESCAPE FROM NORTH KOREA:
Q1:
DID YEONMI CROSS THE BORDER INTO CHINA SAFELY WITH BOTH PARENTS
(VERSION 1), OR WAS HER MOM RAPED IN FRONT OF HER BECAUSE HER FATHER
WAS NOT THERE TO PROTECT THEM (VERSION 2)?
VERSION
1: YEONMI
AND HER PARENTS
CROSSED
THE BORDER TOGETHER.
THE
FATHER
WAS THERE
TO PROTECT THEM, AND
THERE IS NO
MENTION OF THE RAPE STORY.
I
Am a North Korean Millennial - Yeonmi Park (July
10, 2014)
7:58
I
went to China with my family
- so my mom, my father, and I
had an older sister…but I lost her. Three
people went to China,
and for the first time I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Insight:
S2014 Ep8 - Changing a Mindset (April
8, 2014 talk show
interview)
45:00
- “In 2007,
I left North Korea with
my mom and my father,
without my sister.
5:30-5:40
- “I
escaped
with my mom and father
– the three of us.”
TEDxHangang
5th Event 박연미
|
박연미 |
TEDxHangang (July 26,
2014)
5:15
(Yeonmi speaking Korean) “I
decided with my parents to leave the country…
I crossed the Yalu River.”
At
just 16, Eun-mi fled the country with a friend. Her family was
devastated.
Desperate
to find her sister, Yeon-mi
and her parents walked across
the
mountains to the border, where they
bribed guards to cross the Tumen River to China.
But
there was no sign of Eun-mi.
(Journalist
Mary Ann Jolley):
Park
told us
and
a libertarian radio station
in San Francisco earlier this year that four days after her older
sister fled the country, she
and her mother and father crossed to China together.
In
her interview with us she recalled the feeling she had as she crossed
the river …
“And
there were cars to get us because
of
the connections [her
father’s business connections]
with
Chinese
people and
then
we
went to China directly.”
Comment:
In numerous
interviews and her own speeches,
Yeonmi says that she crossed the border into China with her mom and
dad.
In
these speeches and interviews before she became famous, she never
mentions the story of her mother being raped.
*************
SUDDENLY, THE STORY CHANGED ******************
VERSION
2:
ONLY
YEONMI AND HER MOM
CROSSED
THE BORDER INTO CHINA (WITHOUT
HER FATHER),
AND SINCE THEY WERE VULNERABLE, YEONMI’S
MOTHER WAS RAPED.
CONSIDERING
THE ABRUPT
CHANGE IN NARRATIVE,
DOES
ANYONE HONESTLY BELIEVE THIS RAPE STORY IS TRUE?
And
so, on the night of March 30 2007, Yeonmi
and her mother
made their way towards the border with
the help of a people smuggler.
Yeonmi’s
father stayed behind,
to minimise
the risks.
They crossed three mountains and finally came to a frozen river that
separated the two countries.
When
Yeonmi stopped she found herself in the Chinese province of Jilin.
Here, Yeonmi and her mother set about trying to find her sister. But
she was nowhere to be found and the local
people smugglers refused
to help.
One
even threatened to turn them in to Chinese authorities unless he was
allowed to have sex with Yeonmi.
Yeonmi’s
mother
implored
the man to leave her daughter alone and
offered
herself instead.
‘She
had no choice,’ Yeonmi
says. ‘Literally, in
front of me, he raped her.’
A
few days later Yeonmi’s father, who
had become concerned about their lengthy absence,
slipped across the border and managed to join them.
Note:
Previously,
Yeonmi said that her
parents bribed border guards
to get across the border. Now,
Yeonmi is saying that she and her mother were guided
across by a people smuggler.
On
the night of March 30, 2007, Yeonmi and her mother set out to join
Eunmi. Guided by a
people smuggler,
they crossed a frozen river that separated the two countries.
When
they arrived in the Chinese province of Jilin, local
authorities refused to help them find Eunmi. One demanded to have sex
with Yeonmi,
who
was barely 14,
and threatened to send her and her mother back to North Korea if she
didn’t oblige.
When her mother begged for mercy, she was raped instead. “She told
me to turn around, but I could hear her crying. It seemed like he had
done this a thousand times.”
Soon
they were joined by
Yeonmi’s father.
Note:
The same inconsistencies are repeated in this article, but now
she claims it was a local authority
in China who raped her mother instead
of a people smuggler.
Comment:
Crossing the border from North Korea to China is very risky and
dangerous. Many North Koreans get caught trying and sent to prison.
After
Yeonmi’s sister went missing, would
the family risk further separation by
leaving the father behind in North Korea, while
the mother and young daughter venture into China alone?
The
family
would have to risk two separate border crossings, plus the potential
trafficking of Yeonmi and her mom,
instead of all going together.
Yeonmi’s
original
story, that she and her parents crossed the border together, is
probably true,
which would make the story
of her mother’s rape false.
Park
was referring to a moment when, separated
from her father,
her mother was raped in front of her by a people smuggler who
had threatened to turn them into the Chinese authorities unless
he could have sex with the 13-year-old Park. Desperate to protect
her daughter, her mother offered herself instead.
“When
I was 13, I
saw my mother raped in front of my own eyes.
The rapist targeted me and wanted to have sex with me. I didn’t
even know the word sex. My mother got raped instead, and she
sacrificed herself to be raped for me.”
Comment:
Look
at the dates of when she is telling different versions of her escape
story.
Version
1
of her escape story (she crossed with her parents, no mention of
rape) occurred earlier
in 2014, when she was lesser known.
After
the growing media attention, she suddenly starts telling Version 2
(she only crossed the border with her mom, and her mom was raped).
Q2:
DID YEONMI WITNESS OR EXPERIENCE STARVATION/EATING GRASS TO SURVIVE
IN NORTH KOREA?
VERSION
ONE: YEONMI
NEVER EVEN SAW ANYONE STARVING OR EATING GRASS TO SURVIVE,
AND SHE DEFINITELY
DIDN’T
EXPERIENCE THAT HERSELF.
Yeonmi
on the South Korean talk show “Now On My Way to Meet You,”
featuring North Korean defectors telling stories about their lives
(During
this show, Yeonmi’s pseudonym was “Yae-ju”)
(Conversation
from 2:00-4:00 in the YouTube clip)
(Host
Nam Hee Seok): When
other members on the show mentioned that they were eating grass and
starving, Yae-ju
(Yeonmi)
said, “We didn’t have that kind of situation in North Korea!”
Why
did she say that? She didn’t witness that kind of situation when
she was young?
(Yeonmi’s
Mom): “We were not
that rich, but at least we weren’t suffering.”
(Her
mom then says
that other North Koreans would ask Yae-ju (Yeonmi) about what kind of
rice she was eating, since others
couldn’t afford to eat white rice. But Yeonmi only ate white rice.)
Mom:
Her father did his best to give his kids a better life, so…the
kids didn’t know the truth about what was going on in North Korea.
So when
Yae-ju (Yeonmi) came on this show, it was her opportunity to learn
the real truth about North Korea”
(from other members on this show).
Yeonmi’s
Mom: Sometimes after
filming, Yae-ju
(Yeonmi)
called me and asked, ‘Mom,
am I really North Korean?
Because I couldn’t understand what the other members on the show
were talking about.’
She
thought other members were totally lying (about the hunger and other
hardships they witnessed and experienced).
Host:
Right.
When she came here for the first time, she
said that they were lying!
Yeonmi’s
Mom: Yes, but I watched that episode, and what the other members said
is totally true.
COMMENT:
SO…ON A TALK SHOW IN
JANUARY
2013,
LONG
BEFORE
SHE BECAME FAMOUS, YEONMI SAID SHE
NEVER EVEN SAW ANYONE STARVING OR EATING GRASS
TO SURVIVE.
**AFTER
INCREASING MEDIA ATTENTION,
HER
STORY CHANGED AGAIN **
VERSION
TWO: YEONMI
NOW SAYS SHE WITNESSED OTHERS STARVING/EATING GRASS AND BUGS, AND
YEONMI
ACTUALLY STARVED AND ATE GRASS/BUGS TO SURVIVE.
BBC
News: 'I escaped death in North Korea' (October
29, 2014)
2:18
(Yeonmi) Just only
what we knew was that if we are staying here, we were going to die
from (lack of) food… I
was the one who starved… I literally had to eat grass, dragonflies
and frozen potatoes.
Yeonmi,
then nine, and her 11-year-old sister, Eunmi, lived on their own
during that time, eating rice, dragonflies,
frogs, and grass to survive.
Yeonmi
and her sister, Eunmi
were left to fend for themselves, at the age of nine and 11, foraging
on the mountainsides for grasses, plants, frogs and even dragonflies
to avoid starving to death. "Everything I used to see, I ate
them,"
she said.
Asked
if any adults around knew the children were surviving alone, Yeonmi
tries to explain.
"People
were dying there. They don't care... most people are just hungry
and that's why they don't have the spirit or time to take care of
other people."
Hong
Kong Special [North Korea Today (feat. Casey & Yeonmi)] September
2014
3:16
(Yeonmi) During the Great Famine time, and even
not during the Great Famine,
for me to
watch dead bodies was my routine life.
That’s how many people were dying from (lack of) food, and
starving.
Q3:
WHAT HAPPENED TO YEONMI AND HER SISTER AFTER THEIR PARENTS WERE
IMPRISONED?
VERSION
ONE: THEY WERE
ALL SEPARATED. YEONMI
LIVED WITH HER AUNT AND HER SISTER LIVED WITH HER UNCLE.
4:10
(Yeonmi) After my mother and father went to prison, the
four of us all separated.
So my
sister
went to my uncle’s house, and I went to my aunt’s house
-- and
I lived there for three years.
VERSION
TWO:
YEONMI
(9) AND HER SISTER (11) LIVED ALONE,
AND STRUGGLED
TO SURVIVE BY EATING GRASS, BUGS,
ETC.
Her
mother, too, was interrogated and thrown into jail.
Yeonmi
and her sister, Eunmi were left to fend for themselves,
at the age of nine and 11, foraging on the mountainsides for grasses,
plants, frogs and even dragonflies to avoid starving to death.
"Everything I used to see, I ate them," she said.
Yeonmi’s
speech at the One Young World Summit in Dublin
2:10
(James Chau) I
asked her, where did you live? And she said, “With my sister.”
(her sister was 11
and Yeonmi was 9).
2:22
They survived by going into the mountains and picking the grass and
the flowers for their food.
2:18
(reporter) Who looked
after you?
2:20
(Yeonmi) Nobody.
My sister and I (looked after ourselves)…
We had to find ways to eat and I had to learn how to cook.
2:50
I ate dragonflies and frogs on the mountain.
The
girls ate dragonflies, frogs, tree bark, and grass… “We had to
survive,” says Yeonmi.
YEONMI’S
PUBLIC EXECUTION STORY
Q4:
DID YEONMI REALLY SEE HER BEST FRIEND’S MOM PUBLICLY EXECUTED IN
2002?
--DUE
TO SOUTH KOREAN DRAMAS, A HOLLYWOOD MOVIE OR A JAMES BOND MOVIE?
--EXECUTED
IN A STADIUM, OR ON THE STREET?
--HOW
OLD WAS YEONMI AT THE TIME, ELEVEN OR NINE?
YEONMI
PARK: (One of my best friends), her
mum
saw some like American
dramas or like South Korean dramas
and
then she got caught and then they decided to like give her like
punishment as like public execution.
So I went there with her, my friends, and there I…"
JENNY
BROCKIE: This was to see your friend's mother executed?
YEONMI
PARK: Yeah, like public
execution
in
a big stadium.
I must be there, it's like I need to.
JENNY
BROCKIE: How old were you when that happened?
YEONMI
PARK: I
was eleven
and
I was with my friends.
When
she
was nine,
she was forced to watch
her best friend's mother being executed
on the street
before her eyes.
Her
only crime had been she had watched
a James Bond movie
and shared the DVDs with neighbours.
Watching
her body crumble to the ground was a seismic moment in how Yeonmi
viewed the world.
Yeonmi
Park was nine
years old
when she was invited to watch her best friend’s mother be shot.
Her
crime was having watched
South
Korean films
and
lending the DVDs to friends.
Her
punishment
in this most paranoid of dictatorships was death by firing squad.
2:05-
2:45 My best friend’s mom was killed
for watching a Hollywood
movie.
When
she was nine
years old, Park was forced to attend the execution of her classmate’s
mother. Her crime? She
had lent a South
Korean movie
to a friend. The
townsfolk were gathered in
a large stadium
to watch the punishment.
“She
got killed in front of us,” said Park, now 20 years-old. “I
was standing next to her daughter
- my whole school
had to go.”
Question:
I read that during a public execution in North Korea, only the family
members of the victim are forced to watch in the front row, without
anyone else next to them. Is this true? If so, could Yeonmi really
have been standing next to her friend during the execution?
The
woman stood accused of watching
a contraband James
Bond DVD and
leant it to friends…It’s more than a decade later and she calmly
recalls the shots ringing out, followed by an explosion of blood.
Yeonmi’s
speech at the One Young World Summit in Dublin
10:33
(Yeonmi) When I was 9 years old, I saw my friend’s mother publicly
executed. Her crime? Watching a Hollywood
movie.
But
in Hong Kong
a few months ago, she told
an audience the woman had been caught watching South
Korean DVDs.
Irish
Independent journalist,
Nicola Anderson, in a recent online video interview
with Park seemed
confused and asked her,
“It
was a movie from South Korea wasn’t it?” Park’s response was,
“No, Hollywood movie, James Bond.”
When
Park was nine, which would have been around 2002, she says she saw
her best friend’s mother executed at a stadium in Hyesan.
But,
according
to several North Korean defectors from Hyesan who
didn’t want to be identified for fear of reprisal,
public
executions only ever took place on the outskirts of the city,
mostly at the airport, never
in the stadium or streets,
and there were none
after 2000
– the last they recall was a mass execution of ten or eleven people
in 1999.
YEONMI’S
FATHER’S BURIAL
Q5:
WAS HER FATHER’S BODY BURIED, OR WAS HE CREMATED? WHO BURIED HER
FATHER’S BODY (OR ASHES)?
MOTHER
(Translation): We paid
two people to help carry his body.
They went
deep
into the mountains
and
Yeon-mi went with them. Yeon-mi
carried her father's body.
YEON-MI
PARK: And then at 3 a.m. we had to move his body. Everybody's
sleeping and then I
buried him.
Like, at midnight, by
myself
and I was sitting there and it was so cold. There was nobody I could
call. There was nobody who came to my father's funeral. Nobody knows.
At
7.30 one cold January morning, Yeonmi’s father died. Without
documents and facing arrest and deportation if they were caught by
Chinese police, his family were forced
to bribe
a
local crematorium to destroy his body
by
night.
At
three the following morning, Yeonmi
and her mother took his remains to a nearby mountain
and
secretly buried them.
8:35
I buried
my father by
myself in
the mountain
Q6:
WHAT WERE THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF HER FATHER’S IMPRISONMENT?
The
N. Korean TV Star Standing Up To Kim Jong-Un (mini-documentary about
Yeonmi, featuring interviews with Yeonmi and her mother)
3:09
When
Yeonmi was 8,
her father was arrested
for smuggling goods to China.
Note:
Yeonmi was 8 in 2001.
I
Am a North Korean Millennial - Yeonmi Park (July 10, 2014)
2:26
In
2004,
my whole world came crashing down. My
father, my hero was arrested
for his illegal trading business.
It
was three
long years
before I saw my father again.
Note:
In 2004, Yeonmi was 11.
Three
years later (in 2007), he was released, when Yeonmi was 14.
Yeonmi’s
TEDx Talk in Bath, UK (November 2014)
1:52
In
2002, when I was 9 years old,
my whole world came crashing down. My
hero - my father - got arrested
for his illegal
business.
5:53
In
2007, after my father got out of prison
to
get treatment,
we decided to escape…
Me and my mother went to China. We climbed three mountains and
crossed the frozen river.
Note:
In 2002, Yeonmi was 9.
Above,
she said he was in
prison for 3 years (2004-2007).
Here,
she says he was in
prison for 5 years, from 2002-2007.
Yeonmi,
then nine, and her 11-year-old sister, Eunmi, lived on their own
during that time, eating rice, dragonflies, frogs, and grass to
survive. After
three years, Yeonmi’s father bribed his way out of prison
but the brutal prison
conditions had taken a toll on his health.
In
2006, they moved to the countryside,
close to the Chinese border. Yeonmi’s father was forced to forage
for food, on a lucky day returning with black, frozen potatoes. “We
couldn’t maintain our lives there because we were so hungry,” she
says. “We had to defect.”
Note:
Above, Yeonmi’s father was released from prison for medical
treatment in 2007. Here, he bribed his way out of prison in 2006.
Park
says her father was sentenced to 17 or 18 years in prison. Her mother
told us he was initially sentenced to a year, but later it was
increased to ten years.
Q7:
WHAT WERE THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF HER MOTHER’S IMPRISONMENT?
Yeonmi’s
speech at the One Young World Summit in Dublin
2:05
(James Chau) Her mother
was interrogated for three
years
and taken to prison as well.
2:10
I asked her, where did you live? And she said, “With my sister.”
(her sister was 11 and Yeonmi was 9).
2:22
They survived by going into the mountains and picking the grass and
the flowers for their food.
2:38
Three
years later her mother was released
Park’s
mother told us
prosecutors
interrogated her on and off for about
a year
– sometimes at home in Hyesan and sometimes elsewhere, because she
had worked in her husband’s trading business. But,
in a
recent
BBC
radio interview,
Park claimed her mother was imprisoned
for six months…
Her
mother
was interrogated and sent to prison for
two years.
Yeonmi, then nine, and her 11-year-old sister, Eunmi, lived on their
own during that time, eating rice, dragonflies, frogs, and grass to
survive.
3:50
My mother went to prison
for 6
months.
Video
(1:12) “My
mom was interrogated
for two
years
and then
she went to prison by
breaking a law to move.
Q8:
WAS YEONMI
REALLY FORCED TO STRIP NAKED EVERY DAY (FOR MONTHS)
WHILE SHE WAS AT A DETENTION CENTER IN
MONGOLIA?
Yeonmi
and her mother were taken to a
detention center in Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia,
where Yeonmi
was forced
to remove all of her clothes every day for months.
“I was a little girl and felt so ashamed. I kept thinking, Why do
these people have the privilege to control me like this? I’m human
too, but I wasn’t treated like one.”
Note:
In all of her
other speeches and interviews, Yeonmi never mentioned this.
Her story seems to change and grow worse with each interview.
Professor
Shi-eun Yu, who
worked as a counselor
at the South Korean processing center for
North Korean refugees,
Hanawon, for two years in the early 2000s, and Professor
Kim Hyun-ah who
worked there for five years in the mid 2000s both
told us they had never heard of anyone being stripped naked in a
detention center in Mongolia.
According
to Yu, “In the past, the
South Korean government has sent counselors over to Mongolia to help
North Korean defectors in detention…
so how can defectors be stripped naked everyday? It would cause them
more psychological distress. It’s
not possible,”
she said.
Kim
said that compared to other countries like Thailand and Russia,
Mongolia
is very supportive towards North Korean defectors and that it’s
highly unlikely that defectors would have been subjected to months of
stripping.
Comment:
Yeonmi’s story is not only wildly inconsistent, it also grows more
horrific over time. New
tales of sexual abuse are added as she becomes more famous.
Suddenly,
(in version 2) her mother was raped.
In
this article, Yeonmi
was forced to strip naked every day for months.
Not surprisingly, her claim was rejected by experts with direct
knowledge of defectors and their
treatment in Mongolian detention centers.
Q9:
WHAT WAS THE FAMILY’S PLAN AFTER YEONMI’S SISTER SUDDENLY FLED
ACROSS THE BORDER INTO CHINA?
But
before the family could put its plan into action, Eunmi,
Yeonmi’s 16-year-old sister, fled
across the border with a friend without telling them. Terrified
about how she might fare on her own, Yeonmi
and her mother decided to follow her over the border and bring
her home. Once reunited, the family would attempt a second escape
altogether.
Comment:
It is extremely dangerous and risky for a North Korean to cross the
border with China. So
Yeonmi and her mom supposedly decided to risk slipping into China
without her father to find
the sister (Eunmi) in China,
then they were going to sneak
Eunmi back across the border to North Korea, and then the whole
family was going to attempt to secretly cross the border again?
The
whole family was already committed to escaping before Eunmi abruptly
fled by herself. Wouldn’t
the father just go with Yeonmi and her mom into China to look for the
missing sister (Eunmi)? That would only require the family to cross
the border once, together.
That
was Yeonmi’s original story:
“I crossed the border with my mother and father together,” before
she started telling version 2 of her escape story (“my father
wasn’t with us so my mother was raped”). Her original story of
the three family members crossing together makes much more sense, as
the risk of capture or separation would be greatly reduced.
According
to version 2, there were three
planned border crossings -- greatly increasing the family’s chances
of being separated or captured by the authorities. It doesn’t make
a whole lot of sense.
Q10:
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER YEONMI AND HER FAMILY ESCAPED NORTH KOREA AND
ARRIVED IN CHINA?
The
N. Korean TV Star Standing Up To Kim Jong-Un (mini-documentary about
Yeonmi, featuring interviews with Yeonmi and her mother)
(4:13)
At just 16, Eun-mi fled the country with a friend. Her family was
devastated.
Desperate
to find her sister, Yeon-mi
and her parents walked across the mountains to the border, where they
bribed guards to cross the Tumen River to China.
But
there was no sign of Eun-mi.
4:35
(Yeonmi)
“We
called North Korea after we escaped. And they were saying the people
were trying to rape her (Yeonmi’s sister). And she didn’t say yes
to them so they killed her.”
Question:
So Yeonmi and her parents (she doesn’t mention the rape story in
this interview) went to China to find her sister, Eunmi, who already
fled across the border into China four days earlier.
But
in
China, Yeonmi’s family called back into North Korea (where they had
just come from), to ask people where her sister was
… and they
were told that Eunmi was killed by some people because she rejected
their attempts to rape her?
(End
of Part I)
Request:
I hope Ms. Park will respond to at least some of these questions. I
would ask her to respond to them in the order they are posed on this
document. I urge her not to sidestep any of these issues or mislead
people with vague or dishonest responses.
PART
II: YEONMI AND HER PROMOTER, CASEY LARTIGUE JR., RESPOND TO THE
DIPLOMAT.COM ARTICLE. I RESPOND TO THEM WITH FURTHER QUESTIONS.
Q11:
WHY
DIDN’T PARK OR LARTIGUE RESPOND TO JOLLEY’S CRITICISM OF YEONMI’S
VASTLY DIFFERENT ESCAPE STORIES
(QUESTION 1 ABOVE)? WHY DIDN’T THEY RESPOND TO QUESTION 3, OR OTHER
SERIOUS INCONSISTENCIES POINTED OUT BY JOLLEY?
Q12:
DID YEONMI WITNESS OR EXPERIENCE STARVATION/EATING GRASS TO SURVIVE
IN NORTH KOREA?
(question 2 above in Part I)
Rushing
to judgment on a defector (Casey Lartigue’s response to Yeonmi’s
criticism in the Diplomat.com article)
By
Casey Lartigue, Jr
When
Jolley gets things half-right, she concludes the worst about Park.
She
cites an exchange during our podcast
"North
Korea Today, featuring Casey and Yeonmi." We had been invited to
do a special live podcast in front of an audience at an exhibition
about North Korean street children. Park
wanted to avoid overshadowing the street children feature with her
own story.
Jolley
twists this to even question if Park had ever eaten grass or
dragonflies because she didn't mention it then.
We did a separate podcast in which Park talked in detail about eating
dragonflies, wild boar, grasshoppers, and sparrows when she was in
North Korea.
Comment:
This is a totally
misleading and disingenuous response.
Lartigue
misdirects and misleads the reader by commenting about the podcast,
when he clearly knows that’s not the point.
Refer
to question two above. Mary
Ann Jolley pointed out that on a South Korean talk show in early
2013 (long before Yeonmi became famous or made any podcasts with
Lartigue), Yeonmi said: “I never saw anyone eating grass or bugs to
survive in North Korea. I think other defectors who claim this are
lying.”
Later,
Yeonmi’s story drastically changed, and Yeonmi claimed that she
even ate grass and bugs to survive.
Mr.
Lartigue, why don’t you respond directly to this massive
contradiction in Yeonmi’s story?
Q13:
DID YEONMI REALLY SEE HER BEST FRIEND’S MOM PUBLICLY EXECUTED IN
2002? (question 4 above)
UPDATE:
A Response from Yeonmi Park
(December
2014, Yeonmi’s response to her criticism in the Diplomat article)
I
never said that I saw executions in Hyesan.
My
friends’ mother was executed in a small city in central North Korea
where my mother still has relatives (which is why I don’t want to
name it).
Question
13A:
(Check quotes below)
Yeonmi said she grew up in Hyesan and then Pyongyang. Then, she
moved back to Hyesan (not some small city in central North Korea)
after her father’s arrest.
She
also said it
was her classmate’s/best
friend’s mother who was publicly executed, and her whole school had
to attend the execution.
So
how can we believe that Yeonmi’s school and classmate/best friend
were located in some small city in central North Korea? According to
her quote below, she had moved back to Hyesan, and she has never
mentioned this small city in central North Korea until now.
I
Am a North Korean Millennial - Yeonmi Park (July 10, 2014)
2:26
In
2004,
my whole world came crashing down. My
father, my hero was arrested
for his illegal trading business…And
because of that, I could not live in Pyongyang anymore, so I had to
go back to Hyesan.
Comment:
So she was indeed back in Hyesan, not some small city in central
North Korea.
Note:
(In other versions of this story, Yeonmi said her father was arrested
in 2002, when she was 9.) The question is where she was before and
after his arrest. Based on her quote above, before the arrest, she
was living in Pyongyang. After the arrest, she moved back to Hyesan.
When
she was nine
years old, Park was forced to attend the execution
of her classmate’s mother.
Her crime? She had lent a South
Korean movie
to a friend. The
townsfolk were gathered in
a large stadium
to watch the punishment.
“She
got killed in front of us,” said Park, now 20 years-old. “I was
standing next to her daughter - my
whole school had to go.”
When
she was nine,
she was forced to watch
her best
friend's mother
being executed
on the street
before her eyes.
Comment:
Her
school and best friend would be in Pyongyang or Hyesan, where Yeonmi
lived, not some small city in central North Korea.
QUESTION
13B: (Check
quotes below) How
could Yeonmi suddenly arrive at a small city in central North Korea?
(This is the first time she has ever mentioned it).
After the father’s
arrest in 2002,
Yeonmi’s mother said she was interrogated “at home in Hyesan,”
meaning they still
lived in Hyesan,
not some small city in
central North Korea.
Also,
Yeonmi
said her mother was arrested for going to her hometown
because
North Korea has “no freedom of movement.” So
how did Yeonmi suddenly arrive in this small city in central North
Korea to witness a public execution
(of her best friend’s
mother, where Yeonmi’s whole school had to attend)?
Park’s
mother told us prosecutors interrogated her on and off for about a
year – sometimes at home in Hyesan
and sometimes
elsewhere, because she had worked in her husband’s trading
business. But, in a recent BBC radio interview,
Park claimed her mother was imprisoned for six months because she
went to live back in her hometown after her husband was jailed and
“because in North Korea there is no freedom of movement, not
freedom of speech…
it was against the law for the movement and that’s why she went to
prison for half a year.”
QUESTION
13C: (Check
below for quotes) Yeonmi
first lived in Hyesan until about age 5, and then started moving back
and forth between Hyesan and Pyongyang (starting at age 5),
when her father moved to Pyongyang in 1998.
But
she
also said she saw public executions from ages 1-4.
Can we believe this claim? And if so, where did she see them? They
would’ve been in Hyesan,
where she was living before age 5, but
she now claims she never saw executions in Hyesan.
UPDATE:
A Response from Yeonmi Park (December 2014, Yeonmi’s response to
her criticism in the Diplomat article)
I
never said that I saw executions in Hyesan.
(1:50)
I saw public
executions since I was age 1, 2, 3, 4.
Q14:
WHAT WERE THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF HER FATHER’S BURIAL? (QUESTION 5
ABOVE)
Rushing
to judgment on a defector (Casey Lartigue’s response to Yeonmi’s
criticism in the Diplomat.com article)
By
Casey Lartigue, Jr
Jolley
even questions details about the burial of Park's father, but I know
the story better than she does.
Out
of money, options and hope, with
her father dying of cancer in China,
Park
and her mother agreed to be sold to a Chinese farmer.
Park
has mentioned such stories in speeches and interviews
and sought to raise awareness without "sensationalizing"
being sold in China.
(The
farmer) also agreed to dispose of the body of Park's father upon his
death.
Question:
Now
they were sold to a Chinese farmer? Another version of the
story.
This
is the first we are hearing about this.
I
cannot find any speeches or interviews where Yeonmi mentioned her or
mother being sold to a Chinese farmer.
This
seems to be another lie heaped onto the rest.
Read
Yeonmi’s various accounts of her father’s burial in Part I above.
She either buried him alone, with locals, or cremated him first and
then buried the ashes with her mother. None
of the various versions include a farmer who purchased Yeonmi and her
mother, and agreed to bury the body.
*
And even if that were true, it doesn’t negate her inconsistent
accounts of the actual burial.
Q15:
WHAT
SHOULD WE BELIEVE ABOUT THE YEONMI PARK FOUNDATION? SHE HAD A WEBSITE
WITH A PAYPAL DONATE BUTTON, EVEN THOUGH SHE
DIDN’T INDICATE HOW THE MONEY WOULD BE USED.
AND
THEN, ONLY
AFTER THE DIPLOMAT ARTICLE CAME OUT, SHE APOLOGIZED FOR THE
“ACCIDENTAL WEBSITE.” …
“IT WAS JUST
A ‘DUMMY SITE BUILT BY A FRIEND’ THAT COULDN’T REALLY ACCEPT
MONEY.”
Yeonmi
Park is backed by the
American Libertarian non-profit organization, Atlas
Foundation. She’s one of its Young
Voices and has
recently started her own foundation
based in New York – you can donate online through PayPal,
but
what
exactly your money will be used for is not clear.
What is clear though, is that “Yeonmi is travelling and speaking in
2014” and “is available for international speeches.”
UPDATE:
A Response from Yeonmi Park (December 2014)
But
one very important thing to correct: I
do not have a foundation. The website was a dummy
site built by a friend, and it was not supposed to be live.
There was no
way it could accept money, and I haven’t taken any.
I am so sorry
for the confusion. The site has been taken down.
Question:
Since Yeonmi has not commented publicly on how exactly she intends to
help North Koreans in her own charitable endeavor, why was there even
a website (or “dummy site”) with a donate button to begin with?
Question:
And does anyone honestly believe this claim about the dummy site?
After
Yeonmi became famous, there was suddenly a Yeonmi Park foundation
website with a PayPal donate button even though she never stated how
the money would be used or exactly what she would do to help North
Koreans.
I
visited the website before it was taken down and I saw the PayPal
donate button. It did not seem like a dummy site to me.
PART
III: ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS
*
Request to Yeonmi: I hope you do not even respond to Part III unless
you have already responded separately to Part I and Part II
questions. I only added Part III as further reference for others. I
do not want it to distract from the much more important questions in
Parts I and II.
Q16:
DID YEONMI AND HER MOTHER REALLY WEAR THEIR MONGOLIAN PRISON UNIFORMS
ONTO THE PLANE TO SEOUL?
James
Chau introducing Yeonmi at the One Young World Summit in Dublin
5:40
(In Mongolia, you and your mother) were put into prison for 3
months…and through that, eventually, you
found yourselves wearing
prison clothes coming off a plane in South Korea.
Yeonmi
and her mother were
taken into custody and after 15 days were transferred
to a detention centre in Ulan Bator, the Mongolian capital.
Several weeks later
they were handed over to South Korean officials
and on April 1 2009…Yeonmi stood at Ulan Bator’s Chinggis Khaan
airport preparing to board
a plane for Seoul.
A
few hours later the plane touched down at Incheon airport in Seoul.
Yeonmi
stepped off the passenger jet wearing a shabby prison uniform.
Question:
So the detention
center
in Mongolia did
not give Yeonmi or her mom their original clothes back, and instead
released them while they were wearing their prison uniforms?
And
after Yeonmi and her mom were released
into the custody of South Korean officials in Mongolia,
those
South Korean officials saw Yeonmi and her mom wearing prison
uniforms, but the officials did not even give them some cheap clothes
to change into?
The
South Korean officials actually put Yeonmi and her mom on a plane to
South Korea in prison uniforms?
Kim
said that compared to other countries like Thailand and Russia,
Mongolia
is very supportive towards North Korean defectors…
Comment:
Remember that Yeonmi also claimed to be forced to strip naked every
day for months while in the detention center in Mongolia, which two
South Korean experts rejected. She
keeps adding these details
to make an epic story (“forced to strip naked every day for months,
then walked off the plane in South Korea still wearing her prison
uniform). But if you actually just take a step back and think about
what she's saying, in many instances, it's totally ridiculous.
Q17:
WHERE DID YEONMI SEE PUBLIC EXECUTIONS?
5:15
(Public executions) are like big celebrations for North Koreans,
because we are killing our betrayers and criminals. So they are taken
to the big stadium. And we are going there to do the celebrate
things. And in
the big stadium or in
the
markets,
where lots of people are coming, they
are doing it (public executions).
Question:
Does
North Korea really execute people in public markets?
I don’t doubt that North Korea executes people publicly. But I
doubt they do it in the markets.
Q18:
WAS YEONMI FORCED TO SELL GOODS IN THE MARKET AT AGE 6 OR 7 TO
SURVIVE THE 1995-2000 FAMINE? (SHE SAID HER FAMILY WAS RELATIVELY
WELL-OFF UNTIL 2002).
Inside
the black market of the world's most repressive regime
She
says during
the devastating famines of the 1990s she
was forced to barter and trade.
Her parents encouraged her to do so.
Making
a profit, no matter
how small, was
the only way to survive.
"I
wanted to make money by myself so I
just bribed the old charter guard
... and I brought some food from the orchard. And I sold it,"
she said.
"So
that means, I knew I had to make money and had to make a profit."
Note:
Yeonmi was born in
1993, so she
was at most six or seven years old
during the famine.
So this six or seven
year old girl was supposedly bribing guards and selling
goods in the market to survive, even though her mom said
in question two above:
“Others
couldn’t afford to eat white rice.
But
Yeonmi only ate white rice.
Her
father did his best to give his kids a better life,
so…the
kids didn’t know the truth about what was going on in North Korea.”
Comment:
Yeonmi’s story
about bribing and selling during the famine seems
contrived. It
fits well with her speeches about the “black market generation,”
which is of course important for her and other defectors to talk
about. But Yeonmi and
her mom both stated that the father gave them a good life until his
arrest in 2002 (years after the famine).
So
the story of six or seven year old Yeonmi being forced to bribe
guards and sell things in the market to survive the famine just
doesn’t seem believable.
And
in the next quote
(below), she
claims it wasn’t until about age 10 (2003),
after the famine, that
she first started selling things in the market.
How
millennials are shaking North Korea’s regime
When
she was
about
10, she first dabbled in capitalism
by bribing
orchard guards
with
alcohol to
give her a bucket of persimmons, which she then sold in the markets.
Q19:
COULD YEONMI REALLY SMELL COOKING FROM CHINA ACROSS THE RIVER IN
HYESAN?
I
Am a North Korean Millennial - Yeonmi Park (July 10, 2014)
0:18
(In Hyesan) Occasionally I
could even smell very like fatty oily delicious noodles cooking from
China.
(After
being asked by the BBC Radio host about her
family’s decision to escape)
6:15
(Yeonmi) I could see the lights from China and sometimes I
could smell the delicious smell
of cooking from China.
So
we
just thought, if we go there, we can live like them, so that was the
very simple reason.
Question:
Look at a map of the North Korea-China border near Hyesan. A
river divides the two countries,
and you have to walk for a little while from the riverbank to the
nearest home or restaurant in China. Could
Yeonmi have honestly smelled noodles cooking from that far away?
Think
about your
own neighborhood, and think about how far away you have ever smelled
something else cooking. Then look at the map of the China-North
Korean border near Hyesan. I'd really like to know if other defectors
from Hyesan could ever smell noodles (or anything) cooking from
across the border in China. I know it's a minor point, but a bizarre
lie if it's not possible to smell food across the border.
Q20:
WAS YEONMI’S FAMILY INITIALLY RICH OR MIDDLE CLASS?
VERSION
1: THEY WERE RICH
South
Korean Talk Show “Now On My Way to Meet You,” featuring North
Korean defectors telling stories about their lives
Yeonmi:
My mom wore
fashionable clothes and imported
luxurious clothes from Japan.
My mom even had a Chanel
bag.
헉!
마취도 없이
쌍꺼풀 수술을?
(기사입력
2012-05-11
15:12:31)
(A
Korean article quoting Yeonmi’s statement on the South Korean talk
show): “When
I was nine years old,
I
went to get plastic surgery…”
VERSION
2: THEY WERE MIDDLE CLASS
3rd
North Korean Food
[North Korea Today] #3
3:52
(Casey Lartigue) But you
were middle class,
so you
probably had a better experience than most people.
3:55
(Yeonmi) That’s
why I
tasted the meat. Some
people don’t know the taste of meat though. So
I
tasted the cow meat once in my lifetime.
And I couldn’t even
chew it. It was so hard.
Kkotjebi
in Bloom [North Korea Today(feat.Casey & Yeonmi)]
6:00
(Casey Lartigue) Some people don’t know about
the
tough life you had…in Hyesan.
6:09
(Yeonmi) I
couldn’t go to school because we couldn’t afford it. So
I stayed at home and helped my mom…(we
could) only eat two meals in a day….
But compared to other “kkotjebis” (child beggars) it was nothing.
They were literally scraping on the streets…they are just eating
everything…it’s really just heartbreaking to see them.
Comment:
Yeonmi and her mom both acknowledge that the father gave their family
a relatively good life until his arrest in 2002. After
Yeonmi’s father went to prison, there are several different
versions of what happened:
a.
The mother also went to prison, so Yeonmi
went to live with her aunt
and the sister lived separately with an uncle.
b.
Yeonmi stayed home and helped her mom.
c.
The mother also went to prison, so Yeonmi
and her sister lived alone and ate grass/bugs on the mountain to
survive.
Q21:
COULD YEONMI AFFORD TO GO TO SCHOOL IN NORTH KOREA?
Kkotjebi
in Bloom [North Korea Today(feat.Casey & Yeonmi)]
6:00
(Casey Lartigue) Some people don’t know about the tough life you
had…in Hyesan.
6:09
(Yeonmi) I
couldn’t go to school because we couldn’t afford it.
So I stayed at home and helped my mom…(we
could) only eat two meals in a day…
2+2
= Kill Americans [North
Korea Today(feat.Casey & Yeonmi)]
Note:
Yeonmi discusses what she learned in school in North Korea during the
entire episode, never mentioning that she couldn’t afford school.
11:16
(Yeonmi discussing the North Korean propaganda she learned about
South Korea when she was growing up) South Korean kids (cannot pay)
the school tuition fee so they cannot go to school. So they were
kicked out of school and went to the street to sell newspapers and
clean shoes, and they couldn’t study.
11:32
But North
Korean kids have a free education system so everybody was happy there
because they could go to school.
So I thought, “Oh my God they are so miserable…I felt so bad. So
that’s why we thought we were the best country in the world.”
Question:
Wouldn’t
Yeonmi at least mention that she couldn’t afford to go to school?
If that were really true, we
would expect her to say something like “I learned the North Korean
propaganda that we have a free education system and are the best in
the world, but since I couldn’t afford to go to school, I
discovered the propaganda about the free education system was false.”
But she never said anything like that.
Q22:
DID YEONMI’S FAMILY CROSS MOUNTAINS TO GET INTO CHINA?
Request:
I see that way too many people are debating this issue. The
crossing three mountains doesn't make sense, but let's
focus on Part I. This is
just for reference.
Note:
In Yeonmi’s
initial
escape story, she crossed the border with both parents and never
mentioned climbing any mountains.
In
the second escape story,
Yeonmi started claiming that she
had
to climb three mountains
to reach China. However,
she was living in
a
city on the border (Hyesan), where there are no mountains to cross in
order to reach China.
Journalist Mary Ann Jolley questioned Yeonmi’s claim of climbing
three mountains to reach China. This is Yeonmi’s response, and my
follow-up question for Yeonmi.
UPDATE:
A Response from Yeonmi Park (December 2014, Yeonmi’s response to
her criticism in the Diplomat article)
And
there are mountains
you can even see on Google Earth – maybe you call them big hills in
English – outside
of Hyesan that we crossed to escape.
I
Am a North Korean Millennial - Yeonmi Park (July 10, 2014)
2:26
In 2004,
my whole world came crashing down. My father,
my hero was arrested
for his illegal trading business…And
because of that, I could not live in Pyongyang anymore, so I had to
go back to Hyesan.
6:05
(BBC Radio host) He decided it was time for the family to escape from
North Korea. (After your father was released from prison)
6:10
(Yeonmi) Yes, we
all reunited in 2006 and moved back to Hyesan.
Question:
After Yeonmi’s father went to prison, her
family moved back to Hyesan.
The city of Hyesan continues to be a major defection point because
the city is right on
the border of China -- with
only a river (and no
mountains) to cross.
Yeonmi’s
sister abruptly fled
across the border to China. The
most
common/logical route
that she would’ve taken into
China (as so many
other defectors have) is
through the city and across the river.
Yeonmi’s
family wanted to find her sister,
who just crossed the border into China.
So
why would Yeonmi’s family go outside of Hyesan to cross the border
by traveling over three mountains and a river?
Q23:
WHAT IS YEONMI’S EARLIEST MEMORY?
(0:23)
My earliest memory
was when I was really little my
mother told me not to
even whisper. I was
like 4 years old when she said, the birds and mice can hear you, so
you should never ever express your feelings.
(1:50)
I saw public
executions since I was age 1, 2, 3, 4.
Q24:
DOES CASEY LARTIGUE DESERVE PRAISE FOR NOT MENTIONING YEONMI’S
(CONTRIVED) RAPE STORY, BECAUSE HE COULD HAVE GAINED FAME AND
FORTUNE?
Rushing
to judgment on a defector (Casey Lartigue’s response to Yeonmi’s
criticism in the Diplomat.com article)
By
Casey Lartigue, Jr
Park's
critics have even come after me. More
than a month before the world learned it, Park
told me in a recorded interview about her mother being raped in
China. Despite
the opportunity for fame and fortune, I didn't take the opportunities
to reveal her sensitive information.
Comment:
What a bizarre and inappropriate comment.
Yeonmi told Lartigue about the rape story (which she clearly invented
anyway) and he deserves our praise because: “Despite the
opportunity for fame and fortune, I didn't take the opportunities to
reveal her sensitive information.”
This
is simply stunning. Read
more about Mr. Lartigue in the conclusion.
PART
IV: CONCLUSION
I
made this document because I care about truth, human rights and North
Korean defectors. I want defectors to be fully supported and prosper
without misleading people. After Mary Ann Jolley’s original article
at the Diplomat.com, it became obvious that Yeonmi has not been
honest, but I noticed that many people are still strongly supporting
Yeonmi and criticizing Jolley. A professor in Australia called Leonid
Petrov even tweeted that Jolley’s article was “disgusting and
mean.” Are these people even reading her article?
I
sympathize with North Korean defectors and I know Yeonmi is
relatively young. But she’s old enough to know the difference
between right and wrong. And defectors should not be above legitimate
questions and criticisms if it appears they are not being honest.
Journalists and media organizations were willing to frequently repeat
Yeonmi's story without question, even when it clearly contradicted
what she told other journalists.
So
when Mary Ann Jolley pointed out obvious contradictions in Yeonmi's
story, no other journalists were willing to do some investigating and
write a follow-up article? Tons of articles repeated (and continue to
repeat) whatever Yeonmi says, but only one critical article comes
out, despite the documented contradictions that Jolley brought to our
attention? Doesn't the public deserve to know what's going on?
Some
people will undoubtedly still support Yeonmi despite all the evidence
against her. These people should ask themselves why. Yeonmi’s
high-profile fabrications are seriously harming North Korean
defectors because people might not believe them after such a huge
international embarrassment. The North Korea propaganda department
and some North Korea supporters will probably seize upon Yeonmi’s
lies to repeat their own false claims that all North Korean defectors
are liars. Many defectors’ stories are surely true, but will people
care to listen anymore? I hope so.
The
other reason I made this document was the suspicious Yeonmi Park
Foundation website. Mary Ann Jolley pointed out that the website had
a PayPal donate button, but there was no mention of how the money
would be used. I was concerned that honest people who want to help
defectors might be sending their money into the wrong hands, so I
started to look more closely at Yeonmi’s story.
What
I found was absolutely stunning and outrageous, so I started
gathering it on one document, which is now more than 20 pages long. I
was relieved when Yeonmi responded to the Diplomat article by taking
her foundation website down. Her explanation (“it was a dummy site
made by a friend that accidentally went live and couldn’t really
receive donations”) is obviously very dubious. Someone should
double-check that claim.
It’s
also quite a coincidence that Yeonmi and the people around her didn’t
notice that this “dummy website” had “accidentally gone live”
until after Mary Ann Jolley published her critique. We should be
thanking Jolley for having the courage to publish her article and
helping to ensure that donations to defectors go through reputable
charities, with oversight and clear guidelines for how they will use
the money.
CASEY
LARTIGUE
I
should also mention a few things I came across regarding Casey
Lartigue Jr. Mr. Lartigue seems to be quite a character, and
apparently loves the attention he receives when he’s with
defectors. For example, Lartigue and a defector named Ju Chan-yang
went to a conference in India. In
a South Korean newspaper called the Korea Times, Lartigue
writes about his experience.
Lartigue
was “rapping to
my revised version of Salt N Pepa’s 1990s song “Whattaman,” on
the same stage that defector Ju
Chan-yang told her story, when there “wasn’t
a dry eye in the audience.” Quite an odd juxtaposition, to say the
least.
Lartigue
also serves up another rap performance on the “Casey Lartigue Show
with Yeonmi Park,” a podcast focusing on Ms. Park’s experiences
(however real) in North Korea, wherein Mr. Lartigue adds nothing of
substantive value to the discussion. I think Mr. Lartigue wrote the
name of the show backwards.
(Honest)
North Korean defectors deserve to be center stage, but Lartigue wants
all eyes on him. In
another Korea Times article,
Lartigue writes
a letter to himself, praising himself for his work with defectors.
(You can’t make
this stuff up).
One
of the many reasons he heaps praise on himself is that he supposedly
rejected a “dream job” that would’ve paid him triple the amount
he’s earning now, so he can stay in South Korea and work with
defectors. He begins the article (written to himself), “Dearest
Casey,” and writes things like:
“When
you say that you are engaged in NK activism because you want to do
it, you mean that. It is out of joy. You have turned down other great
job opportunities. When people ask why you are doing it, why do you
spend so much time helping North Korean refugees, you usually answer,
"Because it should be done.” I can’t believe any editor
could read something like this and actually decide to print it.
It’s
infuriating that Casey Lartigue and Yeonmi Park have warped the North
Korean human rights movement into their own little show, where lies
and self-aggrandizement prevail. Yeonmi
deserves the most criticism, followed by Lartigue, but there are
others who also deserve blame too. Yeonmi’s
mother must know what’s going on. South Korean newspapers are
definitely covering the Yeonmi Park story. I
also wonder how Liberty in North Korea (LINK) didn’t speak up or
put an end to Yeonmi’s fabrications. Yeonmi is one of LINK’s
leading fundraisers, and they actively promote her, but nobody at
LINK noticed anything wrong with Yeonmi’s story?
One
incorrect conclusion that some commenters have made is that Yeonmi
must be innocent and coached to lie by people like Lartigue.
Remember,
Yeonmi started lying at least as far back as January 2013, when she
claimed she never saw anyone in North Korea starving or eating grass.
That
was long before she started working with Lartigue. But Lartigue not
only promoted Yeonmi and benefited from her while she was lying, he
is now trying to mislead people despite the damning evidence gathered
by Jolley.
This
whole Yeonmi Park saga has been ugly and disheartening, but it’s
only going to get worse if we don’t spread the truth. When the
world realizes what happened, people are going to be angry. But the
time to deal with this is now, before the lies grow any bigger or
spread any further. I can only hope that other defectors are not
unfairly harmed by Yeonmi Park’s brazen attempt to fool the world.
