Day: July 6, 2023

Laos has launched a hotline that citizens can call for government assistance, but people appear afraid to use it because callers must reveal their names, phone numbers and addresses. Laos, one of the world’s few avowed Marxist-Leninist states, has given critics lengthy jail terms for social media comments. Residents say they don’t want to get in trouble for reporting problems.

The Dalai Lama celebrated his 88th birthday at his residence in Dharamsala, India, on Thursday, feted by song-and-dance performances and declaring he was in good health and expected to live to be 100.

“Today, you are celebrating my 88th birthday, but when I look in the mirror, I feel I look as if I’m still in my 50s,” the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism said to those gathered for the celebration. “My face doesn’t look old, it isn’t wrinkled with age. What’s more I still have all my teeth so there’s nothing I can’t eat or chew.”

“According to indications in my own dreams and other predictions, I expect to live to be more than 100 years old,” said the Dalai Lama, whose real name is Lhamo Thondup and is also known as Tenzin Gyatso. “I’ve served others until now, and I’m determined to continue to do so. Please pray for my long life on that basis.”

Attending the celebration in the temple courtyard adjacent to the Dalai Lama’s residence were his relatives, members of the Tibetan government-in-exile, and later Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, chief minister of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, where Dharamsala is located. 

Successor?

His birthday comes amid an ongoing controversy about who should determine his successor. 

Tibetans say they have the right to do so according to their Buddhist belief in the principle of rebirth. They believe the Dalai Lama chooses the body into which he is reincarnated, a process that has occurred 13 times since 1391, when the first Dalai Lama was born. 

But China, which annexed Tibet in 1951 and maintains a tight rein on the western autonomous region, says only Beijing can select the next spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, as stated in Chinese law. 

The Chinese government intends to appoint a pro-Beijing puppet leader in place of the Dalai Lama after he dies, giving it an opportunity to firm up its control of the region, according to a report issued in 2022 by the International Tibet Network, a global coalition of Tibet-related groups.

Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of supporting terrorism and trying to split Tibet from China, though the spiritual leader is pursuing a policy approach called the Middle Way, which accepts Tibet’s status as a part of China but urges greater cultural and religious freedoms, including strengthened language rights, guaranteed for ethnic minorities under the provisions of China’s own constitution.

“I was born in Tibet and I bear this name Dalai Lama, but in addition to working for the cause of Tibet, I’ve been working for the welfare of all sentient beings,” he also said in remarks to the crowd in Dharamsala. 

“I’ve done whatever I could without losing hope or allowing my determination to flag. I’m angry with no one, not even those Chinese leaders who have adopted a harsh attitude towards Tibet. Indeed, China has historically been a Buddhist country as witnessed by the many temples and monasteries I saw when I visited that land.”

Subtle celebrations

China has sought to erase the Dalai Lama and his likeness from the Tibet Autonomous Region, so Tibetans there celebrated his birthday in subtle ways.

They shared poems and odes to the Dalai Lama online and circulated in various online messaging groups an image of a hat he wore as a child in a popular photograph, with the number “88” appearing below it. 

“Tibetans are engaging in creative ways as well as performing religious activities to celebrate his holiness’s birthday,” said a Tibetan who lives in the region, referring to reciting prayers and hoisting prayer flags. 

The exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, who is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, also expressed gratitude for the support he has received from his friends. 

In a four-minute recorded video message marking his birthday, the Dalai Lama said, “On the occasion of my birthday, if you, my friends, can guard your minds and lead good-natured lives, you will be joyful at heart, and as a result be able, directly and indirectly, to help everyone around you.”

High-level government officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, issued birthday greetings to the Dalai Lama on what Blinken said was an auspicious day for the Tibetan community. 

“His Holiness’s kindness and humility serve as an inspiration to many around the world, and I have deep admiration for his ongoing commitment to peace and nonviolence,” Blinken said. “Today, may we reflect on his messages of compassion and tolerance as we reaffirm our commitment to upholding the human rights of all people, including those of the Tibetan community.”

“The United States is unwavering in our commitment to support the linguistic, cultural, and religious identity of Tibetans, including the ability to freely choose and venerate their religious leaders without interference,” he said.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: “Spoke to His Holiness @DalaiLama and conveyed heartfelt greetings to him on his 88th birthday. Wishing him a long and healthy life.”

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

Myanmar’s ruling junta is building two new prisons for political prisoners, an indication it could be planning for more arrests of pro-democracy activists and others who oppose the military regime.

One of the new prisons is under construction in Mawlamyine township of Mon state and is nearing completion, a junta official who refused to be named told Radio Free Asia. The other will be built in Pathein township of Ayeyarwady region, according to top military officials and sources close to the prison department. 

The Mawlamyine prison is located in a sparsely populated area with dense forest, which could make it easier to conduct torture, according to an official of the anti-regime Mon State Revolutionary Organization, or MSRO, who refused to be named for security reasons.

“The junta is building new prisons as a threat to the people,” he told RFA. “I believe that the junta intentionally chose the remote places that would be good for keeping the news in the dark and covering its tracks.”

The Mawlamyine prison will likely include revolutionary activists, political prisoners, innocent citizens who have been arbitrarily detained and people charged under a broad and vague anti-state provision of the country’s Penal Code that penalizes “incitement” and “false news,” the MSRO official said. 

Three layers of security

The junta has arrested and jailed thousands of pro-democracy activists since taking power in a coup d’etat on Feb. 1, 2021. Currently, most political prisoners are mixed in with other prisoners at facilities run by the regime’s prison department. 

There have been three prison breaks since the coup – including an escape in May in which 10 prisoners broke out of Taungoo Prison in Bago region. 

After two political prisoners ran away from Kayin state’s Hpa-An Prison last year, the junta built a new brick wall, a new watch tower and military bunkers. 

The two new prisons will be run by the military, sources close to the prison department said. 

The junta’s Mon state prime minister, Aung Kyi Thien, said in a statement on June 23 that he recently visited and inspected the new two-story Mawlamyine prison, which had dining halls, staff quarters and three layers of security. 

Officials plan to transfer youth prisoners from two other prisons to Mawlamyine, according to a person close to the prison department, who asked not to be named for security reasons.

“The junta is going to systematically tighten its control of the political prisoners in the newly built prison,” he said “The military is going to directly run the prison so that the political prisoners cannot have any leniency.”

Transfers and possibly more arrests

Four local residents in Ayeyarwady region, including a former political prisoner, told RFA that the Pathein prison will be built with a 5.4 meter-high (18-feet) brick fence and a security tower near the southwest military headquarters.

The land plot to build them on is already being cleared, a local resident said. 

An official from a mailing group that assists political prisoners told RFA that there could be more arrests after the new prisons begin operating.

“The construction of a new prison is, in my personal opinion, not just to keep politicians in isolation. I think they’ve built a new prison to transfer prisoners from other prisons, for example from Insein or Obo prisons,” he said, referring to facilities located in Yangon and Mandalay, Myanmar’s two largest cities.

RFA contacted the junta’s Mon state spokesman, Toe Win, and Ayeyarwady region spokesman Maung Maung Than by telephone to ask about the prison projects, but they did not respond.

Prison department spokesman Naing Win also didn’t answer RFA’s telephone call. 

Since the 2021 coup, the junta has released more than 70,000 prisoners in 12 announced prison amnesties. But just 2,000 of those released were political prisoners, according to statistics compiled by the Thailand-based monitoring group, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

The Hong Kong government has paid millions of dollars to political lobbyists in Washington in recent years in a little-known overseas influence operation that aims to get U.S. politicians doing Beijing’s bidding, according to a new report from a Hong Kong activist group.

“Heavyweights and the well-connected in Washington … play an active role in advancing Beijing’s interests on American soil,” according to a new report from the Hong Kong Democracy Council.

The group has set up an influence and lobbying database to provide a detailed breakdown of lobbying activities sponsored by the Hong Kong government, and by extension, the Chinese government.

The database, drawn from publicly available filings under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, lists over 1,000 interactions between U.S. government officials and Hong Kong government-funded lobbyists, the council said in a summary of the July 5 report published on its website.

The council also called on Congress to pass a bill currently in the pipeline that would revoke the diplomatic privileges of the Hong Kong government’s representative offices in the United States, the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices.

The report found that China, “which has a well-documented history of orchestrating foreign-influence campaigns, has been ramping up efforts to sway U.S. politics, media, and society,” spending more than US$292 million over the past six years on its American influence operations.

Key role

It said the government-linked Hong Kong Trade Development Council, which is registered in the United States as both an agent of a foreign government and a foreign principal directing lobbying efforts, plays a key role in those operations, playing “an important role as a financial facilitator of the [Hong Kong] government’s overseas political activities.”

Contacts between American officials and agents of foreign governments, including those that use lobbying firms, are reported under legislation governing foreign agents, and the listings show that officials from both the Trade Development Council and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices have been active in lobbying activities in recent years.

“Throughout the 2019 protests and in the years following, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council has continued to act as a conduit for [Hong Kong] government funds, appearing as the foreign principal for every single one of the more than 400 reported interactions between [Hong Kong] government lobbyists and American politicians and government officials,” the Hong Kong Democracy Council report found.

One of the Hong Kong government lobby’s key aims during the protests was to prevent the passage of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which rewrote U.S. policy towards the city, the report said.

Such lobbying attempts were “in direct conflict with the overwhelming democratic aspirations of Hong Kongers in both Hong Kong and the United States,” it said.

Lobbyists hired by the body report to the Washington Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, the report said, citing its contract with lobbying firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.

Tapping into influential network

And while those who lobby for the Hong Kong pro-democracy camp are typically refugees and exiles who lack funding, and who may not yet even enjoy secure immigration status, the government is able to tap into a network of wealth and privilege at the heart of American political life.

“People who lobby on behalf of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government are basically well-connected, wealthy and powerful people who move in government circles in Washington,” Hong Kong Democracy Council researcher Mason Wong told Radio Free Asia. “Many are former members of Congress and former officials from both parties.”

“There’s a broad, bipartisan network of well-connected elite people who are helping the Hong Kong government with its advocacy work and extending Chinese Communist Party interests on U.S. soil,” he said.

According to the report, that network includes the Sing Tao media group, which is registered as the non-government client of a foreign power under FARA.

“A questionable entity like Sing Tao advances Beijing’s interests in multifaceted ways, far beyond taking advantage of the American free press — as do the likes of China Central Television and Russia Today — to shape public opinion,” the report said in a case study summarizing reports that the media group is part of Beijing’s secretive United Front influence and outreach operations in the United States.

Yet the group is the single largest spender among FARA-registered entities from Hong Kong, according to the report.

“Little information is available on what exactly it does, or what the specific nature of its work as a ‘foreign agent’ entails,” it said.

‘Serious problem’

Hong Kong Democracy Council executive director Anna Kwok, who is among eight overseas activists listed on Monday as wanted by the city’s national security police, who have offered a bounty of H.K.$1 million for information leading to her arrest and prosecution, said she finds a certain irony in the fact that she has been accused of “colluding with a foreign power” under the national security law.

“What I find ironic here is that the Hong Kong government was accusing me just a few days ago of collusion with foreign forces,” but if you actually look into it, you will see that they’re actually working very hard themselves to be in contact with foreign forces, to work with them, and to win their support,” Kwok said.

According to Wong, who wrote the report, people might be forgiven for thinking that when Hong Kong’s economic and trade representatives in Washington contact local politicians, they want to discuss trade and economic ties.

“But when they meet up with American congressmen and women, they don’t want to talk about trade, but about the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act,” he said. “It’s a white glove operation for the Chinese Communist Party … countering groups that advocate democracy and human rights for Hong Kongers in the United States.”

“It’s a very serious problem.”

‘Disguised’

Current affairs commentator Sang Pu agreed.

“These are [Chinese Communist Party] United Front operations disguised as trade and economic relations,” he said. “They want to expand these operations using state-run enterprises or quasi-government organizations.”

“It’s not just the Trade Development Council; any organization with the word ‘development’ in its name is worthy of attention,” Sang said, citing the Arts Development Council and Hong Kong Tourism Board, which has “development” in its Chinese name, as examples.

“It’s not the same as pre-1997: these quasi-government organizations have become the mouthpieces of the party-state,” he said.

Ja Ian Chong, assistant politics professor at the National University of Singapore, said that while political lobbying is legal in the United States, people may not always be aware of the provenance of some of the lobbying that goes on.

“People who aren’t familiar with Hong Kong’s situation could treat these official organizations, for example, regional and city governments, and are actually sent to lobby for the Hong Kong government,” Chong said. 

“They may think they have little to do with the Chinese central government.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Hong Kong police on Thursday arrested a former leader of a pro-democracy party they said had “colluded with foreign forces to endanger national security,” bringing the total number of arrests under the national security law this week to five, government broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong reported.

Police arrested Calvin Chu, 24, a former standing committee member of Demosisto, which was founded by U.K.-based former student protest leader and lawmaker Nathan Law, who had a HK$1 million bounty placed on his head earlier this week, the station said.

Police had earlier arrested four men on the same charges, they said in a statement on Wednesday.

Commentators said the five arrests are directly connected to the issuing of warrants for Law and seven other prominent overseas activists earlier this week.

According to a report in the Chinese-language Ming Pao newspaper, the four stand accused of funding Law’s activities via a pro-democracy app call Punish MEE, which was originally designed to give money to businesses that openly supported the 2019 pro-democracy protests, known as the “yellow economic circle.” 

While police didn’t name him in their statement about the four arrests, multiple media reports said one of the four arrested on Wednesday was former Demosisto Chairman Ivan Lam.

According to the Ming Pao, the four arrestees including Lam stand accused of helping to fund Law’s activities in the United Kingdom via the Punish MEE app. Chu is described in the report as “an employee” of the app.

Trying to ‘scare people’

Chu’s arrest brings to five the number of people arrested this week on suspicion of “conspiracy to collude with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security” and of “conspiracy to commit an act or acts with seditious intention.”

The arrests are part of an attempt to create a chilling effect among overseas activists lobbying for sanctions and other measures in response to the current crackdown in Hong Kong, said current affairs commentator Sang Pu.

“If they keep arresting people in Hong Kong, that’s going to scare people overseas,” Sang said. “That’s their aim.”

“They may even bring in a crowdfunding law making it illegal to donate to anyone raising funds [for overseas activism],” he said. “It’s about frightening people and cutting off the flow of funding.”

National security police on Monday issued arrest warrants for eight Hong Kong activists in exile, offering a HK$1 million bounty per person for information leading to their arrest and prosecution, sparking international criticism of the authorities’ attempts at “long-arm” law enforcement overseas.

Cracking down

Hong Kong’s three-year-old national security law bans public criticism of the authorities and peaceful political opposition, and applies to speech or acts committed by people of any nationality, anywhere in the world.

“The arrested persons were suspected of receiving funds from operating companies, social media platforms and mobile applications to support people who have fled overseas and continue to engage in activities that endanger national security,” the police said in a July 5 statement that didn’t name anyone.

“They were also suspected of repeatedly publishing posts with seditious intention on social media platforms, including content which provoked hatred towards the Central Authorities and the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and advocated Hong Kong independence,” it said.

Police searched the arrestees’ homes and confiscated documents and communications devices, it said, adding that further arrests could be made.

The statement warned members of the public that they could go to jail for helping people deemed to have colluded with “external elements to endanger national security.”

So far, more than 260 people have now been arrested under the national security law, including dozens of former opposition lawmakers and political activists and senior journalists including pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai, who is a British citizen.

An estimated 10,000 have been prosecuted for “rioting” or public order offenses in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, which Beijing views as an attempt by “hostile foreign forces” to foment a “color revolution” in Hong Kong.

British response

Meanwhile, calls are growing for the British government to come up with a more robust response to China’s attempts to enforce its laws on foreign soil.

U.K.-based activist Finn Lau, who was among the eight listed as wanted by national security police on Monday, called for immediate meetings with Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Home Secretary Suella Braverman to discuss potential threats to the safety of Hong Kongers in the U.K. from agents and supporters of the Chinese state.

“The U.K. government should ensure that if anyone attempts to kidnap anyone due to the bounties or the #NationalSecurityLaw, they should be tried and prosecuted on British soil,” Lau told a news conference in London on Wednesday.

He also called for a ban on British judges serving in Hong Kong’s judiciary.

Veteran trade unionist Mung Siu-tat, also known as Christopher Mung, said there are now concerns that the wanted list has ushered in an intensification of the crackdown, with many more arrests to follow.

“Where is the crime in supporting one’s own ideas through running a business?” Mung said. “Anyone doing this will now be suppressed, or arrested.”

“Those warrants weren’t just about putting pressure on overseas activists — they will also lead to more intense daily suppression and arrests in Hong Kong itself,” he said.

Lau said there is little he can do to protect himself beyond hoping that he will be protected by being on British soil.

“I will try not to worry too much, and won’t restrict myself — I’ll do more,” he said. “I’ll keep going despite the personal danger.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Unexplained body aches. Mysterious illnesses. Puncturing a hole in your dying son’s side to drain fluid so he could breathe. 

Such were the health issues that plagued two North Korean escapees who lived near the Punggye-ri site where Pyongyang conducted six underground nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017, and have since fled to South Korea.

One escapee who lived 27 kilometers (17 miles) from the test site in the northeastern part of the country said she lost her only child to a mysterious respiratory condition. Like other children in the area, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, but now she believes it was a result of radiation.

It appeared like his lungs had melted, said the woman, asking to be identified by the pseudonym Lee Mi-young for security reasons.

“We pierced his side to drain the fluid three times a day. Pus came out and at the end he died,” said Lee. “He had eight friends, but one or two started to get sick and were diagnosed with tuberculosis. All of them died within four years. My son was diagnosed the same way.”

The North Korean doctors became frustrated when they could not determine how the children contracted tuberculosis, she said.

“The tuberculosis department doctor said that he didn’t know why there were so many young people with tuberculosis in the hospital,” said Lee. “They didn’t know that it was because of the nuclear experiment.”

It wasn’t until she arrived in South Korea in 2016 that Lee learned that the nuclear tests she once celebrated were almost certainly what killed her son and threatened her own life.  

“When the third nuclear test was conducted [in 2013], people cheered excitedly after watching the broadcast,” she said. “I was proud that North Korea had developed nuclear weapons to ‘immobilize the Americans.’ I had no idea that it would have such a negative impact on the people.”

Radiation testing

In February, the South Korean Ministry of Unification announced that in May it would start testing 881 people who once lived near Punggye-ri before they escaped North Korea.

This year’s tests follow a first and second round of testing of about 40 people in 2017 and 2018. 

Lee was among those tested in 2017, and her results showed a dosage of 270 millisieverts, far above the minimum level indicating radiation exposure. People are usually exposed to a natural radiation dose of 2-3 millisieverts per year.

The first and second rounds of testing detected exposure in nine of the tested subjects, one as dangerously high as 1,386 millisieverts.

Large doses of radiation can damage the body’s central nervous system and red and white blood cells, leaving the immune system unable to fight infections, but a spokesperson from the ministry told RFA that “no diseases related to radiation exposure were identified, and full-scale testing of North Korean escapees from the vicinity of the nuclear test site is underway as planned.” 

Despite the lack of any identifiable disease, Lee said her head and body still ache, and she feels as if her bones “are soft.”

“People in North Korea didn’t know that the symptoms of the sickness are caused by radiation exposure,” she said. “They don’t know how bad nuclear radiation is for the human body.”

Back in North Korea, Lee said she could hardly worry about it because she was preoccupied with trying to make a living and simply survive. 

She recalls now that at the time she lived near Punggye-ri, there were so many patients of severe disease living in Kilju county.

“Kilju County has the highest number of gastric, pancreatic, liver, tuberculosis, and lung cancer patients nationwide,” said Lee. “When cancer patients are diagnosed, they die within three months.”

When her son fell ill, she took him to Pyongyang hoping that the better doctors there could treat him. Travel to Pyongyang is all but illegal for ordinary citizens, and access to services reserved for North Korea’s elite is all but impossible. 

“[We were] trying to go from the hospital [where he was being treated] to a hospital in Pyongyang. But the hospital told us that all tuberculosis and hepatitis patients in Kilju County cannot enter Pyongyang,” said Lee. “I couldn’t get the permit or certificate, so my son died without even the chance to be seen in the hospital in Pyongyang.”

Lee said that she felt sorry for the other residents of Kilju, who are like she was, unaware of the dangers of radiation exposure, with only the propaganda of North Korean authorities informing them that nuclear development will elevate the quality of their lives.

“All the citizens of Kilju county suffered [radiation] damage and they cannot come here [to the South],” she said. “All of them will die there like that. It is nonsense that nuclear development makes the citizens of Kilju county incredibly prosperous.”

She is convinced that the North Korean authorities must have already known that the tens of thousands of residents living near Punggye-ri are constantly exposed to radiation.

“Why wouldn’t they know?” she said. “The government knowingly neglects people…what kind of country is that?”

Tainted water

Another escapee, going by the pseudonym Kim Hwa-young, believes that she was exposed to radiation through drinking water before she escaped from North Korea in 2014. She had relied on water sources in Kilju county all her life, she said.

The streams in the area that fill the water reservoir for residents come from in Punggye-ri, she said. “All tap water comes from Punggye-ri.”

Satellite imagery of the area shows that at Namsok Reservoir a facility presumed to be an intake tower is noticeable on the southern side of the reservoir. It is therefore reasonable to presume that the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, situated on Mt. Mantap and located upstream, could be a source of drinking water and tap water for residents in and around Kilju county.

Lee, the first escapee, recalled changes in the water supply downstream from Punggye-ri – specifically the Namdae stream – after the nuclear tests began.

“Namdae stream was once clean and nice. Trout that lived in the stream were also good,” said Lee. “They were sent as a special product reserved for [former leader] Kim Il Sung, but at some point, no trout was seen in that stream, and pine mushrooms stopped growing there too.” 

A compromised water source is a likely avenue for exposure and illness for many people who use it, Suh Kune Yull, a nuclear engineering professor at Seoul National University, told RFA. 

“If these North Korean escapees were exposed to radiation, it can be predicted that the main route was the water source itself and agricultural products and livestock grown there,” said Suh, “The specifics can be known only after careful epidemiological investigations.” 

Kim, the second escapee, recalled some of the symptoms she suffered while living in Kilju county.

“The headaches were all so bad. Almost all the Kilju people who came here with me still have headaches,” she said. “They don’t get better even if I use all kinds of different medicines. There is no diagnosis even if I go to the hospital.”

Upon her first health checkup in South Korea, Kim was diagnosed with a low white blood cell count, just like the others who escaped with her.

“I was told that I had hepatitis C and a low white blood cell count,” she said.

But when she was living in North Korea she witnessed people dying of diseases far worse than hers, she said. 

“There were several people I knew who died from leukopenia,” said Kim, referring to a condition that prevents the body’s immune system from fighting disease. “There were very many cancer patients, including some who also had tuberculosis at the same time.” 

“My next-door neighbor, his gums bled, and he died. This poor 4-year-old kid’s body was bruised all over as if it was pinched. And later he was diagnosed with leukopenia and died. His gums wouldn’t stop bleeding despite all kinds of medicine.”

People from outside the county also suffered by going there, she said.

“A man went to Kilju county to serve his 10-year mandatory service,” said Kim. “He had only a few hairs left and his whole body was weak by the time he was almost 40 years old. In the end, he couldn’t even get married.”

Kim said she and the others thought their illnesses were the result of not having enough food to eat, a common experience for many North Koreans.

“At that time everyone thought it was because … the people were not eating well,” she said. “When I lived in North Korea and was sick then, I never thought it would be because of the nuclear test. I wasn’t aware of all the risks of radiation exposure. I had no idea. It is a serious problem.”

Kim received a third radiation exposure test in May of this year and is waiting for the results.

During a previous round of testing, dangerous doses as high as 1,386 millisieverts were detected in some of the others who escaped from North Korea with Kim. Among the nine people who exhibited signs of radiation exposure in the previous rounds of testing, eight had said they drank tap or well water.

Geology

Contaminated drinking water from Punggye-ri may have been a result of the frequent earthquakes around nearby Mt. Mantap after each nuclear test, the Stimson Center’s Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told RFA.

“If there are cracks, rain, water and melting water from snow gets to these cracks and then goes through this place where the explosions took place,” he said. “And then finally, sooner or later enters that river which is passing through … and then it’s in the groundwater.”

Lee Su-gon, a former professor of civil engineering at the University of Seoul, who is one of the leading experts in the field of Korean geology, also emphasized that leakage of radioactive materials or contamination of groundwater is geologically inevitable due to the granite characteristics of Mount Mantap, a key peak in the area.

“Mount Mantap was already broken a lot because there are a lot of vertical joints,” he said. “Due to the nuclear tests, more radioactivity is released into the air … and the groundwater has no choice but to be contaminated. This can’t be stopped.”

Professor Lee also said that nuclear testing at Punggye-ri also caused frequent landslides, putting more people at risk of exposure.

“These landslides caused by vibrations under the ground… terrible when it comes to radioactive contamination issues,” he said. “So, it is a predictable problem for residents who defected from the area to claim that they were exposed to radiation. North Korean authorities are busy developing nuclear weapons and don’t take that into account.”

Translated by Leejin. J. Chung and Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Edited by Malcolm Foster.