Interviews with Kang Chol-hwan

When Kim Il Sung rose to power, he said that he was an independent fighter against the Japanese colonialists. People understood this to be a lie and although he claimed to have fought against the Japanese for the Korean people, he made North Korea worse than under the Japanese colonial rule.

He claimed to be a socialist even though he gave his power to his son, which is a form of feudalism. So he deceived the North Korean people in a fundamental manner. Also he made people starve while across the country he erected about 38,000 statues of himself. In the history of the entire world, this never happened in another country.

Kim Il Sung was such a fanatic of idolization and he was succeeded by a son who made North Korea into a rogue state. His son did nothing for the North Korean people. He starved about three million people and turned North Korea into a gulag society. Kim Il Sung and Kim Jeong Il are the biggest traitors of the Korean people. About 23 million people were turned into slaves because of them. And they have killed millions of people by initiating the war on the Korean peninsula. So they are unforgiveable traitors in the eyes of the Korean people.

Kang Chol-Hwan escaped from North Korea in 1992 and has dedicated his life to bringing attention to the horrifying conditions in North Korea.

When Kang was 9 years old, the North Korean government accused his grandfather of treason and sent the family to one of its most notorious concentration camps, Yodok. Kang lived in the camp for 10 years, surviving on meager corn rations along with rats and earthworms. He and his family were forced to work in fields and mines and to witness public executions of their fellow prisoners.

Following his release from the camp, Kang bought an illegal radio receiver and began listening secretly to broadcasts from South Korea. These broadcasts allowed Kang to understand the differences between totalitarian societies, like North Korea, and free societies. Kang and a friend escaped North Korea by sneaking across the border to China and went from there to South Korea, where he lives today.

Kang described his experiences in his powerful memoir, “The Aquariums of Pyongyang.” President Bush welcomed Kang to the White House in 2005 .