I Curse the Murderer Who Killed My Son
My name is Kim Da Ye. I was born in Gilju-gun, North Hamgyong Province,
in 1964 and came to South Korea in November 2011.
Because I was born in Gilju-gun and lived there until I defected, the first thing
South Koreans ask when they meet me is if I know about the nuclear test site in
Punggye-ri, Gilju-gun. And after our conversation, they look at me with concern
and carefully study my face.
I’m sure they’re worried because they know drinking radiation-contaminated
water ruins your health, but when I lived in North Korea, I never thought about
my health at all in connection with the nuclear test site not far away. And even
if I did, I wasn’t in a position to say anything about it. If I opposed the party’s
efforts to create nuclear weapons for a strong and prosperous nation, instead
of cooperating with it, it would be treason, and I could be singled out as being
anti-party and immediately punished. Of course, North Koreans know that
nuclear radiation is a poison that kills. But they have no choice but to close their
eyes and ears from it and continue with their lives.
Before the nuclear test site was built in Punggye-ri, our hometown was a great
place to live. It was a transportation hub with developed railroads and roads. It
was a key city, with railroads and roads to get anywhere from east to west and
north to south.
Punggye-ri means “a village with a clear stream flowing through rich land.”
Namdae and Changneung streams, home to various fish, flow through it, and
tall mountains surround it. Plenty of edible mushrooms grow there, too, so if
you’re diligent, you can eat well. There were so many snakes in the neighborhood
above Punggye-ri that the railroad station was named Snake Island Station. I still
vividly remember catching wild trout in Namdae stream with my friends and
eating fish porridge during Dano.
My hometown, once so beautiful and abundant, no longer exists. When the
nuclear test site was established, soldiers set up barriers and began to control the
movement of residents.
One year, in Gilju-gun, a county that once had clear water, scenic views, and
good land for farming, the local wells began to dry up, and the snakes and trout
disappeared. The edible mushrooms that used to be plentiful in the mountains
became strangely discolored, withered, and dried up. In many areas, no more
mushrooms sprouted at all. Residents began to suffer from diseases like arthritis,
tuberculosis, and dermatitis. Many people suffered and died from unknown
illnesses, which were called “ghost diseases,” and because they could not be
treated with medicine, they visited shamans.
The elderly, children, and immunocompromised people in the neighborhood
suffered from numbness and pain in their limbs, like arthritis that came out of
nowhere during the rainy season. When they caught a cold, they coughed up
phlegm continuously, and what used to be a three- or four-day cold turned into
intestinal illnesses that plagued them.
I can still close my eyes and see the images of people in my neighborhood
languishing with tuberculosis or other long-standing illnesses for which there
was no exact diagnosis.
When I think back, it seems so unfair that for all those years, we drank
radiation-contaminated water and ate crops grown with that water. Thinking
about the dead makes my heart ache, and I can’t sleep.
The Workers’ Party of Korea urged people to tighten their belts and complete
the Juche Revolution to build a strong and prosperous nation, but only the
number of sick people increased.
North Korean authorities forcefully gathered its citizens at political events
and proclaimed that completing its nuclear program was aimed at protecting the country.
People here are well aware that if someone says even a single word
against that propaganda, complaining about the damage due to radiation
exposure, not only they but their families are at risk. So, even though the
number of sick people increased steadily after the Punggye-ri nuclear test site
was built, people had no choice but to say nothing and pretend not to notice.
As a mother of two in such a place, my only option was to get out.
But there’s no freedom of movement in that country. Where could I go
without the approval of the Worker’s Party? Also, at some point, people from
Gilju-gun were strictly regulated from going to other places, and even if they
got sick, they were deprived of the right to go to well-known hospitals in
Pyongyang.
The North Korean regime wanted to prevent the damage from radioactive
contamination from spreading elsewhere, even if that meant killing everyone in
Gilju-gun.
Every time the house shook as if there was an earthquake due to vibrations
from a nuclear test, and every time a bowl fell off the shelf, all I could think
about was how I would get out of there with my children. As a mother, I
couldn’t leave my children alone in such a dangerous place, no matter how many
guns or knives they pointed at me. This idea grew into determination as many
residents suffered from “ghost diseases” amid the intense vibrations caused by six
nuclear tests.
There were vicious rumors that if there were to be a war, the first target would
be a nuclear test site and that the victims would be our residents. We were in
complete terror. I would do anything to save my children, so I risked my life to
defect, and now I live in South Korea with my family.
What still makes me beat my chest and lament is that I wasn’t able to bring
my youngest son with me to Korea. He couldn’t come with me and died of
tuberculosis in Gilju-gun.
It’s with a heavy heart that I wonder when the angel of death known as nuclear
radiation exposure will disappear from North Korea.
Even now, whenever I watch news related to North Korea’s nuclear program,
I can’t help crying as I think of the people in my hometown who lost their
families and endure day after day in the land of death.
Kim Jong Un’s regime is an unprecedentedly tyrannical one based on a killer’s
obsession with staying in power regardless of whether his people die. As long as
this regime is in power, North Korea will remain a barren land, where not just
Yongbyon and Gilju-gun but the entire country is a nuclear test site. How can
we live side by side with a dictatorship that builds nuclear test sites that kill all
living things and then touts them as a way to protect the country? This is the
reality of North Korea — it’s sad and infuriating just to think about.
In recent news, Kim Jong Un has appeared with his teenage daughter. Every
time Kim Jong Un looks at his child and smiles with satisfaction, a fire of hatred
rises in my chest.
People are dying from drinking nuclear-contaminated water. Yet, Kim Jong Un
takes his daughter to inspect the nuclear test site. I’d want to spit on his dreadful
face if he were around.
I’d like to ask him. As a father, could you feed your daughter water from
Changheung stream, which flows from Punggye-ri in Gilju-gun?
I shout so that everyone around the world can hear again and again. North
Korea’s Kim Jong Un killed my youngest son, who died from radiation
poisoning, along with all the victims of Gilju-gun!
The only way for the 25 million North Korean people to survive is for Kim
Jong Un, that nuclear-mad dictator, to disappear!
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