On January 2, 2016, a young American college student from the University of Virginia was arrested in North Korea while at the Pyongyang airport preparing to depart for the United States. His name was Otto Frederick Warmbier who was visiting the country on a youth program with about 100 other westerners. His crimes against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea were that of treason in their country. What exactly did he do? He took down a sign in the hotel he was staying at that read "Let's arm ourselves strongly with Kim Jong-il's patriotism!" Now, the crime he committed may not seem that serious to Americans who are used to seeing the flag burned by protestors, but in North Korea it is considered a crime of hostility against the state; very democratic, right?
The worst part about the whole incident was that he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in one of the country’s many labor camps. The work done in these camps is supposedly grueling and excruciating, so try imagining an American college student being forced to do it for 15 years. I encourage all of you reading this to click the links at the bottom of the page and see his plea for mercy on the video. His trial supposedly lasted only an hour and his sentence was given thereafter.
Labor camps were used under Hitler’s regime, and under Stalin’s as well to punish those who went against the state and posed a “threat.” Otto is not the first American to be jailed in the DPRK; he is the recent of many, but some were released after six months to a year in the camp.
Some say his harsh sentence comes as a response to sanctions imposed on the DPRK by the UN and the United States, due to the North’s nuclear weapons testing and development, and also their numerous human rights violations and brutal treatment of their people.
The scariest thing about this entire ordeal is that recently, Kim Jong-un and many other top North Korean officials and diplomats have come out to say that the sanctions imposed on their leader are “an act of war” against the state. They have warned against U.S.- South Korean war drills next month and gave a stern caution if they are not called off.
A top North Korean diplomat came out and said, “By doing these kinds of vicious and hostile acts toward the DPRK, the U.S. has already declared war against the DPRK. So it is our self-defensive right and justifiable action to respond in a very hard way.” You can slice that any way you want to, but to me that seems they are not taking anything we do lightly and are willing to use much force to combat the sanctions that they see as an attack on their leader.
Now the absolute worst part about this is that no media outlets are covering the story. We have troops stationed in South Korea, which is a stones throw away from the North. Let me also inform you that their missiles can reach the west coast of the United States and much of Western Europe. We could potentially be on the brink of war if we make a wrong move, and no one bothers to devote much time to the threats.
