A video documentary series shot partly with hidden cameras by a film crew that ventured into North Korea posing as tourists reveals a closed cult society that revolves around the worship of the dictator, Kim Jong-Il.The series of videos was filmed and edited by crew members at an eclectic website called "Vice," described by Vanity Fair as a "purveyor of hipster style and nihilism."Although its home page contains "art" material that may be objectionable to family viewers, officials there have set up a
special web page linking directly to the 14 episodes created from the visit to North Korea.In the Vanity Fair description of the series, writer Christopher Bateman said, "Vice co-founder Shane Smith and a cameraman bribed their way into the country and then got treated to the full panoply of pomp and diplomacy apparently saved for North Korea's few annual tourists."He continued, "Never let out of eyesight by their state-supplied tour guides, they are forced to participate in a nonstop regiment of ideologically kosher sightseeing (the creepy People's Study House, a monumental statue of Kim Il-Sung, the exploitation of child music prodigies at an elite elementary school.) At every juncture they are reminded either of the evil of the 'U.S. Imperialists' or the magnificence of Great Leader Kim and Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il. This is partly done through laughable propaganda videos with awkward English dubbing that are sold all over North Korea, and which are featured in the film."
The 14-part series launches with a video about the company's year-long unsuccessful effort to obtain entry to North Korea through legitimate routes, and the eventual decision to fly to South Korea, where they are advised to go to China and bribe their way in. And they do.Once inside the nation that is listed at the top of most lists assembled by governments or humanitarian organizations for its aggressive repression of Christians and members of other faiths, the crew discovers a complete cult atmosphere, with warnings against even standing in front of a picture of North Korea's dictator.Mandatory is a visit by tourists to the U.S.S. Pueblo, a U.S. spy ship captured in 1968 by North Korea. Another mandatory visit is to the "People's Study House."There a guide tells the visitors it is for students."They come here to ask professors questions and the professors give them the correct answers immediately," visitors are told.A stop in a music library reveals Beatles and Bob Dylan recordings, but no one listening, prompting the Vice crew to speculate they are for "wannabe guards" to learn idiomatic English to monitor the rest of the world.Visitors are allowed to go into the Pyongyang subway but only to ride from one station to the next. In those stations, guards inform the crew members the colored lights are there to represent fireworks.The crew members repeatedly visit such "interesting" sites accompanied only by their guards. In their various "random" stops in restaurants, the videos reveal them to be virtually the only customers.One video, Episode 5 – The Tea Girl, shows their tourist bus as the only vehicle traveling on the roads and traveling through villages with no electricity. Then they are the only customers in a tea shop where an overjoyed employee plays pool and ping-pong with them.
"We may still be the last people this girl has hung out with," crew members concluded in another video."We have seen plenty of footage before from journalists in North Korea, but the footage from Vice came up with is highly impressive because they were using a hidden camera, which has skillfully captured many images of life in North Korea that is not usually seen by outsiders," said the North Korean blog Rok Drop.
[[[[[[[[[North Korea still imposes the death penalty for those who offend the dictator by expressing faith in a religion such as Christianity, and where tens of thousands of Christians are held in terminal prison camps.A spokesman for Open Doors, which ranks North Korea No. 1 on its World Watch list of countries where Christians suffer the greatest persecution, said even on Christmas Day, executions occur."The state is working hard to wipe out Christianity," said
Open Doors USA spokesman Jerry Dykstra. "Nowhere in the world is such a high price paid as in this country with its tyrannical regime," he said.A man identified only as "Brother Simon" told the Christian ministry from a secret location inside North Korea that a holiday such as Christmas is celebrated by Christians who gather in groups of two, to keep underneath the radar that alerts authorities."For example (on an ordinary Sunday), a Christian goes and sits on a bench in the park. Another Christian comes and sits next to him. Sometimes it is dangerous even to speak to one another, but they know they are both Christians, and at such a time, this is enough. If there is no one around, they may be able to share a Bible verse which they have learned by heart and briefly say something about it. They also share prayer topics with each other. Then they leave one another and go and look for Christians in some other part of their town. This continues throughout Sunday. A cell group usually consists of fewer than 20 Christians who encourage and strengthen one another in this way. Besides this, there are one-to-one meetings in people's homes," Simon said.
]]]]]]]]]Vice officials told WND that as tourists, the crew members were allowed to take a camera and use it in some locations. In others, however, even "tourists" were banned from taking pictures or video.Guards in one museum warmed Smith not to "block" their president-for-life by standing in front of his picture. In another episode the camera captures a banquet hall filled with food for one guest "just to give the impression that North Korea does not have a food shortage."Reports Smith, as he was leaving he saw the waitresses collecting the food that had been on display on other tables and carefully storing it, apparently to be re-used for the next tourist visitor.Smith, whose company also has documented travel to Baghdad as well as the
Sudan, noted traveling into the highly restricted nation that has built and runs prison camps for its own citizens was "one of the hardest and weirdest processes Vice has ever dealt with.""After we went back and forth with their representatives for months, they finally said they were going to allow 16 journalists into the country to cover the Arirang Mass Games in Pyongyang. Then, 10 days before we were supposed to go, they said, 'No, nobody can come.' Then they said, 'OK, OK, you can come. But only as tourists.' We had no idea what that was supposed to mean. They already knew we were journalists, and over there if you get caught being a journalist when you're supposed to be a tourist you go to jail. We don't like jail. And we’re willing to bet we'd hate jail in North Korea," Smith said."But we went for it," he told reporters. "The first leg of the trip was a flight into northern China. At the airport the North Korean consulate took our passports and all of our money, then brought us to a restaurant. We were sitting there with our tour group, and suddenly all the other diners left and these women came out and started singing North Korean nationalist songs. We were thinking, 'Look, we were just on a plane for 20 hours. We're jet-lagged. Can we just go to bed?' but this guy with our group who was from the LA Times told us, 'Everyone in here besides us is secret
police. If you don't act excited then you're not going to get your visa.' So we got drunk and jumped up onstage and sang songs with the girls. The next day we got our
visas. A lot of people we had gone with didn't get theirs. That was our first hint at just what a freaky, freaky trip we were embarking on..."Interspersed with video footage of 120,000 people putting on a stadium show, apparently for a handful of observers, are comments from
President Bush describing North Korea as a "regime with missiles and weapons of mass destruction" and including it in an "axis of evil."During the mandatory visit to the North Korea side of the demilitarized zone separating it from South Korea, guides tell the crew members of the two million soldiers poised and ready to defend their country if anyone invades by so much as one inch.They also are told of huge buildings filled with dynamite ready to explode should an invasion be reported. They stayed in one hotel, on an island, that was 47 stories tall but apparently included people on only one floor, they said."You're not a tourist," Smith said, "You're on a tour. You come in. You're shown what you're shown.""This is so surreal," he said.
As in the days of Noah...
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JERUSALEM - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday she would push for an easing of Israeli restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank as she began her latest Mideast mission aimed at reviving faltering peace talks.Rice said she was looking for "real concrete progress" on several issues, including improving the movement and access of people and goods from the West Bank. Israeli checkpoints and strict travel rules have curtailed such commerce and largely crippled the Palestinian its economy."I will spend a good deal of time on issues concerning the West Bank and issues concerning the ability to provide a better life for the people of the West Bank, including ways to improve movement and access," she told reporters on her plane en route to Israel."The improvement of life on the ground is the piece that I think really has to be pushed forward pretty hard," Rice said before arriving and heading to dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.Easing the restrictions would clear the way for economic revival projects proposed by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, now a Mideast peace envoy, with the strong backing of Palestinian leaders who control the West Bank.Rice planned three-way talks on Sunday with Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to explore ways of easing the regulations, including turning over more security control to the Palestinian Authority in certain areas."Obviously, there are security issues, but we do have to find ways to improve movement," she said. "There are obstacles that are not checkpoints and there are checkpoints that are obstacles. I think you have to look at both."Palestinians contend Israel, in not removing the restrictions on movement, is undermining Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his moderate Fatah Party in their power struggle with the militant Hamas movement. Hamas seized control of Gaza last year.Israel is in a battle with Hamas, whose members have fired rockets at Israeli communities in southern Israel. Israel has retaliated with attacks that have killed scores of civilians in Gaza.Israel agreed this past week to issue more permits for Palestinian laborers and merchants, but has yet to take down any of the hundreds of West Bank checkpoints it says are necessary to stop suicide bombers.Broader peace negotiations have bogged down despite pledges from all sides to reach at least the outline of a peace deal by the time President Bush leaves office in January. On this issue, Rice said she was not coming to the region to "insert American ideas into this process.""I am not bringing the 'American paper' because I don't think that that is useful," she said at the start of her second trip to the Mideast this month. "What is useful right now is for the parties to continue what I think is a pretty fruitful discussion between them."In addition to seeing Barak and Fayyad on Sunday, Rice planned to meet with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni before a quick trip to Amman for talks with Jordanian King Abdullah II as well as Abbas, who is currently in Jordan.Rice then returns to Jerusalem for a three-way meeting on Monday with Livni, who is leading the Israeli negotiating team, and the Palestinian's chief negotiator Ahmed Qureia. Rice later will head back to Amman for further talks with Abbas.
