By DPA,
Los Angeles : The two US journalists captured and held in North Korea for months before being released last month revealed the first details of their ordeal Wednesday.
Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for Current TV, wrote on its website that they were captured March 17 after briefly crossing a frozen river that marked the border between China and North Korea and which was often used as a human trafficking route.
Ling, 36, and Lee, 32, were sentenced to 12 years of hard labour for grave offenses against the North Korean government, but came home to a heroes’ welcome after former president Bill Clinton flew to Pyongyang and interceded with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il on their behalf.
The two were researching a story about women who fled the poverty of North Korea, only to find themselves forces into the online sex industry or into arranged marriages in China.
The journalists said they were aware they were crossing the border, but were already back on the Chinese side of the line when they were chased down by North Korean guards and dragged back over the border to an army camp. Their guide and a producer managed to outrun the guards and were never captured, they said.
“When we set out, we had no intention of leaving China, but when our guide beckoned for us to follow him beyond the middle of the river, we did,” the two wrote in the piece, titled Hostages of the Hermit Kingdom.
“We were firmly back inside China when the soldiers apprehended us. They violently dragged us back across the ice to North Korea and marched us to a nearby army base, where we were detained. Over the next 140 days, we were moved to Pyongyang, isolated from one another, repeatedly interrogated and eventually put on trial and sentenced to 12 years of hard labour.”
The two said they worked on the story with the Seoul-based Reverend Chun Ki-won, a well-known activist who has helped hundreds of North Korean defectors start new lives in other countries. He introduced them to their guide, who until the border-crossing incident had seemed “cautious and responsible – as concerned as we were about protecting our interview subjects and not taking unnecessary risks”.
Ling and Lee now believe the guide may ultimately have set them up as he acted suspiciously prior to their capture. But they took full responsibility and apologized for the incident.
“We didn’t spend more than a minute on North Korean soil before turning back, but it is a minute we deeply regret. To this day, we still don’t know if we were lured into a trap. But it was ultimately our decision to follow him, and we continue to pay for that decision today with dark memories of our captivity.”
The journalists recounted that they destroyed possibly damaging evidence by swallowing their notes and damaging videotapes. They protected their sources during daily interrogations, while at home their families, friends and colleagues maintained a silence to minimise the political impact of their case.
“We can’t adequately express the emotions surrounding our release. One moment, we were preparing to be sent to a labour camp, fearing that we would disappear and never be heard from again; the next we were escorted into a room with president Clinton, who greeted us and told us we were going home,” the two wrote.
“We are grateful to the many journalists who kept our story alive. We are humbled by the tens of thousands of people who supported us, prayed for us and fought for our release.”