DPRK tests bio weapons on children

[Dust Bunnies]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/07/20097165415127287.html

N Korea 'tests weapons on children'

lly or physically deficient, says Im, the government says your best contribution to society… is as a guinea pig for biological and chemical weapons testing." Even after settling into the relative safety of South Korea, for 10 years Im held on to this secret, saying it was too horrific to recount.
But with Kim's health reportedly failing, and the country appearing increasingly unpredictable, Im felt it was time he spoke out.
Daughter given up

In depth http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images//2009/5/26/20095266555573734_8.jpg
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http://english.aljazeera.net/Media/Images/sq.gif Timeline: N Korea's bomb (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2008/07/2008710295578221.html)
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Videos
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http://english.aljazeera.net/Media/Images/sq.gif Hans Blix on North Korea's nuclear fallout
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http://english.aljazeera.net/Media/Images/sq.gif South Korea's nuclear fears
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http://english.aljazeera.net/Media/Images/sq.gif N Korea test sparks alarm (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/05/20095259241732196.html)
http://english.aljazeera.net/Media/Images/sq.gif UN 'should expel N Korea' (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/05/200952523529218922.html)
http://english.aljazeera.net/Media/Images/sq.gif N Korea's 'nuclear gamble' (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/05/200952545954697254.html)
The former military captain says it was in the early 1990s, that he watched his then commander wrestle with giving up his 12-year-old daughter who was mentally ill. The commander, he says, initially resisted, but after mounting pressure from his military superiors, he gave in.
Im watched as the girl was taken away. She was never seen again.
One of Im's own men later gave him an eyewitness account of human-testing.
Asked to guard a secret facility on an island off North Korea's west coast, Im says the soldier saw a number of people forced into a glass chamber.
"Poisonous gas was injected in," Im says. "He watched doctors time how long it took for them to die."
Other North Korean defectors have long alleged that the secretive nation has been using political prisoners as experimental test subjects.
Some have detailed how inmates were shipped from various concentration camps to so-called chemical "factories".
'Widespread practice'
But Im's is the first account of mentally-ill or physically challenged children being used.

http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images//2009/7/24/20097242433753734_3.jpg Kim Sang-hun believes there are at least three to five experimental weapons sites
Security analysts believe Kim oversees one of the most aggressive and robust biochemical weapons programmes in the world. A member of the special forces' Brigade No.19, Im says he was trained on how to use biochemical weapons against the "enemy" – including how to fire them from short-range "bazooka-style" weapons.
He says such training was normal practice for all elite units.
Today it is estimated the country has accumulated a stockpile of more than 5,000 tonnes of biochemical weaponry; from mustard gas, to nerve agents such as sarin, to anthrax and cholera.
The extent of the stockpile is a concern to Kim Sang-hun, a retired UN official who has spent years investigating the North's chemical and biological weapons programme.
He believes over the past 20 years, the programme has advanced at a startling pace, specifically because the country’s rulers approve and support the use of human test subjects.

"If you are born mentally or physically deficient, the government says your best contribution to society… is as a guinea pig for biological and chemical weapons testing"
Im Chun-yong, former North Korean commando
"Human experimentation is a widespread practice," Kim says. "I hoped I was wrong, but it is the reality and it is taking place in North Korea and it is taking place at a number of locations."
There are some who question claims that the North conducts human trials. But Kim says he has interviewed hundred of defectors who, more times than not, volunteer personal vivid accounts.
"The programme is now a commonly known fact in the North Korean public," he says.
As a former member of the elite special forces, Im agrees.
While the government may be secretive about a lot of things, he says "when it comes to human experimentation, most know it happens".
Investigating what he says are serious UN violations regarding the rights of children and prisoners, Kim Sang-hun has amassed a vast amount of evidence.
Compiled in folders at his home in Seoul are reams of testimonies and documents.
Some bear what appear to be official government stamps approving the transfer of prisoners from camps to chemical "factories".
He says he believes these are, in reality, experimental weapons sites.
He has pinpointed at least three to five labs that he believes are situated in different parts of the country, including one just a few kilometres north of the capital, Pyongyang.
Security analysts suspect there are as many as 20 such plants across the country.
Biochemical threat
As the world's attention focuses on the North's nuclear programme, Im is worried the international community will miss what he believes is the more imminent threat posed by the country's biochemical arsenal.

http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images//2009/7/24/20097242737852580_3.jpg Defectors have told of prisoners being shipped to chemical 'factories' Arms experts say at least 30 per cent of North Korea's missile and artillery systems are capable of delivering such weapons. With each successive test, they warn the North's accuracy improves, and so too its range. The UN Security Council now says it believes three of the seven missiles tested by the North on July 4 were Scud-ER missiles, which are known to be more accurate and have a range of 1,000km.
Tokyo is roughly 1,160km from the base on North Korea's east coast from where the missiles were fired, while other parts of Japan are closer.
Im believes the government would not hesitate to use such arms, saying he has seen the "ruthlessness" of the country’s leaders.
During his escape from North Korea in December 1999, Im says he and his men battled their way out, chased by dozens of members of other commando units.
"I myself killed three men," he says. "Then after swimming across the half frozen Tumen river into China, we sold our guns, and left that life behind."
Im now devotes his time to gathering intelligence about the North's military capabilities.
Even a decade after his escape, the threat he still poses to the North Korean government means that he now lives under the constant protection of South Korea's National Intelligence Service.


Wow the glorious DPRK tests bio weapons on children... If they tested them on kidnapped members of the ruling class in South Korea or China that'd be fine.

[FreeFocus]

This is imperialist propaganda, don't you know that, Dust Bunnies? North Korea is a socialist worker's state that deserves our support. We must defend the gains of the revolution! :hammersickle:

[MarxSchmarx]

"The programme is now a commonly known fact in the North Korean public," he says.While the government may be secretive about a lot of things, he says "when it comes to human experimentation, most know it happens".

It's terrifying how people can be so quickly desensitized to such horrific violence. This shocks our conscience in the west, but ironically we are accustomed to children dying in the crossfires of gang warfare or of lack of access to medical care as a consequence of capitalism.

As horrific as something like this is is:

If you are born mentally or physically deficient, says Im, the government says your best contribution to society… is as a guinea pig for biological and chemical weapons testing.

in the west, we don't bat an eye towards claims that "if you are a young male with little other economic prospects, your best contribution to society ... may be in the military killing other people and dying in rich men's wars".

Not that this justifies either, but it just goes to show the perverse logic used by governments.

[narcomprom]

Wow the glorious DPRK tests bio weapons on children... If they tested them on kidnapped members of the ruling class in South Korea or China that'd be fine.
You place too much trust in Al Jazeera, which is owned by a feudal.

Horrific tales with kids in it are best left to Hoffmans, Andersens and Grimms.

Is this supported by any other source?

[LOLseph Stalin]

I wouldn't be sure whether to trust this source or not. It seems a little iffy. Have you found any other infomation backing this up that isn't from this same source? Sure, the DPRK isn't very Socialist, but I don't think they would go to such limits and do this.

[khad]

It could be a lie, but then again it could be fairly plausible.

http://justana-justana.blogspot.com/2008/09/experiments-on-children-in-america.html


Lest you think that the scientific community and government agencies would not carry out immoral experiments on humans, particularly children, think again. For example, the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s forays into human experimentation recently came to light after the Washington Post reported that the EPA had approved a two-year study in which families who use pesticides in Duval County, Fla., would be paid to continue using them and to monitor their children’s exposure. Each family would be paid $970 in order that scientists might discover how children’s bodies absorb hazardous chemicals. Although scientists may not know the full effects of these poisonous chemicals, they do know that children are at greater risk than adults. Yet rather than advising parents to keep children away from pesticides, the government is paying them to poison their children. Thankfully, after U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (CA) and Bill Nelson (FL) threatened to block the full-time confirmation of Stephen Johnson, the EPA’s acting administrator, if the experiment were not cancelled, Johnson ended the Florida pesticide program on April 8, 2005.

However, the pesticide study is not the only unethical experimentation in U.S. history. It is simply the most recent case. At a prenatal clinic at Vanderbilt University Hospital from 1945-49, nearly 830 poor, pregnant Caucasian women were given a drink containing radioactive iron. They were told the drink would be good for their fetuses. Within an hour, the radioactive material was circulating in the blood of the unborn babies.

The list of criminal experiments does not stop at endangering the unborn. During the 1940s and 1950s, the U.S. government was involved in many radioactivity tests in which humans, especially young children, were used as guinea pigs. Most notable was the MIT and Quaker Oats-sponsored testing at the Fernald School in Waltham, Mass., in which mentally retarded students were fed cereal containing radioactive iron in order to trace iron absorption. However, neither the students nor their parents were informed of the use of radioactive materials or the possible health risks.

From 1948 to 1954, Johns Hopkins conducted an experiment on 582 third graders, testing the effects of Nasal Radium Irradiation. Although it is now known that this procedure places the participant at greater risk for cancer, the government still has not contacted the participants to warn them of this risk. During the 1950s and 1960s, mentally retarded children between the ages of 3 and 11 at Willowbrook State School were intentionally infected with hepatitis. The early test subjects were fed extracts of the feces of an infected patient, and later subjects were injected with the virus in order for researchers to be able to study the hepatitis virus. In the 1960s, the D.C. Children’s Center in Laurel, Md., used mentally retarded children as test subjects. They were given a diet pill called NeoBazine, which contains thyroxin, a drug that causes tremors, nervousness, insomnia and tachycardia. The FDA later found that this drug was not safe for use.

As recently as 1989-1991, Kaiser Permanente of Southern California and the Centers for Disease Control treated 1,500 poor black and Latino inner-city children in Los Angeles with experimental measles vaccines. The same vaccination was given to infants in Mexico, Haiti and Africa by the World Health Organization. It was discontinued after a large number of those tested died.

[narcomprom]

I wouldn't be sure whether to trust this source or not. It seems a little iffy. Have you found any other infomation backing this up that isn't from this same source? Sure, the DPRK isn't very Socialist, but I don't think they would go to such limits and do this.
North Korea is a dictatorship that grants it's citizens education and healthcare. I wouldn't want to live there but still it is not the hell on earth painted by feudal and capitalist media, for that you should go to Turkmenistan. There the government closed down all rural schools and hospitals. You won't hear much about that because they are our friends. They provide us with gas and we fund their posh luxury.

edit:Their life expectancy is higher than in Russia or India or Iraq or Afghanistan according even to the dubious CIA world factbook.

[LOLseph Stalin]

North Korea is a dictatorship that grants it's citizens education and healthcare. I wouldn't want to live there but still it is not the hell on earth painted by feudal and capitalist media, for that you should go to Turkmenistan. There the government closed down all rural schools and hospitals. You won't hear much about that because they are our friends. They provide us with gas and we fund their posh luxury.

edit:Their life expectancy is higher than in Russia or India or Iraq or Afghanistan according even to the dubious CIA world factbook.

That is why I'm doubting the facts that are being provided. I don't support the Juche ideology as it contradicts with many things Communism is supposed to represent, but I still feel that the DPRK is probably better than any Capitalist "paradise".

[Kukulofori]

this isn't very hard to believe for the reason MarxSchmarx noted, but I still tend to be cautious of anything that comes from defectors. If I believed every Cuban immigrant in the US on Cuba...

[Revy]

khad, I live in Duval County. :ohmy:

fucking EPA....

[khad]

khad, I live in Duval County. :ohmy:

fucking EPA....
Holy shit. :ohmy:

[jake williams]

Al Jazeera is maybe the best "mainstream" media in the world. I don't know a lot about the Arabic channel, but its "feudal" origins, if you must call it that, have almost nothing to do with the editorial slant. You could question the sources it is using, but Al Jazeera certainly isn't itself "iffy". It's not run by a bunch of radical leftists, but it's incredibly progessive nonetheless. It's totally possible that AJE's source is BSing, but it's totally possible that he's not. Of course we don't have real "proof" either way - whatever you think of North Korea, you can't deny it's a totalitarian dictatorship that doesn't allow any sort of real reporting on what goes on in the country, so none of us know.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

During his escape from North Korea in December 1999, Im says he and his men battled their way out, chased by dozens of members of other commando units.
"I myself killed three men," he says. "Then after swimming across the half frozen Tumen river into China, we sold our guns, and left that life behind."So it's based on the first hand accounts of a guy who says he fought his way out of "the biggest prison in the world" and the suspicion that "chemical factory" really means "weapons testing facility"? :confused:

[Charles Xavier]

Its based on a defector's account and not actual evidence.

[Pogue]

I don't doubt that a bourgeoisie state like North Korea does this. The ruling class worldwide are sick fucks.

[MarxSchmarx]

I don't doubt that a bourgeoisie state like North Korea does this. The ruling class worldwide are sick fucks.

qft.

[Janine Melnitz]

Bourgeois? A lot of monarchs would have your head for that

Anyway yeah this is a silly unsubstantiated story and it's unsurprising that the bourgie media like it (nothing against al-Jazeera mind) and equally unsurprising that RevLefters would fall all over themselves to talk about how it's probably true, the DPRK is so evil that it might as well be true, totalitarian, axis, evildoers

[Guerrilla22]

Meh, this is an account coming from a defector living in exile, they'll say anything. There have been Cuban exiles that have claimed Castro did the same thing and we all remember the Iraqi exiles that the Bush administration cited as sources confirming that Saddam had "stockpiles of WMDs"

[JohnnyC]

Is there any actual evidence for this or is it all just based on one man's story?I wouldn't be surprised if this is all just an attempt to smear North Korea.

[Wanted Man]

During his escape from North Korea in December 1999, Im says he and his men battled their way out, chased by dozens of members of other commando units.
"I myself killed three men," he says. "Then after swimming across the half frozen Tumen river into China, we sold our guns, and left that life behind."Also, they planted some bombs in the facility, but Im's buddy was captured by the commies and apparently shot dead while Im escaped. Now, ten years later, Im's buddy turns out to be alive and angry at being betrayed. Together with a North Korean officer, a vague syndicate and the Russian mafia, they plot to rob the Bank of England and destroy the evidence with a massive satellite.

Watch as our hero Im infiltrates deeply into North Korea to stop the evildoers. Tanks, satellites, deadly hot chicks and armoured fucking trains stand in his way.

[MarxSchmarx]

Anyway yeah this is a silly unsubstantiated story and it's unsurprising that the bourgie media like it (nothing against al-Jazeera mind) and equally unsurprising that RevLefters would fall all over themselves to talk about how it's probably true, the DPRK is so evil that it might as well be true, totalitarian, axis, evildoers


If the DPRK had nothing to hide, why are they so secretive and paranoid viz. the outside world? It's one things for citizens to want to have their privacy respected. It's a whole other thing for a government to so systematically lack transparency. If the story were false, why won't North Korea let international inspections in to study this issue at great length?

But....but.... the capitalist "observers" will of course fabricate stories to serve the imperialist press. Just like they fabricated weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or abject misery and destitution in Cuba and "long lines in Canada" to see doctors and other lies that were convenient to the ruling class. Oh, wait... Except that they don't.

Anyway, even if the story were false (and I have no reason to believe it's not), the DPRK is a despicable regime no better than the capitalist oligarchy, and in many respects a lot worse. It long ago abandoned Marxist-Leninism and we need to recognize it for the nationalist, fascist monarchy that it is.

[PRC-UTE]

Also, they planted some bombs in the facility, but Im's buddy was captured by the commies and apparently shot dead while Im escaped. Now, ten years later, Im's buddy turns out to be alive and angry at being betrayed. Together with a North Korean officer, a vague syndicate and the Russian mafia, they plot to rob the Bank of England and destroy the evidence with a massive satellite.

Watch as our hero Im infiltrates deeply into North Korea to stop the evildoers. Tanks, satellites, deadly hot chicks and armoured fucking trains stand in his way.

I didn't know they were doing a film based on my life. I better get a few quid out of this.