U.S. journalists released from N. Korea break silence on detention

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By Sam Kim
SEOUL, Sept. 2 (Yonhap) -- Two U.S. journalists released after months of
captivity in North Korea said Wednesday they had already come out of the
communist country but were "violently" dragged back into it by its soldiers when
they were captured.
"We didn't spend more than a minute on North Korean soil before turning back, but
it is a minute we deeply regret," Laura Ling and Euna Lee said in a statement on
the Web site of their San Francisco-based employer, Current TV.
"We were firmly back inside China when the soldiers apprehended us," they said in
their first account of the March 17 capture. "We tried with all our might to
cling to bushes, ground, anything that would keep us on Chinese soil."
"But we were no match for the determined soldiers. They violently dragged us back
across the ice to North Korea and marched us to a nearby army base, where we were
detained," they said.
Ling and Lee said they were turning back on their way to a house that their guide
said was housing North Koreans preparing to be smuggled into China, when they
heard yelling on the frozen river.
"We looked back and saw two North Korean soldiers with rifles running toward us.
Instinctively, we ran," they said. "Producer Mitch Koss and our guide were both
able to outrun the border guards. We were not," they said.
The journalists, brought back to the U.S. by former U.S. President Bill Clinton
on Aug. 5, had been sentenced to 12 years in labor camp for "hostile acts"
against North Korea.
"What did we do that was hostile?" they said, arguing they were convicted "not
for trespassing but for our work as journalists."
"Totalitarian regimes the world over are terrified of exposure," they said.
Ling and Lee defended themselves against claims they might have endangered those
working to help North Koreans flee the country's repressive regime, saying they
destroyed their materials.
"We furtively destroyed evidence in our possession by swallowing notes and
damaging videotapes" during the early part of their detention, Ling, an ethnic
Chinese, and Lee, an ethnic Korean, said.
"People had put their lives at risk by sharing their stories, and we were
determined to do everything in our power to safeguard them," they said. "We took
extreme caution to ensure that the people we interviewed and their locations were
not identifiable.
"After arriving home, we were disoriented, overwhelmed and not ready to talk
about the experience," they said. "We can't adequately express the emotions
surrounding our release. One moment, we were preparing to be sent to a labor
camp, fearing that we would disappear and never be heard from again."
samkim@yna.co.kr
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