Kim Seung Min, Founder, Free North Korea Radio, North Korea

Bio: Kim Seung Min is one of the most prominent North Korean defectors and the founder of Free North Korea Radio, which broadcasts daily into North Korea on a shortwave channel. The son of a famous poet, he was born in 1962, trained as a teacher, and served more than ten years in the North Korean Army. It was during his time as an Army propaganda officer that he was confronted with the truth about his country. "I found out North Korea was not the best socialist country in the world, but the most backward, most undemocratic country in the world. It was a total shock," said Min.

Disillusioned by this realization, Kim Seung Min escaped to China in October 1996, shortly after famine struck North Korea. Arrested and returned to North Korea by the Chinese police, he was tortured for eight days at a detention center in Onsung, North Korea. He escaped again in March 1997 by jumping off the train taking him to the Central Office of the National Security Agency in Pyongyang. Two years later he arrived in South Korea, determined, as he wrote in a personal testimony, "to become a freedom fighter."

He first became executive director of the North Korean Defectors Association and launched Free North Korea Radio in April 2004. Explaining the importance of the radio, he said: "It is important to give bread and milk to the starving people in North Korea. However, if we do not give them freedom and democracy at the same time, it would be like providing only for the animals. Our radio program provides information about freedom and democracy for the North Korean people." Read Kim Seung Min's remarks here

Remarks: I would like to thank the National Endowment for Democracy and President Vaclav Havel for this opportunity to address you. It is such an honor to be here with all of you. I have so much to talk about, but I will talk about "Our Dear Leader General Kim Jong-il" whom we North Korean defectors once served and respected in North Korea. Kim Jong-il has no parallel in history in that he established total control of information, violated all principles and trust among the international community, and enslaved 23 million people in North Korea into personality cult worship. Only because someone did not attend the indoctrination classes, only because someone did not keep his portrait clean, or only because someone talked about his personal life, more than 200,000 people were sent to political prison camps.

Kim Jong-il was personally responsible for many international terrors: on October 9, 1983, he ordered the attack that killed 17 high-ranking South Korean government officials and 4 local people at a ceremony in Aung San, Myanmar, and on November 29, 1987, he ordered the attack on Korean Air Line 858 that killed 115 innocent passengers. While more than 3 million people died of starvation in the mid 1990's in North Korea, he squandered $890 million to build a memorial for his father. That is Kim Jong-il, our Dear Leader General.

Kim Jong-il mobilized all the government agencies and people to convert the whole country into an international outlaw state. He ordered the production of illegal drugs and counterfeits. He kidnapped innocent citizens from Japan and six other countries. His crimes can never be forgiven. Now, he threatens and disrupts the international peace with his weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.

For those who are starved or beaten to death under Kim Jong-il's brutal dictatorship, bread and milk may mean life and death. However, bread and milk alone cannot make them realize that they are human beings, not animals. North Koreans don't even know they are human beings.

We, the North Korean defectors in South Korea, must let our brothers and sisters in North Korea know that it is more important to live like human beings than simply be fed like animals. That is why we started our shortwave radio broadcast to North Korean people and will continue to broadcast Free North Korea Radio.

We were threatened many times by the North Korean regime that they would blow up our radio station. We were threatened many times by the Kim Jong-il followers in South Korea. They demonstrated in front of our studio, and they harassed us with death threats and hate mail. We are not afraid, though. We know that we must let the people we left in North Korea know that we care about them and we will bring freedom and democracy to them, even it takes our own lives.

We also know that we have as many patriotic and compassionate friends in South Korea who are fighting along with us for freedom and democracy for the North Korean people. And we are not alone thanks to our friends of the international community. I promise here in front of you that we will continue to fight to deliver freedom and democracy to our own brothers and sisters in North Korea with Free North Korea Radio. We will continue to fight against threats and harassment by our enemies.

I thank Mr. Carl Gershman and our friends at the National Endowment for Democracy for their moral and financial support without which we would not have been. I also want to thank my friend, Mrs. Suzanne Scholte of the Defense Forum Foundation, who supported and worked with us tirelessly for this cause. I thank her for all her help in starting the North Korea Human Rights movement.

Thank you very much.