“Give thanks to the LORD Almighty,
for the LORD is good;
his love endures forever.”
—JEREMIAH 33:11
FROM THE DAY I was arrested, I had not wanted any press coverage of my case. I hoped to resolve everything as quietly as possible, so that later on I could return to North Korea and resume my work. Looking back, I realize that was never going to be possible, but I held out that hope all the way through my trial. In my letters and phone calls, I asked my family not to go to the news networks. There were stories in the media about my arrest, and Bill Richardson’s visit to North Korea grabbed a lot of headlines a few months before my trial. However, my family stayed quiet. They didn’t do interviews or make public statements about me.
However, once my conviction and sentence went public, so did my family. Today I am very glad they did.
North Korea actually broke the news of my conviction through their official state news agency. The story was picked up by every major news outlet, including all the cable news networks, the BBC, and the New York Times. Commentators jumped in and said the sentence was a ploy to force America to open talks that would recognize North Korea as a legitimate nuclear power. I was now a bargaining chip, they said.
The US government refused to play along. A State Department spokesman, Patrick Ventrell, held a news conference in which he called on the DPRK to grant me amnesty and my immediate release.
The day after my trial, my sister, Terri, made her first of several appearances on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360. “We just pray, and ask for leaders of both nations to, please, just see him as one man, caught in between,” Terri said to Anderson. “He’s a father to three children, and we just ask that he be allowed to come home.”1
Terri became the face of the efforts to bring me home and my voice to the world. She wrote an editorial for the Seattle Times, reached out to high-profile officials who could help—including President Carter, President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, and Secretary Albright—and did interviews with everyone who asked. In 2014 she twice visited Washington, DC, and even had a meeting at the White House. She spoke with National Security Council members and visited with undersecretary Wendy Sherman at the State Department. In another trip, she pleaded my case to Secretary Kerry.
Terri wasn’t the only one who spoke out about me. My family also started a grassroots effort to bring me home. My son, Jonathan, created a petition at Change.org calling on North Korea to grant me amnesty. All together 177,552 people signed the petition.2 Bobby Lee, a friend of mine from college, created a website and a Facebook group to raise awareness of my case. Later, Terri’s college roommate, Laura Choi, and her husband, Isaac, took over maintenance of the website. They posted all the latest news about me and asked people to contact the State Department, Congress, the White House, and anyone else they could think of to urge them to bring me home. Euna Lee and Laura Ling started a letter-writing campaign for me, because they remembered the letters they had received had sustained them during their four and a half months of captivity in North Korea.
Even basketball Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman got in on the act. He read about my story in the Seattle Times and then tweeted, “I’m calling on the Supreme Leader of North Korea or as I call him ‘Kim’, to do me a solid and cut Kenneth Bae loose.”3 I’ll talk more about Dennis Rodman later on. I’ve never met him, and he said some things later in my imprisonment that really caught my family off guard and hurt them, but in May 2013, I think my family and friends welcomed anyone speaking out for me. If it was going to get me home, they were all for it.
Of course, I didn’t know any of this was going on. I couldn’t get cable news in the labor camp, nor did I or anyone else have access to the Internet. The Swedish ambassador told me my sister had appeared on CNN calling for my release, but that was all I knew. For me, the growing media frenzy might as well have taken place on another planet. I remained prisoner 103. I spent my days working in the soybean field and my nights reading while the television bombarded me with stories of the glories of the Great Leader.
The incessant propaganda made me feel even worse than I already did, and I felt pretty awful. The prison doctor came to see me once a week. He always asked how I felt, which I answered honestly. I told him my back hurt, and I was losing a lot of weight, and my entire body ached. No matter what I said, he always replied, “What did you expect? This is a labor camp. Of course your back is hurting. Work will make you feel better.”
On most of his visits he gave me some of the medicines I needed, but not all of them. A couple of months in, he tested my blood sugar levels and announced to me, “You are normal. You do not have diabetes anymore. See, I told you work would heal you.” If my diabetes had improved, it had to be because of the weight loss. I was not sure how much weight I had lost, but I knew my clothes had become very loose.
I was also starting to feel the effects of my lack of sleep. The light that never went out was bad enough, but it was nothing compared to the heat and the insects. The prison was very hot, so the guards opened the windows, which did not have screens. Throughout the day my room filled up with flies, gnats, and mosquitoes. At night before I went to sleep, I closed my window, but that only made the room hotter without solving my insect problem. So many bugs came in during the day that I spent most of the evening trying to kill them so I could try to sleep. Even after I killed what I could, more bugs flew in through the cracks around the window, drawn by the light shining in my room. Their incessant buzzing and dive-bombing made my nights miserable.
One afternoon in late June, I was out in the field, dripping with sweat, when I noticed a film crew taping me. The chief prosecutor was with them.
“Keep working,” he said. “Do not pay attention to the camera.”
After a few minutes of filming, the cameraman put down his camera and went inside. The prosecutor took me by the arm and said, “Come with me, 103.”
He led me back to my room, where a camera was already set up on a tripod. A woman sat in a chair nearby, waiting for me. The prosecutor introduced us. “This is a reporter from Choson Sinbo, and she is here to interview you,” he said. Choson Sinbo is a pro–North Korean newspaper that operates out of Tokyo, Japan. The name literally means, “The People’s Korea.” “She will ask questions, and you must be truthful. We plan on releasing the video to Western news agencies. Maybe then your government will do something to secure your release.”
The chief prosecutor told me to be truthful, but I knew I was to say only that which the North Koreans considered true. If I complained about my treatment in any way, I would suffer.
“Do you want me to change into clean clothes first?” I asked.
“No. You are fine,” the prosecutor said. “The reporter is going to ask about your physical conditions and how you are treated. Make sure you tell her how well you have been taken care of here.”
This was a true statement in the prosecutor’s mind. Compared to the average North Korean serving time in a labor camp, I was in a four-star resort.
“You must also ask your government to get busy for you,” he reminded me. “Perhaps they have forgotten you. This interview should jog their memory.”
“I understand,” I said. I thought for a moment about what I could and could not say. I also glanced at my arms. My prison uniform was filthy and ill fitting. I had filled it out a month earlier; now it hung on me. My head had also been freshly shaved a day or two earlier. I hated it when I got a new haircut. It was a reminder that I was not going anywhere soon.
What will my family think when they see me? I wondered.
“Mr. Bae,” the reporter started. “How is prison life? Is it bearable for you?”
“Yes,” I said, “life is bearable. I mainly work on the farm from morning until dinnertime, eight hours a day. I’ve never farmed before, so this is all new to me. But the people here are very considerate, and they do not work me too hard. However, my health is not in the best condition, so there are some difficulties. But everyone here is considerate and generous, and we have doctors here, so I’m getting regular checkups.” I did not mention that the checkups mainly served as a way for the doctor to tell me that I would feel better if I worked harder. “Although my health is not good, I am being patient and coping well. And I hope that with the help of the North Korean government and the United States, I will be released soon.”
“In your trial, you refused the DPRK offer of an attorney to represent you. Why did you do this?” the reporter asked. She read the question from a piece of paper. The question seemed designed to show the world how they had respected my rights and had given me a fair trial.
“I admitted to the charges,” I said, “so I thought that it wasn’t really necessary to have a defense lawyer during the trial. I admitted my crime and apologized for it.” I did not mention anything about how I couldn’t meet with my lawyer ahead of time. Given the circumstances, I didn’t think such details were going to do me much good.
“Do you have anything to say to the North Korean government and your own government?” she asked.
“I know what I did is not easily forgivable, but I hope that things will work out so that I can be with family again soon. The Fourth of July is my father’s seventieth birthday, so I hope I can be with him on this very special day. So my hope is that North Korea will forgive, and the United States will try harder to get me out speedily. I am asking for their help.”
I paused. Thinking about my father’s birthday reminded me of everything else I had missed. Emotion overcame me.
“I am an only son . . . My father . . .” I could barely get the words out. “I really hope to go to congratulate him on his birthday.”
After the interview I went back to work in the field. My father and the rest of my family filled my thoughts. I hoped seeing me would comfort them. Even though we had spoken on the phone a couple of times, there is nothing like seeing someone to reassure you that he or she is all right. I also hoped it might move North Korea and America to negotiate my release.
Weeks passed after my interview, and nothing happened. My first soybean plants started coming up. With nothing left to plant, I spent my days pulling weeds by hand.
One day in early July, the warden came out to me. “You are too slow!” he complained. “If our people were working on this field, we would have been finished a long time ago.”
“I’m doing the best I can, sir,” I said.
“Your best isn’t very good. Look at our field over there,” the warden said, pointing to the field where the guards worked when they weren’t standing over me. “Do you see how much further along our plants are than yours? Do you see how beautiful our field is? That’s what yours should look like.”
I thought of reminding him that they had several people working their field while I was all on my own. I also thought of mentioning how my field was on the side of a hill while theirs was down in the valley. Instead I said, “That’s a pretty field, but for the plants to grow really well, you need help from heaven.”
“What are you talking about?” the warden said.
“You need help from heaven, from God, to send the rain and the sunshine and everything plants need to produce a large harvest,” I said.
The warden scoffed. “Heaven?” he laughed. “We have our juche agriculture system given to us by Kim Il Sung. As long as we follow his methods, we’ll always have a great harvest. We don’t need any god to help us.” His voice rose as he said this. He was really angry that I had mentioned God and questioned the power of juche.
That night thunder and flashes of lightning woke me up. I heard rain pouring down. Then I heard some sort of commotion from inside the building. People were yelling, and I heard footsteps running up and down the hallway and the outside door slamming. I was too tired to get up and look out my window. Instead I rolled over and went back to sleep.
The next morning I saw the warden go past my room, visibly upset. “What happened?” I asked.
“There was a flood last night. The entire bean field is underwater. It’s all lost,” he said. This was a huge blow because these beans were supposed to feed the guards and the rest of the staff.
When I went outside, I noticed everything was not lost. The guards’ field was washed away—but my field was fine. I felt a little like the Israelites when the plagues hit Egypt but left them alone.
I smiled and prayed to myself, Lord, you are really humorous. You sure made your point here!
I needed this reminder of God’s faithfulness, because June and July were very hard months for me. The days were so hot that the guards quit standing around me in a triangle. Instead, they found a shady place and watched me from a distance. I tried striking up conversations with them, but they were not open to talking, except to make sure I knew they were in charge.
One day when it rained, I worked inside, scrubbing the floors by hand with a scrub brush. I worked on my hands and knees, like Cinderella. I dropped the scrub brush in a bucket of water, pulled it out, and scrubbed part of the floor. Then I used a towel to wipe it clean and dry. One of the young guards came by after I’d done about a third of the hallway near my room. “You call this clean?” he yelled. “This is not quality work. Do this again!”
“Okay,” I said.
He spun around on his boots. “How are you supposed to address me, 103? Is that how you are supposed to address me? You say it again correctly this time!”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Did you have permission to speak, 103?” he snapped back.
“I am sorry. Excuse me, teacher. May I speak, please?” I said, still on the floor.
“Stand up when you speak to me,” he said.
I stood up and repeated, “Excuse me, teacher. May I speak, please?” Having to call him teacher and sir felt very strange because I was old enough to be the guard’s father.
“Yes, you may speak, 103.”
“Yes, teacher, I will scrub the floor again,” I said.
“That’s better, 103. Now, get to work.”
This young guard seemed to enjoy finding fault with everything I did. He had the kind of personality where everything had to be done perfectly, and I never measured up. He was also very much a rule follower.
In the beginning he made it clear he did not like me. “You are Korean, but you work for the US government. You are a spy, aren’t you? How dare you do that to our country?”
I never argued or tried to defend myself. I knew my words could never convince him I was something other than what he’d already decided I was. Instead I tried very hard to do my work well and to do it with the right attitude. I believed that if they could see a difference in me, then their hearts might soften.
Despite the hope I had expressed in the Choson Sinbo interview, my father’s birthday came and went, and I was no closer to going home.
My clothes kept getting looser. Every day I worked my field while the guards watched from the shade.
One of the older guards asked me one day, “How can you live in America? It is so violent.”
“It isn’t violent,” I said. “Most places are perfectly safe.”
“How can you say it is safe when so many people get shot and the women are raped?” I knew where these questions were coming from. North Korean news programs pull the worst crime footage from the States and show it over and over, telling viewers this is everyday life in America.
“There are a few places that are dangerous, but most of the country is not that way. When I lived in the city of St. Louis, in the middle of the country, I never even locked my doors,” I replied. I mentioned St. Louis even though I knew he had no idea what I was talking about.
“What kind of place did you live in?” the guard asked. “Did you have an apartment or a house or what?”
“I had an apartment in St. Louis, but we owned our own house when we lived in Atlanta. And I owned cars in both places.”
The other two guards who were listening to the conversation reacted as if I had just lost my mind. “How can you own a house and a car?” one asked in a tone that made it clear he believed this to be impossible.
“In America we have a thing called credit,” I said. “You buy the car and take it home, and then you pay for it a little every month.”
“How do people pay for things? No one has jobs over there. Ninety percent of the people live on the streets,” the first guard said.
“No, that’s not true. Most people own their own cars and homes, at least the ones who want to,” I said.
“The government supplies us with all we want,” the third guard chimed in. “They build us houses and give them to us to live in.” The other two gave him a little look as if to tell him to shut up. I knew what he was saying was no longer true. Years earlier most people had lived in government-provided housing, but no longer. Now people had to make their own way, with average people unable to afford their own homes. Generations now shared the same small houses and apartments.
“Anyway, enough talk,” the guard said. “Get back to work, 103. You’re slow enough without wasting time talking.”
July passed. I had been depressed when I could not be with my father on his birthday, but now my own birthday had arrived. I went out in the field on August 1 just as I did every day. It was really hard to act as if this were just another day. On my last birthday, back in Dandong, my staff threw a surprise party for me, with cake and everything else. Here, no one knew or cared that it was my birthday. I shouldn’t have cared either, but there’s something about birthdays that always makes me sentimental.
I had been out in the field about two hours when the deputy warden told me to come back inside. I had no idea what was going on. Perhaps Choson Sinbo was back for another interview.
I walked to my room and found the political officer there waiting for me.
“Happy birthday,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here earlier, because here, you don’t have to work on your birthday. You have the rest of the day off.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“I brought you something,” he said. He brought out some instant ramen noodles, a substitute for the noodles that Koreans traditionally eat on their birthdays. He also had bread and soda. “I hope you enjoy your day today. I know your family will be thinking about you and you them, so I wanted to make sure you got a little comfort.”
The warden had walked in while the political officer made his presentation. “You know,” the warden said, “he bought all this with his own money.”
I was touched that he did this for me. However, I wasn’t quite sure what his motives might have been. Perhaps the political officer was trying to convert me through his acts of kindness. Whatever his motives, I was very thankful that I did not have to work outside on such a hot summer day. I enjoyed the treats and the day off.
A few days later the prison doctor came in for his weekly visit. It was the same routine: He asked how I was feeling. I went through my list of ailments. Then he always said, “What do you expect? You are in a labor camp.”
However, on Saturday, August 3, 2013, the doctor actually seemed to listen to me. The chief prosecutor had come with him, but I don’t think he had any influence on the doctor. After all, it was the chief prosecutor who had me sent to the camp even after I failed my medical exam.
The prison doctor asked me how I felt. I told him, “I know I’ve lost a lot of weight, and I get dizzy a lot.”
The chief prosecutor spoke up. “Do you think we should check him into the hospital for a thorough examination?”
The doctor scrunched up his forehead as he thought. “That may not be a bad idea. There’s only so much I can do here.”
“All right,” the prosecutor said. “I will make the arrangements.”
At first I thought this was an honest conversation, but then I thought about something the chief prosecutor had said on an earlier visit. He had made an offhand comment about how most prisoners stay in this labor camp for only three months. My three months were up. Maybe something else was going on.
I did not want to get my hopes up. I told myself that I was just going to the hospital for a few tests and then I would be right back, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I was about to go home.
On Monday morning the guard told me to gather all my things together. This could be it, I told myself.
That afternoon the chief prosecutor came to my room. “Time to go,” he said.
I looked around my room. Good-bye, room 3. I hope I never see you again.
The warden, deputy warden, and the guards all came by my room as I left. “Good-bye,” I said to them.
“Good-bye, 103,” the warden said. The way he said it sounded really final, like a final good-bye.
I walked out to the waiting minivan with the prosecutor and took one last look at the labor camp. Finally, my nightmare was coming to an end. I never thought I would see that place again.