Jack Kim is a special adviser to HanVoice, Canada's leading organization focusing on North Korean human rights and refugee issues.
After more than two years imprisoned in North Korea, Toronto Rev. Hyeon Soo Lim was freed, arriving back in Canada on Saturday. This comes on the heels of the tragedy of another fellow prisoner in North Korea, Otto Warmbier, an American university student who was in a coma and died shortly after being released from North Korean custody.
For the Americans, the reaction to Otto Warmbier's death was a travel ban to North Korea, which will take effect Sept. 1 and prohibits Americans from travelling to the DPRK except with permission and for journalistic or humanitarian purposes.
In Canada, as of May 2, our foreign ministry has advised all Canadians to avoid all travel to North Korea whatsoever.
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Our government does not seem to want us to travel to North Korea. Should we at all?
Theoretically, travel to such a closed society as North Korea should be welcomed. The North Korean regime attempts to control all facets of communication with the outside world, and any exposure to an alternative reality should benefit the North Korean people. In reality, things are more complicated. The experiences of Mr. Warmbier and Mr. Lim, despite having vastly different motives for visiting North Korea, provide a striking example of what can go wrong when visiting even with the best of intentions.
For tourists, as in the case of Mr. Warmbier, the North Korean regime follows a tightly scripted tour of sites that the regime wants you to see. Rather than people-to-people engagement, you are likely to have most interaction with your guides and official minder, who have been placed on your tour for their loyalty to the regime. You are most likely to see the most affluent part of North Korea, Pyongyang. Finally, the money generated for the North Korea regime from these tours can be used for anything the regime wishes to use it on, whether it be weapons or concentration camps.
If you do have an enormous urge to visit North Korea, you should be well aware of all these factors. Although it is possible, touring North Korea is the least likely way to engage the North Korean people.
On the other hand, as in the case of Mr. Lim, there are more altruistic reasons for being in North Korea. Above all, the regime continues to be unable to, and in most cases, unwilling to, provide some of the basic human needs that we take for granted in Canada. The World Food Programme tells us that 70 per cent of North Koreans, or 18 million people, continue to remain malnourished. Doctors who have returned from medical missions inside North Korea tell us that modern medical facilities are almost non-existent. Orphans remain uncared for. And this is only the tip of a long recovery for the North Korean people; there is an enormous amount of capacity building and development the country needs that is not exempted from the current U.S. travel ban.
There are critics that say continuing to give North Korea humanitarian aid and developing the country allows the regime to recoup the opportunity costs of feeding their people. Yet if we pull the plug on capacity building, what would the regime do? If the regime is unwilling to invest in its people with capacity-building projects, such as basic medical and engineering education now, will it do so when all the foreigners are gone?
One can argue that, as in Mr. Lim's case, there are still risks to workers as they could be arrested without reason by the regime and perhaps held as hostages for bargaining chips in the future. That is certainly true. But it is also unfortunately true in other parts of the world where we do not see travel bans instituted: U.S. citizens have been repeatedly attacked or captured in Syria, but the U.S. government has not instituted a travel ban to Syria.
Canada is in a unique position when it comes to North Korea. Despite being a combatant in the Korean War, Pyongyang does not view us in the same light as the United States. Like Mr. Lim, Canadians have been travelling to North Korea for the past twenty years and have saved lives and built capacity where the regime has failed to act. We cannot ignore the dangers of travelling to North Korea; but we cannot ignore the good that comes out of it as well. Pulling the plug when the North Korean people are still struggling to recover from a terrible famine that killed hundreds of thousands would not only be cruel, but would cut off one of the few avenues Canadians have to engage directly with the North Korean people.
Ultimately, there are good reasons to travel to North Korea. Anyone who does decide to travel there should have their eyes wide open on the risks they face when they do. Like any other unstable part of the world, travelling to North Korea carries its own inherent risks. But this doesn't mean that we should ban people from travelling there.