4 ANALYSIS & FEATURE
Could Korea evolve the ethics of death?
More balanced view on euthanasia possible when religion does not interfere in politics
By Chris Williams
Three sad deaths last week
resurrected the muddled argu-
ments about the right to die in
Britain. Meanwhile the Korean
courts are addressing the ques-
tion progressively.
On Thursday, the world’s old-
est man, Henry Allingham, died
peacefully aged 113. He attrib-
uted his long life to, “cigarettes,
whisky and wild, wild women.”
He clearly enjoyed his long life
to the full, and he remained well
and active until the last few
months. Last year he published
his autobiography. The intro-
duction was by Prince Charles,
who called him “one of our na-
tion’s historic treasures.”
As we watched the 91st birth-
day celebrations of South
Africa’s Nelson Mandela, it is
hard not to conclude that life
should always be sustained,
never terminated. He became
president when aged 76.
Doubtless during the 27 years of
his harsh imprisonment he con-
sidered suicide.
But not everyone enjoys the
robust health of Mandela and
Allingham. Last week, the
renowned orchestral conductor
Sir Edward Downs, and his wife
Joan, had traveled to
Switzerland to voluntarily end
their lives at the clinic,
“Dignitas.” They were painfully
ill, and assisting death in
Britain is illegal.
At 85, Downs was almost
blind and deaf, a cruel torture
for a musician. His wife was ter-
minally ill with cancer. After 54
years of marriage, they thought
life without one another seemed
intolerable. At Dignitas with
family, they held hands, sipped
a clear liquid and died peaceful-
ly a few minutes later.
Like 117 other distressed
British people, Downs and his
wife had to go to Switzerland to
arrange a dignified end to their
lives, because the British gov-
ernment has been muddled and
cowardly in clarifying the law
about assisting death. The
Director of Public Prosecutions
even refused to confirm whether
a friend or family accompanying
someone to Dignitas would be
charged with unlawful killing.
Downs studied music at
Birmingham University. He had
left school at 14, worked for the
gas board, and then secretly got
a music scholarship. He played
the violin, but also learned the
French horn. A friend of mine,
Bobs Woodhead, who is very full
of life at age 80, tells how her fa-
ther, who was registrar at the
university, gave Downs permis-
sion to do extra fire watch du-
ties during wartime bombing
raids. He was happy to sit on
the roof of a building, every
night if possible. But everyone
knew he had another motive.
There he could practice his horn
World disregards N.K. labor camps
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Service
Images and accounts of the
North Korean gulag become
sharper, more harrowing and
more accessible with each pass-
ing year.
A distillation of testimony from
survivors and former guards,
newly published by the Korean
Bar Association, details the daily
lives of 200,000 political prison-
ers estimated to be in the camps:
Eating a diet of mostly corn and
salt, they lose their teeth, their
gums turn black, their bones
weaken and, as they age, they
hunch over at the waist. Most
work 12- to 15-hour days until
they die of malnutrition-related
illnesses, usually around the age
of 50. Allowed just one set of
clothes, they live and die in rags,
without soap, socks, underclothes
or sanitary napkins.
The camps have never been
visited by outsiders, so these ac-
counts cannot be independently
verified. But high-resolution
satellite photographs, now ac-
cessible to anyone with an
Internet connection, reveal vast
labor camps in the mountains of
North Korea. The photographs
corroborate survivors’ stories,
showing entrances to mines
where former prisoners said
they worked as slaves, in-camp
detention centers where former
guards said uncooperative pris-
Chris Williams
● Chris Williams is based at
the Center for International
Education and Research,
University of Birmingham,
United Kingdom.
● He can be reached at
chrisunula@yahoo.com
undisturbed.
Downs was obviously a man of
creative thinking, and determi-
nation. And this persisted to the
end, when his trip to Dignitas
highlighted the lack of leader-
ship from our politicians. On the
day he left the United Kingdom,
another muddled attempt to
clarify the law had failed.
The first issue here is not
about the right to die. It is about
the responsibility of any govern-
ment to clarify and evolve its
laws. This is especially neces-
sary in a common law system as
in England, where the courts
can make up the law if there are
no clear rules. Why should dis-
tressed families have to risk im-
prisonment because it is impos-
sible to guess what a judge
might think?
In contrast, two months ago
the Korean courts took a pro-
gressive step towards confirm-
ing that life should not always
be prolonged, if it damaged “hu-
man dignity.” The Supreme
Court upheld the decision of a
lower court, which supported
the wishes of a family to switch
oners were tortured to death
and parade grounds where for-
mer prisoners said they were
forced to watch executions.
Guard towers and electrified
fences surround the camps, pho-
tographs show.
“We have this system of slav-
ery right under our nose,” said
An Myeong Chul, a camp guard
who defected to South Korea.
“Human rights groups can’t stop
it. South Korea can’t stop it. The
United States will have to take
up this issue at the negotiating
table.”
But the camps have not been
discussed in meetings between
U.S. diplomats and North
Korean officials. By exploding
nuclear bombs, launching mis-
siles and cultivating a reputa-
tion for hair-trigger belligerence,
the government of Kim Jong-il
has created a permanent securi-
ty flash point on the Korean
Peninsula — and effectively
shoved the issue of human
rights off the negotiating table.
“Talking to them about the
camps is something that has not
been possible,” said David
Straub, a senior official in the
State Department’s office of
Korean affairs during the Bush
and Clinton years. There have
been no such meetings since
President Obama took office.
“They go nuts when you talk
about it,” said Straub, who is
now associate director of Korean
off the life support system of a
brain-dead man, at the
Severance Hospital.
Passive euthanasia by stop-
ping a life support system is one
step away from active euthana-
sia in the form of assisted sui-
cide. But, as with so much else
in Korea, this could quickly
evolve. Perhaps soon, Korea
might have a clear law like
Switzerland. But why is Britain,
which boasts about its long de-
mocratic and justice systems, so
backward about this issue?
One explanation stems from a
world-beating statistic. The av-
erage age of members in the
British House of Lords is 69.
This must give rise to a less
than average corporate view of
the ethics of death. Also, among
the Lords are a disproportion-
ately high number of religious
leaders, including 26 Bishops.
Britain has always had mud-
dled laws and strange attitudes
towards death. It is even still il-
legal to die in the parliament
buildings. Political interpreta-
tions of religion do not help. In
Medieval times the body of some-
studies at Stanford University.
Nor have the camps become
much of an issue for the
American public, even though
annotated images of them can
be quickly called up on Google
Earth and even though they
have existed for half a century,
12 times as long as the Nazi con-
centration camps and twice as
long as the Soviet Gulag.
Although precise numbers are
impossible to obtain, Western
governments and human
groups estimate that hundreds
of thousands of people have died
in the North Korean camps.
North Korea officially says the
camps do not exist. It restricts
movements of the few foreigners
it allows into the country and se-
verely punishes those who sneak
in. U.S. reporters Laura Ling
and Euna Lee were sentenced
last month to 12 years of hard
labor, after being convicted in a
closed trial on charges of enter-
ing the country illegally.
North Korea’s gulag also
lacks the bright light of celebri-
ty attention. No high-profile, in-
ternationally recognized figure
has emerged to coax Americans
into understanding or investing
emotionally in the issue, said
Suzanne Scholte, a Washington-
based activist who brings camp
survivors to the United States
for speeches and marches.
“Tibetans have the Dalai
Lama and Richard Gere,
TUESDAY JULY 21, 2009
one who committed suicide was suicide bombing? The Easter ready, and the Health Minister, not concern whether suicide is
buried at a crossroads with a story tells how Jesus engaged in Bernat Soria put the obvious ar- good or bad, but why it might
stake driven through the chest, assisted suicide. In the 5th cen- gument, “The owner of your happen and how. Religious per-
as one would do to a vampire. tury, a sect of Christian mar- body is you.” spectives usually want us only
There is a British joke that is tyrs, the Donatists, were so Anyone who is lost for words to consider the first question,
punishable by death sentence. troublesome that they were de- when trying to explain death to because answering the second
Not long ago it was true. In the clared heretics. For heresy, the a child, or to someone who is be- reveals inconvenient theological
1860s, reports told of a messy punishment was, death. reaved, might use a line from truths.
attempt to hang a man who had Like the restrictions now put this film. When asked what The arguments for and
been saved after he failed to die on women in countries such as happens after death, I remem- against passive and active eu-
from cutting his own throat. Afghanistan and Iran, the reli- ber that Sampedro replied with thanasia are evolving. But in
Until 1961, attempted suicide gious view of suicide seems the simple truth that religions the meantime perhaps A.H.
could be punished by a prison more related to controlling and must deny to preserve the logic Clough provides the best advice
sentence in Britain, and in 1969 maintaining religious power of their dogma — “When you in his poetic parody of a Biblical
a boy was whipped for trying to through fear and punishment, die, you are the same as you commandment — “Thou shalt
take his own life on the Isle of than reason, logic or human were before you were born.” not kill but need not strive, offi-
Man. wellbeing. Perhaps without religion in- ciously, to keep alive.”
But as with much in British But attitudes can evolve in terfering in politics, Korea will Last May, the “Death with
law, we must look beyond the unpredictable ways. In 2004, a achieve a more balanced view. Dignity Act” made Washington
obvious facts to find a greater true Spanish film, “Mar Remember that during the the second American state after
motive. Not only could those Adentro” (The Sea Inside), Joseon era, high class women Oregon, to legalize assisted
who attempted suicide be exe- about the fight for assisted sui- would carry a small knife (“eun- death. A woman with pancreatic
cuted and imprisoned in cide by a sailor Ramon jangdo”) hidden in their robes, cancer became the first to bene-
Britain, but the King, later gov- Sampedro, opened. The first to take their own life if rape was fit. In a week when we learn
ernment, could confiscate all night was attended by Prime inevitable. The knife was small that Kim Jong-il probably has
their property. Minister Zapatero and most of to show that it was for suicide, pancreatic cancer, this raises cu-
Suicide highlights contradic- the cabinet. The Spanish were not defense. When former rious questions. How does
tions in religious ethics. How considering following The President Roh Moo-hyun died, North Korean law view assisted
can Islam, Judaism and Netherlands and Belgium, to le- Koreans did not question his death? Is it possible that if Kim
Christianity oppose suicide but galize euthanasia. The Catholic right to end his own life, but wanted to die with dignity, he
respect martyrdom, which per- Church opposed the idea. By why he felt forced to do this. would need to travel to America,
sists in modern form through 2008, draft legislation was The moral questions should or perhaps even to Seoul?
Burmese have Aung San Suu
Kyi, Darfurians have Mia
Farrow and George Clooney,”
she said. “North Koreans have
no one like that.”
Before guards shoot prisoners
who have tried to escape, they
turn each execution into a
teachable moment, according to
interviews with five North
Koreans who said they have
witnessed such killings.
Prisoners older than 16 are re-
quired to attend, and they are
forced to stand as close as 15 feet
to the condemned, according to
the interviews. A prison official
usually gives a lecture, explain-
ing how the Dear Leader, as Kim
Jong-il is known, had offered a
“chance at redemption” through
hard labor.
The condemned are hooded,
and their mouths are stuffed
with pebbles. Three guards fire
three times each, as onlookers
see blood spray and bodies
crumple, those interviewed
said.
“We almost experience the ex- A photo released by Korean Central News Agency on July 18 shows Kim Jong-il (first from left), top
ecutions ourselves,” said Jung leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, inspecting Unit 597 of the Navy of the Korean
Gwang-il, 47, adding that he People’s Army at an undisclosed location. Xinhua-Yonhap News
witnessed two executions as an
inmate at Camp 15. After three of the Bowibu, the National knocked out my front teeth with When his interrogation was fin-
years there, Jung said, he was Security Agency. After eight a baseball bat. They fractured ished, he said, he weighed 80
allowed to leave in 2003. He fled years in a government office that my skull a couple of times. I was pounds. “When I finally got to
to China and now lives in Seoul. handled trade with China, a fel- not a spy, but I admitted to be- the camp, I actually gained
Like several former prisoners, low worker accused him of being ing a spy after nine months of weight,” said Jung, who worked
Jung said the most arduous part a South Korean agent. torture.” summers in cornfields and
of his imprisonment was his pre- “They wanted me to admit to When he was arrested, Jung spent winters in the mountains
camp interrogation at the hands being a spy,” Jung said. “They said, he weighed 167 pounds. felling trees.