Hope. . . even in North Korea

For Laura Ling, a 12 year sentence to hard labor in North Korea last year was retroactively wiped away by a phone call in 1992.

Then President Bill Clinton placed a call to Kim Jong-Il, offering condolences on behalf of the United States to the North Korean leader over the death of his father, Kim Il Sung, whose army fought American forces to a stalemate in the Korean War over four decades ago.

That an American president would personally phone a Cold War foe and iron fisted dictator is surprising enough. That Clinton was the first international leader to do so, even before China, North Korea’s strongest ally, is downright unbelievable.

Good thing for Ling and fellow journalist Euna Lee that Kim Jong-Il never forgot the gesture. When “Dear Leader” agreed to pardon Ling and Lee last year over charges they trespassed into North Korean and conspired to topple the government, Kim Jong-Il had only one request: that he personally meet Clinton when authorities released the two women.

Ling, sister of National Geographic host Lisa Ling, and Lee recounted these stories in Los Angeles last week during the annual national convention of the Asian American Journalists Association.

Ling’s keynote address was striking not just for its deft prose and heartfelt sincerity but that the speech lacked any self pity or animosity one would expect from a journalist beaten, imprisoned and ruthlessly interrogated by an oppressive regime.

Last year, Ling and Lee traveled to China to work on a story about North Korean women defectors for Current TV, a cable channel founded by former vice president Al Gore. Led by a guide, the two journalists briefly crossed the border into North Korea before turning back.

It was too late. North Korean border guards chased the women into China and literally dragged the two kicking and screaming into the Hermit Kingdom. A North Korean judge deliberated for five minutes before sentencing the journalists to 12 years of hard labor, two years for trespassing and a decade for plotting to overthrow the government.

Despite rumors that the guide had lured the Americans into a trap, Ling refused to blame anyone but herself.

“It was my decision alone” to cross into North Korea, she said.

Ling also said she preferred to focus on the positive parts of experience.

Uh…what positive parts?

After the court sentenced her, Ling said she curled into a little ball in the corner of her room and sobbed uncontrollably. Suddenly, one of her female guards, who spewed propaganda at Ling when she first arrived at the prison, did the unexpected: the guard consoled Ling.

“Don’t worry Laura,” the guard said. “Never lose hope.”

Ling’s story should remind us that even the most seemingly evil people, whether the guard or dictator, can sometimes show a little humanity- if the occasion calls for it.

Not often. But sometimes.

by Thomas Lee