Norbert Vollertsen has demons to exorcise. As a German, and as a doctor who worked for 18 months in North Korea providing emergency medical aid, the 45-year-old has emerged as one of the most effective campaigners against Pyongyang's brutal regime. "We Germans failed to speak out against the atrocities of the Nazis," he says. "When I saw the starving eyes of North Korean children, victims of a man-made disaster that I would call genocide, I promised I would do something."
And he has. The energetic Vollertsen is a key player -- and one of only a few foreigners -- in a small army of activists that keeps turning the spotlight on Dear Leader Kim Jong Il's inhumanity. In the past two years, Vollertsen has turned the lonely lives of North Korean refugees in China into international media spectacles. He has helped stage-manage a series of daring attempts by North Korean refugees to seek asylum at foreign embassies, consulates, and schools in China, drawing worldwide attention to their plight -- as well as to China's complicity. Typically, China has sent refugees back to North Korea, in violation of international conventions, to avoid spurring an exodus of refugees. But in the glare of the spotlight, China has allowed some to seek asylum in South Korea in the past year.
Now, Vollertsen and others in his loose group of anti-North Korean activists are hatching new plans for embarrassing Pyongyang. These include tactics such as smuggling radios into the country and encouraging more defectors, especially of mid- and high-ranking officials. Vollertsen even dreams of sending a food convoy to North Korea with the condition that Kim Jong Il let in inspectors to document food distribution -- and to film the country's misery to show the rest of the world. "We are feeling out different approaches to try to confuse the North Koreans, put pressure on them," he says.
The daring doctor's first big break came during the visit of former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Pyongyang in October, 2000. Sensing an opening, he showed up at the Koryo Hotel, where the foreign press corps was ensconced, and spirited a handful of correspondents away on two unauthorized tours of Pyongyang and its surroundings. Through Vollertsen, the journalists witnessed masses of exhausted, hungry people walking dazed through the countryside, coming to and from the capital city in search of food.
Vollertsen has documented his experiences in three books. Income from the volumes, at $120,000, is not much. But it is enough to allow him to run his operation without being dependent on anyone else. Vollertsen recently traveled to the U.S. to promote his latest book. During a gala Washington dinner organized by the Hudson Institute think tank, he even managed to buttonhole Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Vollertsen has been spending more time on airplanes than in his home base of Seoul. When home, he is a passionate lecturer on South Korea university campuses. Students there often refuse to believe that the film of starving North Korean children he shows can be real. Vollertsen says he never opposed the "sunshine policy" toward North Korea of former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung but notes that a certain amount of "rain" is necessary for balance. "If there is only sunshine, it will create a desert," he says. "I am a rainmaker."
The only question is how long it will take before rising waters sweep away Kim Jong Il's regime. "We can counterattack North Korea with their own weapon, propaganda," Vollertsen vows. "They are using media for blackmail. 'Feed me or I will kill you.' I think we can use the foreign media to open the country." Thanks to this crusading doctor, that's just what is happening.
Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.
Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed.
Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video.
To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here.
Copyright 2003, Bloomberg L.P.
Printer-Friendly Version
