The Aquariums of Pyongyang

I recommended “The Aquariums of Pyongyang” a year ago. Turns out that Bush is a fan as well:

President Bush met privately yesterday with a well-known North Korean defector who spent 10 years in a prison camp and has since become an outspoken critic of his homeland’s government, a move that could provoke Pyongyang just as it was reviving stalled nuclear talks.

Bush invited Kang Chol Hwan, a journalist and director of the Democracy Network Against North Korean Gulag, to visit with him in the Oval Office and recount his tale of suffering in North Korea, where he was arrested in 1977 at age 9 and had to eat rats, cockroaches and snakes to survive. The White House did not list the meeting on the president’s public schedule, but a spokesman later confirmed it.

According to aides, Bush has been fascinated with Kang’s story ever since he began reading the former prisoner’s book, “The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in a North Korean Gulag,” published in English in 2001. Bush has recommended the book to senior White House and Bush administration officials, who have been poring through it lately as well

.

And we have Kang’s account of the meeting, translated at The Marmot’s Hole:

President Bush’s first question was, “If you were the President of the U.S., what would you do about North Korea?” When I thought about it later, he had asked the most important question first, and I was surprised by it. I told him the opinions of several high-ranking North Korean defectors I had met and my own opinions. “If I were U.S. president, I would first convince China – as difficult as it may be – to stop forcefully repatriating North Korean defectors, and secondly, I would cooperate with the international community to work to close North Korea’s prison camps. I would resolve the nuclear issue after solving these two issues first.” After I had said this, I explained, “This is because the North Korean nuclear issue is an important issue in international relations, but from the position of residents in North Korea, the human rights issue is more important than the nuclear issue.”

President Bush said, “I sympathize [with that position]… I will work to improve human rights in North Korea, and in order to do this, I will have many people read your books.” He said, “I think the North Korean human rights issue is very important, but it appears people around me are still unfamiliar with the situation.”