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View a timeline that traces the history of North Korea, the world's last Stalinist regime, and the desperate actions of the refugees and activists featured in SEOUL TRAIN, indicated in blue.
| 1910-1945 |
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After hundreds of years of independence, the Korean peninsula is colonized by Japan. Japan attempts to root out all elements of Korean culture from society, forcing Koreans to adopt Japanese names, convert to the Shinto religion and forbidding them to use Korean language in schools and business. A 1919 independence movement is brutally suppressed, leaving thousands of Koreans dead and tens of thousands maimed or imprisoned.
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Kim Il-sung as general secretary of the Korean Workers' Party
Photo: DPRK Mission to the UN
 A member of the Royal Military Police at the 38th parallel: the border between North and South Korea (1951)
Photo: Imperial War Museum, London
General Peng Dehuai signs the armistice agreement at Panmunjon
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il
Officials of the Korean Christian Federation distribute rice for people affected by the famine in North Korea (1996)
Photo: United Methodist Committee on Relief
Twelve refugees and four activists preparing to cross the border into Mongolia (2001)
Two-year-old Kim Han-mi, strapped to her mother's back, and her father and grandmother flee past an Chinese soldier as they rush for freedom (2002)
President George W. Bush on a tour of the North Korean border in South Korea (2002)
White House photo: Eric Draper
Twenty-five North Koreans successfully rush the Spanish Embassy in Beijing, the start of “Embassy Raids” by North Korean refugees (2002)
Activist Suzanne Scholte leads a protest in Warsaw (2004)
Vitit Muntarbhorn, special rapporteur appointed to investigate human rights conditions in North Korea (2004)
Photo: UNESCO
North Korea Freedom Day in Washington, D.C. (2004)
Photo: North Korea Freedom Coalition
North Korean children show the effects of famine
Chinese soldiers march on patrol
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| 1912 |
Kim Il-sung is born near Pyongyang.
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| 1945 |
World War II ends. Japan relinquishes control of Korea to the United States and the Soviet Union. The Korean peninsula is divided at the 38th parallel—the north under Soviet occupation and the south under U.S. occupation—creating two distinct regions with diametrically opposed political ideologies.
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| 1948 |
With no common political ideology between the north and the south, and reunification talks at an impasse, the south creates the Republic of Korea in August.
One month later, Soviet-backed Kim Il-sung creates the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Kim introduces a guiding philosophy of “Juche,” or self-reliance, in North Korean life.
Guerrilla warfare, border clashes and naval battles begin to erupt between the two Koreas.
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| 1950-1953 |
North Korean forces launch a massive surprise attack and invade South Korea on June 25, 1950, beginning the Korean War.
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| 1951 |
A special United Nations conference approves the 1951 Refugee Convention, the first international agreement outlining the fundamental human rights of refugees and recognizing the need for international cooperation in dealing with the displaced.
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| 1953 |
Commanders of the North Korean People's Army, the Chinese People's Volunteers and the UN Command sign armistice at Panmunjom. The U.S. and South Korea do not sign the armistice.
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| 1982 |
China signs the 1951 Refugee Convention.
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| 1986 |
China and North Korea conclude a protocol on security in the border area. China agrees to repatriate North Koreans to North Korea under the protocol.
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| 1991 |
North Korea joins the UN.
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| 1994 |
Leader Kim Il-sung dies. Kim Jong-il, Kim’s eldest son, assumes power in the only hereditary transition in Communist history.
Flooding causes a devastating famine in North Korea. The government adds another offense to its list of crimes punishable by death: theft of food.
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| 1996 |
Virtually all public services, including the food distribution system, have eroded except those serving the party, security workers and the capital city, Pyongyang.
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| 1998-2000 |
Because of government interference, non-governmental organizations begin an exodus from North Korea, beginning with Doctors Without Borders/Medicins Sans Frontieres in 1998, Oxfam in 1999 and CARE and Action Contre la Faim in 2000.
Among the remaining organizations are the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Program.
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| 2001 |
North Korea is grappling with the worst spring drought of its history.
December – A group of 12 refugees and four activists—including South Korean pastor Chun Ki-won and eight-month pregnant Nam Chun-mi—get lost in a blizzard while attempting to cross the border into Mongolia. A Chinese farmer turns them in to the authorities.
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| 2002 |
January - Nam Chun-mi gives birth to a baby girl in Chinese prison, bringing the number of refugees in their group to 13.
March - Twenty-five North Korean refugees rush into the Spanish embassy in Beijing, in the first of what became known as the “embassy raids.” The refugees are released on “humanitarian grounds” for immigration to South Korea.
May - Two-year-old Kim Han-mi and her family, who have been assisted by the Underground Railroad, attempt to enter the Japanese consulate in Shenyang, China. The incident is caught on video and is broadcast around the world.
June - U.S. Congress passes resolution condemning China’s arrest of Chun Ki won and the 13 refugees.
August - Chun is released from Chinese prison. U.S. officials intervene to get two of the 13 refugees — a girl and her mother with family in the U.S. — out of Chinese prison.
August - A group of refugees attempts to enter the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to plead for asylum; the group, now known as the “MoFA Seven” is arrested at the gates. The MoFA Seven is never heard from again.
September - The remaining 11 refugees from Chun’s group are returned to North Korea.
U.S. President George W. Bush calls North Korea, Iraq and Iran, the “axis of evil.”
The Chinese government begins to tighten security around foreign embassies, increasing patrols in the embassy district of Beijing, and erecting new barbed wire cordons near embassies. A diplomatic memorandum is issued warning foreign embassies against sheltering asylum seekers.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) requests access to North Koreans in China, but is denied.
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| 2003 |
The UN Commission on Human Rights adopts a resolution calling on North Korea to respect basic human rights.
July - SEOUL TRAIN filmmakers Jim Butterworth and Lisa Sleeth attend a talk on North Korea and are inspired to tell the story of North Korean refugees by traveling to China and South Korea to film SEOUL TRAIN. Four months later, they are with the Underground Railroad activists on the Chinese-North Korean border.
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| 2004 |
February - Suzanne Scholte of the North Korean Freedom Coalition leads a protest at the Chinese Embassy in Warsaw, Poland during the North Korean Human Rights Conference. An attempt to deliver a letter to the President of China requesting the release from prison of North Korean refugees and Underground Railroad workers is unsuccessful.
April - Chinese border guards shoot at a group of North Korean refugees crossing into Mongolia, killing one.
The first North Korea Freedom Day is held in Washington, D.C. on April 28. Speakers include Sen. Sam Brownback, Rep. Joe Pitts and Rep. Trent Franks.
The North Korea Freedom Act and North Korea Human Rights Act are pending in U.S. Congress.
July - 468 North Korean refugees are flown from Southeast Asia to Seoul via Vietnam. North Korea demands that they be repatriated, accusing South Korea of kidnapping the refugees and stopping all government-level talks with South Korea.
The UN Commission on Human Rights adopts a second resolution calling on North Korea to respect basic human rights and appoints Thai academic, Vitit Muntarbhorn, as special rapporteur to investigate human rights conditions in North Korea.
Two members of the Committee on the Rights of the Child are given unprecedented permission to visit North Korea. They document mistreatment of children returned from China, as well as issues of economic exploitation, trafficking and juvenile justice, including cases of torture.
North Korea announces that it has created nuclear weapons “to serve as a deterrent against increasing U.S. nuclear threats.”
North Korea invites British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell to Pyongyang. North Korean officials confirm existence of labor camps in North Korea for “re-education.”
U.S. Congress unanimously passes the North Korea Human Rights Act of 2004, and it is signed into law by George W. Bush, calling for more Korean language broadcasts into North Korea and increased funding for NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) that promote “human rights, democracy, rule of law and the development of a market economy.”
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| 2005 |
The UN Commission on Human Rights adopts a third consecutive resolution condemning North Korea’s poor human rights record, calling for North Korea to end its “systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights.”
South Korea’s DongA newspaper reports that Beijing sent back 30 North Korean refugees after North Korea’s first foreign minister, Kang Sok-ju, visited Beijing.
North Korea’s famine has killed more than two-and-a-half million people, or ten percent of North Korea’s population.
September - Eleven months after the North Korea Human Rights Act became law, presidential appointee Jay Lefkowitz takes office as the Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights. Congress has yet to appropriate the funding authorized in the Act.
November - The UN General Assembly passes a resolution condemning North Korea for its human rights abuses. South Korea abstains for the fourth year in a row.
December - North Korea orders the UN World Food Program to cease its humanitarian operations by December 31.
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