Via a ROK Drop commenter’s tip, Laura Ling and Euna Lee have decided to tell their side of the story in regards to their capture along the Chinese and North Korean border.  Here is an excerpt from the rest of the article:

We arrived at the frozen river separating China and North Korea at 5 o’clock on the morning of March 17. The air was crisp and still, and there was no one else in sight. As the sun appeared over the horizon, our guide stepped onto the ice. We followed him.

We had traveled to the area to document a grim story of human trafficking for Current TV. During the previous week, we had met and interviewed several North Korean defectors — women who had fled poverty and repression in their homeland, only to find themselves living in a bleak limbo in China. Some had, out of desperation, found work in the online sex industry; others had been forced into arranged marriages.

Now our guide, a Korean Chinese man who often worked for foreign journalists, had brought us to the Tumen River to document a well-used trafficking route and chronicle how the smuggling operations worked.

There were no signs marking the international border, no fences, no barbed wire. But we knew our guide was taking us closer to the North Korean side of the river. As he walked, he began making deep, low hooting sounds, which we assumed was his way of making contact with North Korean border guards he knew. The previous night, he had called his associates in North Korea on a black cellphone he kept for that purpose, trying to arrange an interview for us. He was unsuccessful, but he could, he assured us, show us the no-man’s land along the river, where smugglers pay off guards to move human traffic from one country to another.

When we set out, we had no intention of leaving China, but when our guide beckoned for us to follow him beyond the middle of the river, we did, eventually arriving at the riverbank on the North Korean side. He pointed out a small village in the distance where he told us that North Koreans waited in safe houses to be smuggled into China via a well-established network that has escorted tens of thousands across the porous border.

Feeling nervous about where we were, we quickly turned back toward China. Midway across the ice, we heard yelling. We looked back and saw two North Korean soldiers with rifles running toward us. Instinctively, we ran.

We were firmly back inside China when the soldiers apprehended us. Producer Mitch Koss and our guide were both able to outrun the border guards. We were not. We tried with all our might to cling to bushes, ground, anything that would keep us on Chinese soil, but we were no match for the determined soldiers. They violently dragged us back across the ice to North Korea and marched us to a nearby army base, where we were detained.  [LA Times]

I’ll leave you all to read the rest of the article and I’ll make my comments below.

First of all let me just point out that when you have a river that clearly defines the border you don’t need any signs, fences, or barb wire.  This seems like a lame excuse by the reporters to minimize what they did.  Also I don’t care if it was Mother Teresa asking them to cross the river much less a North Korean guide they knew little about, there is no excuse for them to have crossed that river.  In fact there is no way I would even consider going to a remote area of the border as an American understanding the situation there like I do.  It is well documented how North Korean agents have kidnapped people out of China and brought them back to North Korea and when they visited the border area it was a time of high tensions between the US and North Korea.

From what I have read they apparently crossed the border near the Chinese city of Tumen which sits across the river from the much smaller North Korean village of Namyang:

Just outside of Tumen is a number of areas along the river with sandbars like this one pictured below which is probably what helped them cross the frozen river:

Here is an actual picture of the Tumen River in the area they were captured:

As everyone can see it is not like they could have missed this large body of water and not known it was the border.

They go on to all criticize Reverend Chun Ki-won for speaking out after their capture saying that he knew they were going to border area.  Maybe so but he never told them to cross into North Korea and I am sure that after he heard about them doing so and getting captured he was highly pissed off because of the damage their capture could do to his refugee operations.  I take it that is why he spoke out and his concerns ended up coming to fruition considering the recent Chinese crackdown on refugees and human rights groups in China.  I do find it interesting how they and Mitch Koss are both attacking Reverend Chun and it will be interesting to see what his response will be to this.

Reverend Chun Ki-won

Ling and Lee also both speculate that their guide may have set them up to be captured.  This is something that I and others have been speculating on since this incident happened but even if he did it still does not justify them crossing the border.  We so far have heard nothing from the guide Kim Seong-chol on what happened that day which is still the missing piece to this puzzle.

Ling and Lee go on to claim that when they were captured on the Chinese side of the border and brought back to North Korea that they were left with their belongings which they then destroyed their notes and videotapes.  Well I find this hard to believe that the North Koreans would not seize their belongings, but even if they did destroy their notes and videotapes, their actions still led to Mitch Koss’ tapes being seized from him by the Chinese authorities.  The bottom line is that their reckless decision to cross the river led to the capture of tapes that led to a crackdown on the very refugees they wanted to report on.  And for causing all this trouble as the Marmot points out, this was the closest they got to an apology:

Since our release, we have become aware that the situation along the China-North Korea border has become even more challenging for aid groups and that many defectors are going deeper underground. We regret if any of our actions, including the high-profile nature of our confinement, has led to increased scrutiny of activists and North Koreans living along the border. The activists’ work is inspiring, courageous and crucial.

I guess the true nature of how regretful they are is when they get their millions of dollars from the impending book deal and lets see how much of it goes to help North Korean refugees.  Some good can still come out of this mess depending on how Ling and Lee use their new found fame and money to help North Korean defectors instead of helping themselves.  We will just have to wait and see what happens.

Like I said before read the rest of their editorial and discuss in the comments section, but I hope this story serves as a warning to reporters about the consequences their actions could have if they are not careful in their work.