World's Most Dangerous Border & Escape from North Korea | VICE on HBO

[Applause] [Music] machine gun is on every building along our roof and also an illegal escape from North Korea no one knows where it's going but we'll be there uncovering the news culture expose the absurdity of the modern condition that little child has a huge gun really kosher by Americans I was interviewing suicide bombers and they were kids this is the world to power [Music] [Applause] hi I'm Shane Smith we're here in the Vice offices in Brooklyn New York and for our first story this week we go to Asia North Korea is one of the worst places on earth its population suffers from political oppression intense poverty and starvation so it's no wonder that every year thousands of people try to escape the country now getting out is hard enough but getting to a safe place as it turns out is even harder so we sent Thomas to meet a group of defectors as they flee from there the country Kim has betrayed is North Korea we can't show her face because if the North Korean government finds out she's escaped both Kim and her family could spend the rest of their lives in prison camp which ironically enough is one of the many reasons people want to get the hell out of that to escape North Korea you can't just slip across the border into South Korea that is unless you're willing to cross an eight mile strip of land North Korean cards with orders to shoot to kill so most defectors head for China but China is still dangerous to the Chinese government refuses to give North Koreans refugee status in part because it sees North Korea as a buffer between its own country in the american-backed South Korea so if a North Korean is caught in China they get sent right back where they came from those who don't get caught have to rely on a network of human traffickers and brokers to guide them out of that country to freedom provided they don't just sell them into a life of sexual bondage instead which they often do that's where pastor Kim comes in for the past 16 years he's been wading into this black market and plucking North Koreans from its horny clutches and for no personal game other than winning souls for the glory of God the Father Almighty in fact many of his congregants are North Koreans he helped escape his latest rescue mission is our girl camp no one did it a caucus or patio is haram did a ye olde entertainer to connoisseur chungu guru in memory of paliotta you killed an either Coco Daddy cause I'm taking all those Hyuna level you killed an eider castle either t go forget to ship a ship to turn on ty you don't I don't I don't hear that how much does it cost like basically can like per person to get somebody out of North Korea Gyeongsang solitary hola chica tumbled out of the in the even echo what I'm setting it on coupon got in your way no 1-butanol kidding I'm gonna tell ya no man we're gonna wake up two children get it out paradise aw poor ji GAE how about door more could her I'm Teddy with them or you had her skin and a puny do not doubt so wait I'm sorry the the pit made you pay for her abortion yeah that was the first in a series of shady deals the pastor make in order to get camp a 23 year old potato farm round freedom the next was paying to have her smuggle to a safe house in Eng China since being seen there with a bunch of foreigners my blower escaped we sent our Korean translator with a small camera the meter since escaping her pimp Kim has been holed up in his safe house with three other North Korean women who reach sold his Brides to Chinese men the pastor is also bankrolling their escape with their heads to toe back at the church the pastor laid out his plan to get to South Korea the girls have to take bus several thousand miles to the southern Chinese border then sneak into Laos that's where we'll meet them and watch their smuggled across the Mekong River into Thailand the nearest place that recognized a refugee status rather than their even near an oligarch kinesin your banister so once we got word that Kim the other North Koreans it started their way south we headed to Laos this is obviously the most sketchy part of the trip hey because it is human trafficking it also because these guys get caught the defectors are starting to get a little ill it is finally we met Kim this is her first time meeting a foreigner oh okay one of the good kid hooting this others don't get it it's had a most happy but know what I can do go what do you don't either go to lose her on him and I said Dan you know she's in New York and I'm found each other do member I you felt when Kim jong-il passed damn thing is her to you not amazed you know ticketed see cut the gnashing do his hair down a zoo can you describe how you got from your village to China Hollywood a terror cell hmm no I'm sure that I'm gonna educate you sir McMurray amil yoga by Maserati Jim some sort of armor makes us whatever I'm not going money I got accepted Jannah until Hindu get past it do you know what the next steps are for you to get to South Korea do you know what you have to go through are you nervous good I don't know sir why not I would be nervous kappa how old never when I don't know I I need each other [Music] we set out in the middle of the night we had to race to make it across the river before sunrise blew our cover speeding down winding Laotian mountain roads which is especially nauseating for cam and the others considering this is only the third or fourth time they've ever been in a car all this effort all this money just to get four nice young ladies out of a country that can't feed them doesn't have any opportunities for them and stuff to somewhere that at least it lip service the idea of wanting them there sonica Haji who do you give item Academy de pacheco wouldn't editor Andreas [Music] once off the boat the girls help hide themselves to avoid being spotted by passing now we have to rush back across the Mekong River before the next Border Patrol passes so that we can legally re-enter Thailand to meet up with the girls the bad news is the girls have been caught the good news is they were caught by Thai police who won't send them back to North Korea they're Baja right behind this little flake he's a sheet metal on wing here I'm talking actually and there's a hole here that peeled them passing stuff through ouch speaks Thai Thai security around these parts hey Kim hey um how are you are you okay [Music] from here they have to wait on a representative from the South Korean embassy who who via the diplomatic alchemy of handing them a passport will turn Kim and the other girls from North Koreans to South Koreans but even on the home stretch to her own freedom which granted his tie jail Kim is just realizing the actual cost of her escape maybe her family's lives hands her Avira solitaire engagement we've also known as a chip embedded on a PI again the ribosomes rest downs are a visitor to her husband authority forecast area we'll keep on winning [Music] now I grew up at the end of the Cold War which was essentially America and its allies had half of the world and the Soviet Union and its allies had the other half both countries had massive nuclear arsenals and for 50 years stood toe-to-toe on the brink of all-out war the only thing that really held them back was mad otherwise known as mutually assured destruction quite simply put if one side launches an attack so does the other and the final result is we all die end of story and because the end of the world was such a good deterrent the Cold War ended peacefully in 1991 however the lunacy of mutually assured destruction didn't go away at all it just relocated the most dangerous place in the world today I think you could argue as the Indian subcontinent in the line of control and Kashmir now Kashmir has been in the news a lot lately with escalating tensions between India and Pakistan so we went to cashmeres line of control to see just how bad this conflict is getting [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we're here by Gaston [Applause] [Music] [Music] because everyone is always talking about Pakistan gives our capabilities and everyone is terrified by them but we also have new us not because the alternative is a subcontinent that no longer exists really really hate each other now this antagonism started when Mahatma Gandhi finally succeeded in gaining independence from Great Britain and in the ensuing chaos of building a new state India's Muslims insisted on trading Rome countries as a consequence millions of Hindus and Sikhs fled to India and simultaneously millions of India's Muslims migrated to the newly created Pakistan now during this partition tens of millions of people were relocated and in the process over a million people on both sides of the migration were murdered in brutal religious violence India Pakistan have been fighting ever since the flash point of this lingering conflict is Kashmir a mostly Muslim region that is partially occupied by the Indian state and you don't have to be in Kashmir long to realise that emotions are running extremely high as was explained to us by a Kashmiri political leader they eat Alisha gelatinous we are facing the worst kind of sit eight terrorists under the occupation of Indian forces and killings by the police and drove by the popular forces is a continuous process this is all consequencies operation we wanted to talk to these Palmilla forces so we went north to the highly militarized area closer to the border this is one of the main entrances from Pakistan into India it's one of the most heavily militarized zones in all of India and the demographics of the idea they have found a very soft corner here and right conducive environment for the flourishing the reason why this is such a militant superhighway is because a is so close to Pakistan be the terrain makes it almost impossible to police and see because Pakistan continues to Train militants and sneak them into India with the soil intent to destabilize the region so the line of control is not the border it's not a border no it's a temporal eggman between India and Pakistan so if they get through the line of control then you have to catch them when they hit the hinterland then it becomes our job eliminating the terrorists and whose training reportedly is a and the police enemy so the Pakistan Army and the ISI our training insurgents and sneaking them into India to create unrest terroristic geureon insurgency India has good reason to fear these pakistani-based terrorists because in 2008 they attacked Mumbai and kill 106 people needed hundreds more and held the city hostage for more than 60 hours Indians refer to it as the reaction in India was nearly as intense and very very active participant tens of thousand to the streets calling Frollo remarkably the Indian government showed restraint did not attack Pakistan in retaliation but tensions between the two countries remain severely strained as was explained to us by a leading Indian defense expert Ajay Sonny Pakistan continues to be the principal supporter of a range of terrorist organizations mobilized on the basis of an Islamist extremist ideology and the fact that it is backed by the state apparatus of Pakistan is what makes it so dangerous for India now technically Kashmir falls into the legal claim for India it is challenged on these faces of the majoritarian mostly majorities and Muslims I don't think in I think this enemy T is and will remain irreducible until Pakistan undergoes a complete cultural transformations and I do not believe that there is anything within the tide sorry going up into the Himalayas now this road leads to the LOC the line of control is very hot zone and we're hoping someone doesn't love a grenade in Turtles and actually as I was stupidly making jokes about someone throwing grenades the real terrorist threat was detected and counter-terrorist procedures were immediately implemented you've got information regarding presence of some militants here we cover all the areas from where you can possibly draw some fire let's go it is the main infiltration route as you can see the terrain is unmanageable right very steep slopes it is forest and they make use of this geography and they sneak informative how do they get across I think it's your motivation on their part and the brainwashing that is done the camps after we were given the all-clear we continued on our way to the Indian side of the line of control over there is Pakistan this is the line of control we're going over to the bridge we had to take off our military here because it's seen as an insult there's Rangers over there trained they said if you go out on the bridge and you go one step too far they'll shoot you now to us it seemed all very quiet and peaceful for supposedly the most heavy place on earth but then our Indian guards pointed out all the bunkers and positions that the Pakistani Rangers had set up on the mountains and we were like oh so there's bunkers all over there look look oh I see there yeah and their guns [Music] so this is the zero line right here in between India and Pakistan if I go on that side I can say goodbye to my toes I'm not gonna go on that side you wouldn't think it's one of the most dangerous borders in the world because when you look up it's just shockingly beautiful so India has nearly a million troops in Kashmir and a massive nuclear arsenal 22 Pakistan's and after the Mumbai attacks about quite publicly never again but the ISI and the Pakistani army to keep sending insurgents across the border with the sole purpose of causing chaos within India and they send them almost every day now this constant badgering seems insane so we went to Pakistan see first hand while he seemed so hell-bent on continuing this conflict the first person we talked to when we arrived was dr. Perez Hoodbhoy a leading nuclear scientist and what he told us didn't make us feel any better you have Pakistan openly training and sending in militants into Kashmir and you have the Indians who if they suffer another Mumbai saying we don't know if we can hold back what do you think about that well what you're saying is a doomsday scenario yeah okay nuclear weapons then come into play but let me say that the Indian establishment does realize that a war with Pakistan this line would be devastating it would be fatal catastrophic for both countries which brings us to the growing radicalization within Pakistan there is still a lot of anti Indian feeling within the Pakistani military it's it's seen as something that's very unifying so the radicals and ordinary officers and men they are united in this that yes India's our enemy until we get out of this is gonna be it's going to get worse most countries of the world have armies Pakistan has an army that has a country and it is now in terrible trouble it is being attacked by the jihadis which it helped create the general headquarters of the Pakistan Army has been attacked three ISI centers have been blown up by suicide bombers and this was done using insider information so radicalization is now eating into its very marrow according to dr. hood boy what is even more troubling than the radicalization within the Army is that the Pakistani state is actually losing control over huge swathes of its own territory he recommended we go to some of these to see for ourselves just how bad she headed to Northwest Frontier Province the home of the Pakistani Taliban we're leaving the bathroom for now which used to be in 2008 the only part of the whole area that the Pakistani army controlled just the fort now just to be clear when we say the Pakistani army only control of the fourth that means the rest of the province terrorists Taliban's right they were living over there and they were dominating this entire village they would be training here and then if anything happened they could hide in the caves definitely so we're gonna go in the caves now but so they dug these caves yesterday these kids that's a lot of work yes there was a lot of work and how many cave complexes like this are there dozens of complexes exist it's like when they used to say in America that they couldn't find Osama bin Laden because he was in cave we didn't understand what cave is for us a cave is like you know with a bear in it but these are tunnels and whole complex well-knit together yeah now the Taliban have been operating a Pakistan for quite some time in fact the quote-unquote father of the Taliban is actually a Pakistani general who was once head of the ISI which is kind of like the FBI the CIA and the NSA all rolled into one which made him at one point one of the most powerful men in Pakistan now his views on the radicalization of the army were quite unexpected as he quickly brought all of these seemingly internal problems right back to the conflict with India the Army is being pushed around and it is losing its direction America is forcing us to shift our forces from the eastern border to the western border called reversing the front that there is the enemy but you reverse it so there is the enemy India but we're reversing to our front you've been called the father of the Taliban because you helped set up the jihadis who would fight against the Soviets but of course the jihad is I supported run trauma bin Laden was very sort of a genial kind of a man a bit shy intelligence will go to realize flashing black eyes after the Mumbai attack there was such a huge sort of nationalistic outpouring in India aren't you worried that if you keep sending militants into Kashmir or something that there'll be another attack Kashmir is a festering sore for us since 1971 there were several occasions when there was a call for war but they didn't do this because they know what will be the price more will be the price they cannot attack us because we are nuclear yeah and they cannot attack us because we are imbued with the spirit of jihad which has defeated two superpowers in our neighborhood and without settling the Kashmir dispute the peace cannot return to subcontinent right India or Pakistan so I think Indians must come to their senses they are not understanding the course of history after talking to general pool we thought things in Kashmir in this is water in Kashmir is majority of Pakistan's water of Kashmir is the majority of India's water it's already highly politicized as the most militarized area in the world what are your thoughts on that nope this country was twenty seven million and came into existence in 1947 today it is almost 200 million it's leading to water becoming a very scarce resource and these are the things that we really have to be afraid of you've had this sort of political perfect storm of Pakistan radicalizing and then India at the same time sort of hardening up we might be able to get some kind of handle on our disputes what is something that you need and something we need and so let's figure out a decent way of of doing this without going to war nobody is going to give away a piece of land and people just because somebody else asks like what is the worst-case scenario what what what what happens you know the worst case scenario is what Carl Sagan told us a long time ago the planet will no longer be blue anymore do you do you think that Pakistan is in a state of denial oh yes most certainly it's in a state of denial and there is absolutely no guarantee that it will come out of this if one had been used then you can bet that all of them I have no doubt in my mind there would have to be nuclear attack here everyone seems to think that it's more a question of when not with India Pakistan have hundreds of war that's pointing at each other and things to seem to be going from bad to worse now the problem is is that if India Pakistan go to war it doesn't just mean the destruction of the subcontinent because leading atomic experts have categorically stated over a hundred warheads are detonated anywhere on earth it means the destruction of the world as Manila [Music] whole mountains of ice are just falling into the sea we're in for trouble indeed this is where the Soviets tested all their weapons so this is the epicenter of it nuclear bomb the last six months you have 9000 I easy that's an IUD [Music] [Music] once you get someone in they can never leave even police helicopters don't dare fly over here because two years ago one was shot down by an anti-aircraft gun fun place to live [Music] okay let's get out of here [Music]

Channel: VICE News

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Rating: 4.7180734 out of 5

Keywords: vice on hbo season one bad borders, vice on hbo season one bad borders (episode 1), world's most dangerous border vice, escape from north korea vice, Shane Smith VICE, vice on hbo full episode, india pakistan news, vice news hbo, vice hbo full episodes, vice on HBO, vice news, north korea, vice.com, documentary, documentaries, interview, interviews, lifestyle, world, exclusive, vice guide, vice presents, vbs.tv, vice, vice magazine, vice mag, vice videos, Kashmir, Pakistan, china

Id: 2Nzm2CidMpM

Length: 29min 54sec (1794 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 27 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/kuttanpilla]

Can someone explain why North Korean refugees don't attempt a Russian escape?