During a recent talk in Walnut Creek, acclaimed journalist Lisa Ling revisited the 2009 capture of her sister Laura and fellow journalist Euna Lee in North Korea while working for SF-based Current TV. Ling says North Korea planned it from the start.
As Contra Costa Youth Journalism reports, Ling — who grew up in nearby Carmichael — shared new insight during a recent speaking engagement at Lesher Center for the Arts’ Hofmann Theatre in Walnut Creek into what she described as a political trap set by the North Korean regime. Ling, who emphasized that her sister’s team never intended to cross the border, said they were misled by a fixer working secretly with the North Korean government.
As SFist reported at the time, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporting on the plight of refugees along the China–North Korea border for Current TV, which was based in San Francisco and co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, were detained by North Korean soldiers and held for five months.
According to Ling, her sister’s team had hired a fixer to guide them to the frozen Tumen River — a known escape route for North Korean defectors, but the fixer was secretly working with the North Korean government to lure high-profile targets across the border. “So we now know that the fixer Laura’s team had hired was receiving money from the North Korean government to bring high-value targets into North Korea,” she said. “And because Laura’s team was working for former Vice President Al Gore’s company, you couldn’t get a bigger target, right?”
Ling said the team was filming near the river when the guide quietly led them across the border and whistled. When soldiers began rushing toward them, they ran back into China. “They ran all the way back into China and were safely ensconced on Chinese soil,” Ling said. “[But] North Korean soldiers violently grabbed them and dragged them back into North Korea.”
She added that the regime used their detention to orchestrate a photo-op with former President Bill Clinton, implying the entire operation had been engineered to secure political leverage on the global stage.
“Now, many people often ask, ‘Why did it have to be President Clinton of all people’? The answer came down to one simple reason,” Ling said. “The reclusive leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Il at the time, had always just wanted to meet him.”
Image: Lisa Ling (left) and Laura Ling (right); Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
