THE KOREAS: Ling Sisters Recount Laura's Capture In North Korea

Vice President Al Gore hugs Laura Ling as Euna Lee greets President Bill Clinton upon their arrival in California on Aug. 5, 2009. Following a meeting in Pyongyang with Clinton, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il pardoned Ling and Lee, allowing them to return to the U.S.  AFP/Robyn Beck/Getty Images

May 19, 2010

On March 17, 2009, journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling were apprehended by North Korean soldiers while filming a documentary along the China-North Korea border. The two women were charged with illegal entry for crossing into North Korea — and after several months of interrogation by North Korean officials, sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in one of North Korea's prison camps.

After finding out that Laura had been arrested in North Korea, Lisa Ling — Laura's sister and a special correspondent on The Oprah Winfrey Show and CNN — started calling every diplomatic official she knew. She also contacted other journalists to publicize Laura's ordeal. For several weeks, Lisa appeared on national media outlets alongside other family members as part of a campaign to bring the two journalists home.

In an interview with Fresh Air contributor Dave Davies, the sisters describe their dual experiences with Laura's detention and release. They detail their infrequent phone conversations, in which Laura was able to tell Lisa that the only way she and Euna would be released was if a special envoy — former President Bill Clinton — traveled to Pyongyang to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Clinton made the trip in August 2009, after Laura and Euna had spent 140 days in captivity, and helped secure their release.

Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Fight to Bring Her Home
By Laura Ling and Lisa Ling
Hardcover, 336 pages
William Morrow
List price: $26.99

Laura and Lisa Ling's book about the five-month ordeal is called Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and the Other Sister's Fight to Bring Her Home. Lisa Ling is also the author of Mother, Daughter, Sister, Bride: Rituals of Womanhood. She is the host of National Geographic Explorer and reports frequently for The Oprah Winfrey Show and CNN. Laura Ling is a reporter for Current TV, where she explores the effects of globalization.

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Interview Highlights

On the story Laura Ling and Euna Lee were looking for at the China-North Korea border

Laura Ling: "We were covering a story about North Korean defectors, people who are fleeing the very desperate conditions in North Korea — mass starvation, a brutal dictatorship — and they're crossing over into China. Now many of these defectors are women, and many of these women are trafficked into really horrendous situations in neighboring China. They are forced into marriages. They are lured into the prostitution industry. And because China does not regard North Korean defectors as refugees ... they will send them back across the border to North Korea if they are caught. And that means that these people face certain punishment. They will be sent to North Korea's notorious labor camps and possibly face torture or worse. That's the story I was trying to bring to light for Current TV."

On the local guide they hired to take them to the border

Laura Ling: "Foreign journalists who are working overseas often hire what we call fixers — local guides in the area who have worked with other media entities before to help them with the story. And this is a man we had hired who had previously seemed very cautious. And there were some actions that were in retrospect very suspicious. ... We went to the river to film the thoroughfare where North Koreans are crossing into China. It was never our intention when we were there that morning to cross the [Tumen] River [that separates China and North Korea]. And our guide began making some low hooting noises across the border. ... Now previously, our guide had told us that he had connections in North Korea. Our guide was involved in smuggling goods himself. And so, in my mind, I thought he was trying to make a connection with some of the border guards that he knew. He said in the past that he had taken some media to actually converse with some of these border guards on the other side. And he continued to walk closer to the North Korean side of the river and he got to the other side, stepped foot on the soil and motioned for us to follow him, which we did. We ended up on the other side of the border, and he pointed out safe houses where defectors are kept until they're ready to be smuggled across the border. And really, it was about that time — we were not on the soil for more than a minute — when we knew we had to leave. And that's when we turned back and walked back across the ice to the Chinese side."

Lisa Ling (left) went on Larry King Live to plead for her sister Laura's release. She chose CNN, she writes in Somewhere Inside, because Kim Jong Il reportedly watches it in Pyongyang.  Courtesy of Laura and Lisa Ling

On what they initially told their captors

Laura Ling: "When we were initially caught, Euna had told our captors that we were students, that we were working on a documentary and were working on the piece about the border region and trade in the region. We knew that the subject we were covering — North Koreans fleeing these horrible conditions in their country — was not going to be looked upon well by our captors. And so we were hoping, while we were still on the border, that we might be able to convince them to send us back across the border to China. And that became very clear, after about 24 hours, that that was not going to happen."

On Lisa's reaction when she found out Laura had been detained

Lisa Ling: "I got a call at 2:30 in the morning on March 17 from my brother-in-law, Laura's husband, Ian. And he said, 'Laura has been abducted by North Korean border guards.' And that just sent a complete shock through my system because Laura — there was never any intention to go anywhere near North Korea. Their assignment was to go to China and South Korea, so we were shocked. I knew the story they were covering, but I didn't think they were going to get close to North Korea. So Ian and I immediately — I had Ian call our parents because we needed our mother to make contact with Chinese authorities in China, and she's proficient in Mandarin — and I just started calling everyone in the diplomatic world that I knew. One of my first calls was to Richard Holbrooke, who was the U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and the most senior diplomat I know. And I wanted to get word to Secretary of State Clinton that this was happening. And one of the first calls we also made was to the chairman of Current TV, Laura's employer, [former] Vice President Al Gore. Because we felt like, if this was going to become the international incident that we thought it could, we needed Vice President Gore to help us."

On Laura's reaction when she was sentenced to 12 years of hard labor

Laura Ling: "I had tried to prepare myself for a lengthy sentence but nothing could prepare me for the verdict, when I heard the words '12 years.' And it was after the judge said '12 years,' he said, 'No forgiveness, no appeal.' And that really cut into me, because all along I had been hoping that there might be the opportunity for an appeal despite the long sentence. And I was wondering if those words meant that the window of opportunity had closed and my fate was sealed."

Lisa and Laura Ling grew up in Sacramento, Calif. The two sisters say the North Korean incident brought them closer together.  Courtesy of Laura and Lisa Ling

On former President Clinton's arrival in North Korea

Lisa Ling: "We're so used to seeing a jovial character, and when he descended off that plane, just to see that completely deadpan expression on his face was so out of the ordinary."

Laura Ling: "And he later said that he, in fact, had to practice [his stoicism]. That Hillary and Chelsea had to coach him so that he could maintain that look of total stoicism. We also learned that there was a whole itinerary that the North Koreans wanted [President] Clinton and his team to attend, visits to various monuments — a whole stadium filled with child acrobatic performers. And they had to be careful to walk that line and not attend any of those events so as not to seem like they were being chummy with the North Koreans or the North Korean leader. ... And I think they walked that line very well. They stuck to the mission at hand, which was to bring us home."

Lisa Ling: "No money was exchanged and no diplomacy was conducted. It truly was a private humanitarian mission."

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N. KOREA: Laura Ling tells Oprah she confessed to N. Korean captors

This was the scene last August when Laura Ling, left, reunited with her mother, Mary, husband Iain Clayton and sister Lisa following her release from nearly five months in captivity in North Korea.  By Jae C. Hong, AP

By Brooke Donald, Associated Press

SAN JOSE, Calif. — An American journalist who was imprisoned in North Korea for months after briefly crossing into the reclusive country while reporting on the sex trade said she told interrogators in a ploy for mercy that she was trying to overthrow the government.

In her first televised interview since her August release, Laura Ling said on The Oprah Winfrey Show that aired Tuesday that she was told the worst could happen if she didn't confess.

Ling said she drew suspicion because she worked for San Francisco-based Current TV, a media venture founded by former Vice President Al Gore.

"I knew that that was the confession they wanted to hear and I was told if you confess there may be forgiveness and if you're not frank, if you don't confess, then the worst could happen," Ling said.

"It was the most difficult decision to have to do that. I didn't know if I was sealing my fate," she said. "But I just had to trust that this was the right thing to do."

Ling and journalist Euna Lee, both of Los Angeles, were captured in March 2009. They acknowledge they briefly crossed into North Korea from China while reporting about North Korean women who were forced into the sex trade or arranged marriages when they defected to China.

They said they were seized by North Korean soldiers after they had already returned to Chinese soil.

After being left alone for a few minutes following their arrest, they managed to delete digital photos from their camera, damage video and eat their notes to protect sources. They then underwent separate interrogations aimed at learning why they were in the country.

They initially told the guards they were students but later confessed to being journalists for fear that lying would get them in more trouble. They were told North Korean leader Kim Jong Il would forgive them, as he was a compassionate man.

They spent the first few days of their captivity in a five-by-six foot jail cell. Ling was visited by a doctor to inspect wounds she received while trying to evade capture.

"There were no bars so you couldn't see out. And if they closed those slats, it just went completely dark," Ling said.

The women were moved to a Pyongyang guesthouse soon after, where Ling said conditions improved, but there were no showers and the power and water went out several times a day.

"I developed a system to wash where they would allow me to heat a kettle of water," she said. "I would mix it with some cold water and then I would scrub down and just splash it on me."

A couple months into their detainment, the women were convicted of illegal entry and "hostile acts" and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor.

Ling said she was petrified and tried to prepare herself for a long sentence, "but once I heard those words '12 years' come from the judge I could barely stand up right."

She said she spiraled into a deep depression, refused her meals and huddled in a dark corner of her room. She said she sought strength by thinking about other innocent people imprisoned.

"If these people are undergoing this then I can try to muster up the strength to get through it," she said.

Ling also said she was angry with herself and would slap and hit herself as punishment for putting her family through the ordeal. She thought she might be pregnant when she was captured then was crushed to learn she wasn't.

"I thought, I will never be able to have a family with my husband again," said Ling, who is now pregnant and due in June.

While detained, Ling was interrogated daily about her work, travels and family. She could occasionally watch television in the guards' quarters and received letters from her family. She was separated from Lee for all but six days of their five months of captivity.

The women were pardoned in early August after a landmark trip to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton.

They are among four Americans detained by North Korea in less than a year for illegal entry.

Activist Robert Park of Arizona was expelled some 40 days after crossing into North Korea last Christmas. Aijalon Mahli Gomes of Boston remains imprisoned after being arrested Jan. 25 in North Korea. It's unclear why Gomes, who had been teaching in South Korea, crossed into the North.

Tensions between North and South are running high amid a dispute over joint economic projects and the mysterious March sinking of a South Korean warship and death of 46 sailors near the nation's western sea border.

Meanwhile, international negotiations aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons remain stalled. The United States is a participant in those talks.

Ling appeared on Winfrey's show with her sister, journalist Lisa Ling, who is a correspondent for the program. The women promoted their new book, Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Fight to Bring Her Home.

In the book, Lisa Ling describes a phone conversation she had with Gore the day she learned her sister had been captured. He warned her not to do or say anything that might inflame the North Koreans.

"The next forty-eight hours are crucial," he urged. "We're not dealing with a normal government, we have to be very, very careful."

Contributing: Associated Press Writer Caryn Rousseau in Chicago contributed to this report.

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